December

Another month another movie. I feel like I've been working since forever. Even Thanksgiving was a tough one. Mike's dad had a heart attack Nov 11 and the doctors have recommended bypass surgery. He had 4 blocked arteries (which in my limited knowledge is all we have) and it's lucky this heart attack didn't kill him. They put a stent in but are saying the bypass is something we have to do.

It was brought on by them moving house. Chipper (Mike's dad) is clearing out the entire house so that they can begin renovations in January and that meant years and years of collected stuff in the basement and furniture to be donated or moved to Ann (his wife)'s house. So after his heart attack, he was told he couldn't lift more than a gallon of milk and Mike and I decided we would take over the rest.

Chipper made quite a list for us and Thanksgiving was spent cutting down a tree, moving furniture to the thrift store and clearing the garage out of a few lawnmowers, an old bike and a really old truck Mike wanted to 'fix up' when he was 15. Well he's 30 now and that truck is still in pieces. So we took it to the scrapyard and got $200 for it! It was sad - I know if we didn't live in the city maybe he would have liked to restore that truck with his dad but it's just not feasible. (Especially when my husband has no attention span - it's hard enough getting him to fix things in the apartment)

I always thought I would worry about my parents before I did Mike's - my parents are in their 70s and Mike's dad is only in his 50s. Mike's mom died of a heart attack too which means Mike probably didn't inherit the best heart genes.

We go back to PA next weekend (we have tickets to the Eagles-Giants game yay!) and we want to drop in on Chipper and see what other chores he has for us to do. Ann seems frazzled now the burden of everything has fallen on her shoulders not to mention all of us really want this operation over and done with.

On the work front, 'Nick & Norah' has another week before we wrap. I move to another job that will take me to Christmas and then...nothing. The desolation that is wintertime in NY (and with a writer's strike no less) I might move my trip to Malaysia to early January and Mike will come Feb 1 and we both return mid Feb. That way I get some quality time with my mom and they still get to see Mike for Chinese New Year. It all depends on the house-hunting and when we close.

It's cold too. Tonight was 30F/0C. That sucks.