mixed blessings

so that ascent? check. i'm there. we're there, i mean. we can sit back on a rock under the moon and the stars and just bask in the radiance. luckily there was one last christmas/holiday/solstice party to wrap up the year before i've come back home. now we play the waiting game, but what better way to kill time for a week other than christmas. and it'll be that magically strange week between december 25th and january 1st where the calendar just hangs in the cosmic purgatory. how enchanting.

my dad was diagnosed with cancer. and it took everything in both of us to even bring it up today. this dates back to the mid summer nights phone call concerning his blood clots. in the scope of things, i guess it's relatively worry free, being lance armstrong cancer and all. my dad even went bicycling on his old italian speeder this week, i guess in preparation for the tour. but there's a few more tests and a range of treatment ahead of him so i should get used to talking about it with him. and maybe get used to talking about women. we aren't much for such sharing but there comes a time when you have to fight against your instincts.