(figure) 8

My mom's first boss, who is a graduate of my vet school, to my mom, my dad and myself out to lunch at Olive Garden. It was a wonderful swapping of stories, although I don't think that I needed to know my mom frequently complained to her boss about how horny she was! They swapped lots of farm call stories. He told lots of stories about history- which is apparently a passion of his. This is the man that gave my mother away when she married my dad and I didn't know this about him. He told the story about when she announced to him that she was pregnant. And they talked current cases. It was a wonderful, happy, lunch. And it was at Olive Garden!! 

Mom and I went to a downtown restaurant for a continuing education talk by the veterinary ophthalmologist who is also someone that I shadowed during most of 2013. It was so wonderful to get to see her- I probably should have made an effort to shadow her while I was home but I was just enjoying NOT DOING ANYTHING so much that I just didn't reach out to her. She welcomed me so warmly though and I learned things and when she was done she immediately talked to me. A room FULL of veterinarians and she talked to me. Talk about feeling special. 

The funniest part of my day, though, was as we were leaving the continuing education dinner, I check my phone to see a missed call from my sister-in-law. I call her back and she asked if everything was ok. I said yes, why?  She said "well Jimmy has a home basketball game, you are in town but you aren't at the game. I knew something was wrong with that picture." She was right- I normally would have been at that game. On the other hand I spent my evening in a room of people, who, in 4 years will be colleagues- WOW. Talk about scary, but also amazing. 

Figure eight- figuring out the balance of life, learning about the past which makes the present that much sweeter.