focussing on the positive

There are a lot of things going on right now that are making me a little crazy, a little nutty, a little worried, a little stressed, a little overwhelmed. Some of them are happening to me directly, and some of them are happening to other people but have some kind of effect on me. I know the saying goes that God doesn't give you more than you can handle, but I think He thinks my cup is bigger than I think it is, because I feel like it's just about to overflow.

None of them are MAJOR things, at least in the grand scheme of things, but many of them are a big deal to me. Some will work themselves out shortly, but others are longer-lasting things that at the moment, I don't have a glimmer of hope of figuring out or handling.

So, that's the long way of saying that I could make this a vent post or even a whiskey tango foxtrot post. But I won't, for a number of reasons: quite a number of the issues are things that I can't publish in a public forum, some of them aren't going to be solved even if I did write about them, and some of them are so complicated that I'm not even sure I could properly sort out the details enough to explain them. And then there's the overwhelming reason - no one wants to hear me rant for hours on end.

So instead, I'm going to focus on something much more positive. I've mentioned previously that I have a friend who's fighting leukemia. Well, I'm happy to report that he's gotten his bone marrow transplant, and he's out of "quarantine" (it wasn't total isolation but more like very restricted contact with people and things), and he's actually been home for about a week now. I haven't had a chance to talk to him, but I've exchanged a couple of messages with him, and he seems to be good. He even went to see the new "Harry Potter" film this morning - I teased him about not having gone to a midnight screening last night.

When he's settled a bit more, I'll see if he has some time to chat, but if nothing else, I'll see him in about 6 weeks when he comes down here for a visit, and a bunch of us are getting together for dinner to celebrate his birthday. He's been through a lot, and it's not quite over yet, but he's done so well through it all.

And, being the Cal bear that I am, I've had it ingrained in me to root against Stanford, but since it's Stanford that provided the care for him that's made him better, my stance has softened a little. I'll still be rooting against Stanford's sports teams, but I'll always be grateful to their medical facility for taking such good care of my friend.