The generosity displayed by strangers and folks only acquainted with you by work or school or religious institution still astounds me. Wow… (insert long thoughtful pause here) … people can really be nice and they don’t, or hardly even, know us.

And I love that people give anonymously.  You just give because you know it’s needed, you don’t need to know who gets it.  And maybe my preference for this type of giving is because I’m a shy and hate a fuss and just feel you should do the right thing or a good job (and be competent dammit!), because it’s the right thing to do and it’s nice to be nice. …and I hate a fuss …

So things like covering parking fees at the hospital or sandwiches for the families on Thursday’s on the ward, or overall financial assistance grants, it’s all amazing and nearly always chokes me up thinking of this generosity by people I don’t even know and will probably never meet or get to thank.

Then there are the non-anonymous givers … Just beginning to run into a little of that, very little, but even that little bit of “look we’re doing the right thing” … or, and I think this is generational to some extant, “we’d like come over and see the family” is tiresome to be on the receiving end of.

Now a visit, or as the kids these days say “hanging out,” that’s nice for your close friends and acquaintances who’d you just hang out with anyway, never mind the cancer. But, really, if you just coming to “visit” and don’t happen to be an 11-year-old girl who wants to discuss Bieber’s hair or weave friendship bracelets or both … well, entertaining guests in the parlor takes a lot of energy (and we don’t have much in the first place) and we’ve got things to do people!!!

And those things to do can be anything from letting our minds unwind reading the paper or catching up on a book or listening to NPR or napping, to just being – looking around to see your whole family home in one  place, quite and happy and not interrupted by a nurse to swap IV bags … you suddenly realize what a luxury things like that are …

We’ve got calendars to update, and lists to make,  which doctors do we have questions for, and confirming appointments, and checking meds, and grocery shopping, and doing laundry, and mowing the lawn, and weeding, and cleaning the fish tank, and going to Home Depot to find stylish but cheap ceiling fans … and nap … All the stuff you do in normal life is now compressed in to your “off weeks,” the weeks your child isn’t in the hospital getting chemo.

And now we have daily radiation to add to that scheduling mix too, so the two weeks off are only kinda-sorta… That’s our “normal” and again, and not meaning to sound like an ungrateful git, but we’ve got things to do people!

And yes, thus post was inspired by a real incident the first day back from a week at the hospital where all we wanted to do was be lazy and relish that we were all home as a family … on the other hand said incident did inspire me to write a couple entries and those in question did leave a tray of cookies … I’m an ungrateful git* …

*we’ve been reading the British version of Harry Potter to the girls this summer, even though my oldest has read it twice already, hence the use of git 😉

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As a addendum to my possible git-tish (if that ‘s a word) behavior, I will also point that the visitors in question also came over with their dog, I suppose the idea being their dog would provide a therapy dog visit … ignoring the fact that we have our own dog that has been a great pal to both my girls through this and is a little sweetie when he’s not being an a nut-job puppy running away with anything he can pick up off the floor.

So back to the story … without asking, interloper-dog is unleashed it at our front door and proceeds to run through our house with our dog in tow of course.   And then let up on our furniture without asking!  As a responsible dog owner I can’t imagine doing this with my dog!   We always if our guy can come in to a yard or play with another dog, or how the other dog in the house might react, etc. etc.  I mean good gravy! What if our pug went beserk on her dog!?

Instead our little fellow was just kinda perplexed at this interloper being in the house, jumping up on furniture that he’s too short to jump up on (although he is allowed on the sofa with a blanket spread out in a feeble attempt to contain his shedding <LOL>).   And to top it, this other dog’s up on the couch growling down at our guy.  And as growling interloper is jumping around up on our couch my wife asks, “she won’t have an accident right?” Response, “Oh, no, she never does that.”   And you just know what’s going to happen next …

So the kicker is, my wife finally insisted on taking them to our fenced-in front yard, especially after both she and I noticing that the interloper was sniffing around the floor a lot (which good dog owners take a a sign that their pup needs to go!).  And sure enough, the minute this dog gets outside it takes a nice long pee …

Well, this all sure made for a great story, and in reality was all probably over in 15 minutes.  But, it was like a case study for Miss Manners, or maybe we were being filmed for some new rudeness reality show and the release we need to sign just didn’t reach us in the mail?  Oh yes, someday we’ll look back and laugh … but, someday hasn’t come yet …