As it happens from time to time, I took Zilla for his morning walk while wearing my nightgown. I threw on a pair of pants, my fleece, socks, and shoes to make myself somewhat presentable. Today was one of those days where I should have dressed a little better to match the handsomeness of my walking companion. A female jogger smiled at him. A middle-aged man in a Volvo slowed down to a crawl to look at him. And a child yelled out "Hi" to him while she was driven somewhere in a SUV. We got to the last stretch of our walk when he got a bit of pep in his step and a smile on his face. And I knew it didn't matter to him one iota what I wore, as long as I was with him.

Thursday was my appointment with my gastro. As long as things keep going well then I don't have to see him again for a year. The nurse took some of my blood to check my liver levels and other things. I found out there is more than one size of endoscope used in a colonoscopy. He used the pediatric size on me. I have two strictures, one of which is by my ileum so there is a section of my colon he hasn't seen that could be completely diseased and need to be removed. Next week I'm having barium x-rays taken to see whether or not my colon has been responding to my treatments. If it has, then he'll have me do another colonoscopy so he can see that missing area. Part of me wants it to be a mystery (cause what you don't know can't kill you, right?) and the other part of me is excited to see if the stricture the size of a #2 pencil has changed for the better. Another colonoscopy means goodbye to our discretionary income and any hope of a house. Even with insurance, they aren't cheap.

Last night my husband stayed up late. I woke up a few times thinking, "He's not here." Then once I woke up and thought, "I hope that's him in bed with me." So I touched his butt. And I thought, "It's not hairy so it's him and not Zilla." Then I woke up another time thinking, "Oh, he's still here." Unbeknownst to my conscious self, he came to bed at 2:30am. He and I had a conversation about the book he finished. Sometimes I wish we had a tape recorder in our room so I would know about these conversations. I've been like this since I was little.

Next week should be bad at work. Our permanent encoder will be gone until the 5th. That means our two temporaries will be doing his work too. One is a go-getter and is always doing work to stay busy. The other is a little slower and sometimes needs to be prodded - in fact, I've stayed last most nights last week because the go-getter got tired of doing all the work and left it for the other one to do. So on September 1st they'll be encoding not just for Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, but Tuesday too! We started to get in Labor Day sale tapes this week so I fully expect to get more next week too. I really need to pick out a book to read for when I have nothing to do. Wednesday is the colonoscopy so I'll be out all day; I hope I don't come back to a mad house on Thursday.