And I'm home

It turned out things worked okay.

They got home about 10 minutes before I was expecting my mom - apparently the office was running early for once. So I got over to the station in good time, and I also got to hear the (fairly) good news - all my dad's blood numbers are good, really the main health challenge he is facing is bad, bad osteoarthritis in his knees and back. The doctor ordered another round of PT for him and encouraged him to start taking tylenol again - he had stopped taking it (he can't take any NSAIDS or aspirin) so he wasn't taking ANYTHING for the pain. He had read somewhere that "tylenol is, like, really bad for you" and I think it was some ill-informed writer who had read that the effective dose and the LD50 dose are closer than with many other medications, so it's easy to badly overdose, but the writer got it all confused. (I TRIED to explain it - I am not a pharmacologist but I know a little bit about it and I also know from LD50s from chemistry* but he grumbled that I "didn't know what [I] was talking about" but now I feel slightly justified)

(*He should, too, seeing as he started out majoring in Analytical Chemistry and I'm sure they had LD50s back then)

The bus thing was a lot easier this time - the station in Longview has a very wide platform with an outlet, so they just pulled the buses up alongside where the train stops, and as people got off they directed us to the bus by our destination. So that wasn't bad at all.

The drive home, though - first, I got behind three giant "Oversize Load" trucks, each carrying a blade for a wind turbine. Finally in frustration I pulled off and got lunch (at a Dickey's Barbecue, and I know I'm going to pay for that later with my blood pressure; it was very salty) to let them get a ways ahead of me (and I think they must have turned onto 30 at Greenville because I didn't see them again). Then very heavy rain. Then I got behind someone with a U-Haul towing a car who was going about 40 (most of the way it is 70 mph) and who wasn't familiar with the Texas practice of "extra slow driver pulls onto the wide shoulder to let the people behind him pass" and I didn't fancy trying to see far enough ahead to pass them, so it took longer than normal.

I didn't buy a large amount of groceries; my fridge is 15 years old and I always worry it will have died during my absence (happened to a colleague with a "younger" fridge, but then he had an off-brand). And anyway, I have vague plans of going BACK down Saturday to (a) replace my dead dehumidifier at the Home Depot and (b) get to the natural-foods store.

My yard isn't bad, in fact, it's the same height as the neighbor to the north and shorter than the neighbor to the south, so I shouldn't worry about being "in trouble" with the city - and anyway, I can mow tomorrow.

I will say it's uncommonly nice not to be staring down a fast-paced summer teaching session and instead be contemplating my paper revisions and working on my new class, being able to do stuff at my own pace.