In which I have another oral surgery and the two valium and the one vicodin make me feel sick to my stomach and super tired and not high at all, so I feel cheated

Hi you guys. I have not been writing because we had the drama of Sly calling Primo on his birthday not to wish him happy birthday but to whine that he didn't know what to do.

About Life, I guess.

Primo was concerned. I got cranky. He was also cranky because it was his birthday and he wanted one day not dealing with Sly and Doris but of course they had to take over and then Primo and I had a big fight and I took a deep breath and realized I needed to make some extra effort because Primo is kind of on edge these days so I apologized and asked for a do-over and Primo said no, he'd been a jerk and we were both sorry and had a nice dinner after all - carpaccio, caesar salad, stuff. Good stuff.

So Primo went back four days early to Sly and Doris'. He was home for two hours of the visit of my best friend Leigh, who came from Memphis for the weekend. She was here for work and came a few days early and spent them with us. I picked her up at noon and Primo made a steak and then we drove back to the airport at what was supposed to be 3:15 but turned out to be 3:45. I kept telling Primo that he SAID we were leaving at 3:15 and it was way past 3:15 so he was getting ticked off at me.

Here's the thing.

I believe him when he tells me what time.

I shouldn't.

But I hate being late and I hate being in a car when he is late because he gets all stressed out. I wouldn't have cared if he had missed his flight because I do not care about Sly and Doris these days - the only symptom of Sly's cancer is dark urine - cry me a river - but Primo would have been cranky and that would have been annoying.

He made the flight.

He got to Sly and Doris'.

Sly agreed that perhaps he should put Primo on his bank accounts for when you know.

And Sly also agreed that maybe Primo could throw away some of the junk in their house, although I am not holding my breath.

On Monday, Primo sent this note to me:

We had a nice visit with my mom and took her outside, but she added stress to the day by asking me to take booze to her.

I didn't do it, and she was cranky.

This may come up again. I guess it's a sign that she feels better, but it's not good

On Tuesday, I had my oral surgery, the surgery to which Primo was supposed to drive me but to which I had to scramble to find someone else to take me.

I came home from the surgery having taken two valium, neither of which whisked me away from the surgery and neither of which removed my very clear consciousness that someone was CUTTING INTO MY GUMS and someone was CUTTING A PIECE OUT OF THE ROOF OF MY MOUTH and someone was SEWING TOGETHER PIECES OF MY MOUTH.

It doesn't hurt, but man, do you really want to know that stuff is going on?

So the surgeon's assistant, Carol, is great. Her dad has been in the hospital all week. She and her sisters have been taking turns spending the night with him. "He's really scared and the anesthesia was really hard on him," she said. "My siblings and I are determined our parents will not go into a nursing home."

"Do you have a nice dad?" I asked.

She got a tiny bit teary. "I have a great dad," she said. "I feel so bad for him right now - he's hallucinating and is scared. The docs and the nurses keep telling us how lucky my dad is that he has family to visit him."

I paused. "But there are some people who were mean to their families. Some people made their own beds. They were mean and now their families don't want to visit."

She nodded. "Not my dad. I love my dad."

I loved my dad, too. We took turns spending the night in the hospital when he was first there. It was awful for all of us, but my dad didn't want to be alone and we were going to do everything we could to ease his suffering.

This is what happens when you are a nice dad - your children want to take care of you.

Now it's Wednesday. Primo just called. He and his dad are at the hotel in the city where Sly will have surgery tomorrow. Primo was on his way to Walgreen's.

"You probably don't want to know this," he said. "Ted told me I needed to get some vaseline for my dad. Because of the colonoscopy stuff."

"No!" I answered. "I do not want to know that!"