Yeah, I'm back ...

Thanks for all your emails of support. You know who you are. Looks like we're out of the woods, at least for now, family-wise.

But let me tell you, on the transplant ward of a certain Montreal hospital, there are some very sad stories indeed.  Just know that you don't need that kidney or pancreas if you're roadkill on the 401. But some young person with his or her whole life ahead of them, maybe, given the chance and a medical miracle, does.

Sign that organ donor thingy on your driver's licence, would you?

Leaving on a jet plane

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go.

Yes, back to Montreal. Back to a hospital.

Bad voodoo going down on the family front.

So, more blogus interruptus. Sorry.

Unless I get easy access to a computer, I will not be getting to your comments until Sunday night at the earliest.

Back in my armchair again

There's a week's worth of newspapers on my kitchen table, 955 emails to go in my main inbox and sooooooooooo much to catch up with. I missed Warren Kinsella's and my Star colleague Linda Diebel's book launches and so much more. Meanwhile, Aaron Braaten has tagged me for yet another whacky blogger meme, which I will get to eventually.

So ... apologies for the blogus interruptus. I'll be back servicing you as soon as possible.

Heading down the highway ...

... yet again.

Taking the doggette and going home home to Montreal for a few to check on some family matters. Will be staying with my Mom, who is back in her posh assisted-living pad, where she's been boogying around with her walker.

I am taking my laptop but I doubt I will be blogging as this is supposed to be a vacation. I'm just hoping I can find a couple hours a day to get to the gym at least.

I'll try to get to your emails and comments whenever possible.

Bedside Blogging

Thank you all for your good wishes. Lulu is now in a rehab hospital, chugging up and down the corridor with her government-issued walker which she complains is not as good as her ''Cadillac'' back home, the one with the seat and the basket. She is getting great care from the friendly nursing staff to whom I have been passing on the cookies and candies and treats that I try to politely accept from the visitors. (Me screaming silently inside: WHAT?? Do either of us look like we can afford to eat two pounds of baklava followed by a lemon pound cake chaser???)

The place is not air conditioned. But that's not the worst of it. There is no cable, let alone digital cable. I only have dial-up -- which is painfully slow -- and if I use it then I cut my Mom off from all her little old lady pals.

Last week, or was it two weeks ago, I have so lost track of time, when that Air France jet crashed, I heard about it from a nurse. I was totally crazed. Not a pretty sight. I ended up calling friends in Toronto to read to me the stories being posted on the Star's web site.

But it's not all bad.

Just after dawn, my cousin Eirini, with whom I am bunking in, drags my sorry butt out of bed and marches me up and around the mountain. Montreal is beautiful. The architecture so much more interesting that uptight Toronto. I find art deco flourishes in the most humble fire stations and on modest low-rise apartment buildings. I can stand staring for hours at some neighbourhood banks. They're almost sexy.

In Toronto all the lines are straight and all the angles right.

Eirini's apartment is mostly media free. There's a TV, somewhere, which I have yet to turn on. No radios that I can find. She has this complicated B&O stereo with speakers in the walls of every room but I can't figure out the remote control. (She listens to chick music anyway; I saw a Michael Bolton CD in her stack.) Weird not to get out of bed and walk around with Newsworld or CNN or Fox blasting at me from every room like they do back home.

I know back home it looks like CBC workers are going to be on the picket line. I missed Bob Novak's meltdown. I have been catching snippets of news about Cindy Sheehan's vigil outside George W. Bush's ranch. There was V-mail from various news organizations asking me to talk about Peter Jennings and the future of network news. It all kind of washes over me.

I like the silence: In it, I can hear what's really important to me right now.

I should be back early next week.

Goin' down the road

Packing up the laptop, the dog, two weeks worth of dogfood and clothes, lots of tunes and audiobooks, including this one, for the dreaded drive down the 401 to Montreal, a trip that seems more and more dangerous every time I make it.

My little Mazda would be roadkill if it ever encountered some of the monsters -- the Armada, the Titan, the Humvee etc. -- that automakers are producing. I figure it's only a matter of months before we hear about the Outrage, the Rip Your Head Off and the Get Out of My Way Turkey.

But I sidetrack.

Have to go deal with my Mom's issues, plus some other family matters. When it rains, it pours.

Blogging will be light, and late, if at all. Comments may takes days to appears. I will be on dial-up. No Fox, MSNBC, or BBC. No getting my daily delivery of treeware Stars, Globes and Posts. For the first time that I can remember, I actually stopped delivery.

It sounds like a vacation.

But it won't be.