Road Trip

Jarrett and I are in North Carolina this weekend, though separated at our respective parents' houses. We drove up (with Merckx, of course) last night after work, and Jarrett stayed in Charlotte with me at my parents' house and left fairly early this morning to head to his dad's. I am sure he is being pulled in several different directions, trying to spend time with his dad, his mom, his siblings, his grandparents... though the main objective of the trip is to check in on his dad and help him out where needed.

As an update on how things are going with my father-in-law, I'd say that we now might actually see the slightest bit of light at the end of what has been a very long, dark tunnel. Yesterday he finally had the funnel removed that was placed in the back of his throat because of the unhealed drainage fistula near his left shoulder. The funnel ensured that all of his saliva drained directly into his stomach rather than out through the fistula, allowing the wound to heal. This, which was supposed to be a two-week healing process, turned into about a six-week ordeal, so needless to say, he was ready to get the thing out of his throat. He no longer has a feeding tube in his nose, but now has one that was inserted directly into his stomach. This is supposed to make him more comfortable during the radiation treatment, which is to start in the coming weeks. Thank goodness he does not have to go through chemotherapy -- the doctors went back and forth on this for some time, but I think they have made a final decision that the damage it could possibly do to his body is not worth any benefit it might bring. They feel the surgery was a success, and the radiation should take care of any cancer cells possibly remaining in the area. Please pray they are correct in this decision. I'm sure I will hear more details tomorrow when I meet back up with Jarrett.

I've had a nice time with my parents and brother thus far. I went with my mom and dad out to breakfast this morning, and then -- surprise, surprise -- my mom and I went to Belk to do some shopping (for those of you who don't know, my mom works at the Belk headquarters, and I often take advantage of her employee discount) and then to a movie. If you haven't yet seen Zodiac, the movie about the Californian serial killer who murdered a string of innocent people in the 1960s and 1970s, I highly recommend it. If you're like me and simply love to gaze in awe at the sublime Jake Gyllenhaal, then it's worth it just for that. Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr., are also fairly excellent in their roles. It's a really good movie; however, don't watch it if you're not into a few slightly disturbing murder scenes. I seem to find myself enthralled with serial killers, trying to somehow figure out the psychological misfires that inevitably occur in those brains of theirs. It's interesting -- it just is. The movie is about three hours long, and some critics have claimed this is its downfall, but my mom and I agreed that it kept our interest enough throughout to keep us from tallying the hours as they passed.





As you can see in the photo above, I made a chocolate cake today as well -- an Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) recipe from one of my issues of Food and Wine. I'm not a huge fan of sweets (cakes in particular), but I expect this to be fairly yummy... it even has coffee in the cake and the frosting.