THIS is why I couldn't move to Sticksville!

This afternoon I got a call from Brother. He wanted to talk about Mother, but he didn't know where to start. So he just started.

Sunday he and SIL had gone out to see her impromptu. When they got there (midday) she was still in bed, more or less unconscious. She had been sick, vomited in the bed, and then fell back asleep in it. They pulled her out of bed, washed her, washed the bedding, and tried to talk to her. But she was pretty unresponsive, and had no interest in eating or drinking anything. They had a lot of trouble just getting her to eat some toast and drink some fruit juice. They stayed over Monday as well. (Brother had to take a day off work.) She wasn't much better, but at least a little. Today they left. But they are—understandably—really worried about her.

No shit. With a story like that, of course they are. So am I, now that they told me.

In training

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that my conversations with Debbie about hiking the West Highland Way have moved from "some day" to "this spring." It's really going to happen.

• We have fixed dates for the trip: leave the US on April 15, and return home on April 30. This year. Six weeks from today.
• Debbie contracted with a travel agency that has secured us lodgings all along the route.
• We've bought plane tickets to Scotland and back.
• I had a long, necessary, and totally predictable conversation with Marie about our plans, during which I assured her—more than that, I committed to her—that Debbie and I wouldn't fuck while we were in Scotland or en route. I think my exact phrase was "no sex and no quasi-sexual activity."

Remember when I first mentioned this trip, that I said I was woefully out of shape? Well, now I've got six weeks in which to get in good enough shape that I can hike 96 miles across the Scottish Highlands.