Baton Rouge Week 23

Hi all

Well, this was an eventful week.

My conference in San Antonio was to continue through Tuesday. Tuesday morning Dana called. I had a little bit of stomach grumbling on Saturday and Sunday. Dana wasn’t feeling well (she had severe gas pains) and called to see if mine were similar. She thought I had given it to her or she had appendicitis. I finally convinced her to go to the doctor. That was an event all by itself.

My original flight back was 6:30 getting back at 10:00. I hurried to the airport to change to a 4:30 flight. I got to the airport at 2:50 and was able to get a 3:30 flight to Houston with an earlier connecting flight to Baton Rouge. I almost missed the Houston flight. I talked with Dana briefly before the San Antonio flight. I only had time between the San Antonio flight and the Houston flight to briefly call her visiting teaching companion. The flight attendant was forcing me to turn off the phone. I was able to say “Yorka, Dana has appendicitis. She is Lady of the Lake hospital.” Yorka was surprised that the call was so short, but she was able to find Dana at the hospital before the surgery.

I arrived in Baton Rouge at 6:45. I was able to talk briefly before the operation at 7:00 and Yorka picked me up at the airport. I was at the hospital before the operation was done and talked to the doctor when he came out. Dana did fine. She was able to check out of the hospital by about 3:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday.

We had a very quiet day on Thanksgiving. We had plenty of food in the house (Thanksgiving afternoon one of my graduate student and her mother fixed us a couple of plates that we ate off of for two days) and I went and bought a few more things on Wednesday afternoon. We were able to see a movie early Friday afternoon and again early Saturday. Dana took naps in the afternoon. We have been watching tv (we are making good sense of our dvr).

I have been reading some of the Young Adult novels I got as a participant in the ALAN conference. I brought back 53 books. I will be reading even more YA novels over the next five years. Don’t worry; I am attaching a membership form to this email. That way you can all open it and join up.

I made a small Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Dana hasn’t felt much like eating for the last few days. Dinner was nice and now we have leftovers for the next few days.

Dana has one more class to teach tomorrow before finals. I think I will take her up for that and then bring her home. My students are working on final projects. The work here is winding down for the semester.

It was a rough week for football. LSU lost to Ole Miss and Georgia lost to Georgia Tech for the first time in seven years. That left Utah at 12-0, BYU at 10-2, UGA at 9-3, and LSU at a lowly 7-5. LSU really suffered at the quarterback position.

Dana really appreciated all of the phone calls. I should have called more people, but I was busy taking care of Dana. I feel like I can catch up now.

My students are working on final projects for the rest of the semester. Hopefully, I can do the final grading for everything except the final project this week. I then will get back to writing, planning for the ALAN review, and preparing courses for next semester.

We are also carefully watching for the bowl announcements next week. There is a good chance that Utah might get a placement at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. If so we might come back early and try to go.

We love you. Take care of each other.

Dad and Dana

This is Dana. I might say that the last week was less than stellar for me. Dad forgot to tell you I have been worried about my new calling and choosing advisors. On Friday, my birthday, I wrecked the car. I backed up into the pillars of the car port, tore off the passenger side rearview mirror, and scraped the heck out of the door. The lovely painful appendicitis just topped off the whole week. What I learned from all this is that people love you even when you are an idiot, people who hardly know you are kind and generous, and how much I love all of you for thinking of me. I don’t know if it is the medication or just feeling pretty darn humble, but I have been exceptionally emotional the last four days. Besides crying at an ATT commercial, I feel so fortunate to have married and been born into a family that is so wonderful. I love you all and thank you so much for thinking of me.

Dana