Friday night Kathy and I went over to Alice and Bennett’s for dinner club. Others in attendance were Elizabeth and Harrison, Nancy and Ted, Shelly and Ken, Stephanie and Frank with Lauren. Carol and Bob missed because they had checked into the hospital to have Eric.

The dinner was unusual. Supposedly it had food groups from all countries in the world including: fritos, rice, chillie, tomatoes, lettuce, walnuts, olives, cheese, raisins, and a hot sauce. It was good.

Kathy provided a delicious chewy brownies covered with fudge sauce.

Much of the discussion centered around old times, the war (specifically Rick), Carol and Bob, and Iraq jokes.

Bennett gave me a tour of my old house. He has the shower ripped out to bare wood and slats. It’s interesting to see the skeleton of something that was once so familiar. I asked him why he had a chainsaw in the shower. He said Alice told him he had to keep it out of the kitchen. I guess with guests coming over…

We scraped our plates into a 10 gallon white industrial bucket. Anything organic would go into this bucket and was due to be added to the compose heap that was cooking in the back yard.

At the end of the night, Kathy, Nancy, Ted, and I went over to Northlake Medical Center to check up on Carol and Bob. Nancy thought it would be ok. She was mistaken. Actually, I suspect she was lying.

We found Carol and Bob walking the halls. Carol was having strong contractions and had to squat down why we were there. Bob was nursing a cup of water. He asked me if I had brought him a beer.

Carol was obviously under a lot of duress. Turns out she had told mom she didn’t want anyone to come over at all. We hadn’t gotten the message.

But she was still Carol under the grimaces and had her humor. I really felt for her. The best I could do was pat her on the back. I was afraid to hug her. I wanted to help somehow. I’m still trying to make up for the time that I didn’t stop Brian McGinnity hitting her. Or the time that I tipped her over as I pulled her in the wagon behind my bike and gave her a bump on the head. But I knew that the best I could do was leave. I felt helpless. I was glad she had Bob there. I even shook his hand and told him so.

Eric arrived 30 minutes later at 1:01 am on 2/2. Bob called us (we were awake) and told us the good news. I asked Bob if he had been there.

“Sure I was! I got to hold a leg!”

I need to ask him about that some time.

I’m very proud of my little sister.

I need to tell her that some time.