Schmutz

Last Wednesday, I flew to Minneapolis where I walked on a frozen lake, tried to catch snowflakes on my tongue, and ate a Double Filet-O-Fish sandwich for breakfast without a tinge of guilt. After all, there was a world-class heart hospital two floors up.

At one point, while looking out the hospital window, I said to Jenny, "I can't believe how much it's snowing!" She tossed her head back, let out a hearty laugh and, practically snorting, said, "That's not snow. That's schmutz!" I just looked the word up on dictionary.com, and it's not there. So THERE, Jenny. It WAS snow. :)

She said, "It's not snow unless it's accumulating. Is it accumulating?"

I looked out the window to see a winter white wonderland. "How am I supposed to tell if it's accumulating or not? EVERYTHING IS WHITE!"

"It's not. It's schmutz."

Well. To this Texan, it looked like snow. It felt like snow. It tasted like snow. It squished into my holey-footed Crocs and froze my toes like snow. I say it was snow.

As we walked out on the frozen lake, being careful to avoid the squishy yellowish patches, Jenny said, "Don't worry if you fall and crack your head open. I know a really good neurosurgeon." It felt weird and wonderful at the same time to be laughing about that. Dr. Nagib very definitely IS a wonderful neurosurgeon. James came through the surgery with flying colors. The day after surgery, he was solving logarithms and diagramming sentences in Russian and then translating them into Japanese and Pig Latin. Jenny says they didn't take enough of his brain. He's still too smart. Shortly after I left, two days after his surgery, he was already assembling the jigsaw puzzle I took him, and blogging from the waiting room computer.

The full pathology reports are still forthcoming; there's still much to worry about and fret over. Waiting is the hardest part, 'cause there's nothing proactive that can be done until they know what they're dealing with. Keep praying.

It was a huge blessing for ME to be there. I hope it was a blessing for Jenny and James. I'm always terrible about knowing what to say in tense, sorrowful situations. There was one moment when Jenny started to cry and I was paralyzed. On one hand, I wanted to wrap my arms around her, but on the other, I wanted to give her space. I'm terrible in situations like that. I just hope that my presense was helpful in some way. We did laugh a lot, though, and that felt good. I can't wait to plan another trip - the one where our two families hang out and do Minnesota-y things and talk about that horrendous month in 2006 when it schmutzed in Minneapolis and made two grown women giggle like schoolgirls.