Entrare's mom called late Thursday night with the announcement of her arrival the next afternoon. We went into panic mode, and spent the rest of Thursday night cleaning house to make sure the place looked less like a frat house, and more like the home of two mature, responsible, TIDY adults. After all, Entrare is 29, and I am 49; it is of course a reasonable assumption that the house is at least tidy and sanitary.

And so in the panic-really not needed since the house for the most part is clean-we completely forgot to clean the 'science projects' out of the 'fridge.

Which then made us look like the quintesstienal 'absent minded professors we are really, and has caused Entrare's mother to worry.

I don't think it helped that lunch/dinner caused me to need to throw up into the bushes as we arrived home from a shopping trip, because damn it all, Entrare's mum is a bloody retired charge nurse who took one look at me and knew something was up-during lunch/dinner she got it out of me that I have this stupid little heart thing going on. She had the grace to refrain from voicing the sceptism plainly on her face when I told her my diagnosis-I am quite sure she didn't buy the prognosis part; less so after the consequences of what I was eating hit just as we pulled into the apartment complex car park.

Naturally, lunch/dinner was loaded with sodium (DAMN IT ALL, I really thought the zittie was a good choice! Who knew marinara sauce had that much blasted sodium?? Well, I do now, and since I appear to have survivied the night, I certainly will tuck that bit of information up safely for the future!), and then I drank a half a bottle of water too fast, and by the time we got home was clammy, dizzy, and throwing up in the bushes.

And she as a retired R.N., when I insisted I simply needed to lie down for a bit, knew enough to worry that I would morph into a corpse in my sleep, and kept tapping at the door in that lovely way that truly good nurses have to make sure one is still able to arrive at a conscious state upon waking. Over and over-who has not had that experience in hospital? Just nod off-FINALLY-and the nurse is waking you just to be sure you can be awoken. Over and over until you recover enough to get out of the place just so that you can get some bloody damn sleep!

"Not On My Watch!" is the motto of any good nurse.

Any road, we went to the outlet mall about 30 miles north of here. What a splendid place!

Just avoid the marinara sauce.