From the Village to Notre Dame

Here's a "photojournal" (I believe that is the proper term of art for such things; I like to sound like I'm in the know) of my walk from our apartment to the village. I took the pictures shortly before (maybe during) finals week. Thankfully there has not been any snow on the ground for a couple weeks, although I'm sure it will be back for a curtain call. Please excuse my questionable photography skills.

The Village Drive

Two of the apartment buildings. The fence is conjoined to all buildings and encloses the playground.

The path through the woods north of campus towards school.

One road led through a wood, and I, I took the only one traveled by, and that has not made a difference.

Holy Cross Cemetery. Holy Cross Priests and Brothers have been buried here from the 1850s to the present. Straight through the gates at the back of the cemetery is a beautiful large crucifix.

Footprints and St. Mary's Lake, thoroughly iced.

The Golden Dome, seen through the trees and from behind.

The Grotto, Dome, and Basilica, along with the large plastic Nativity scene they erected during the Christmas season.

I really like this picture of the Grotto; you can see the Dome glinting through the trees. On the right side of the picture you can see the altar and lectern which they occasionally use (in warmer months) to say Mass.

Candles at the Grotto.

Statue of Christ the Redemptor, looking away from the Dome down God Quad towards Notre Dame Avenue. The statue in the distance is of Fr. Sorin, who established the University.

180 degrees from the previous picture; the most famous college building around. Love the sight of this.

Looking across South Quad at the Law School Library, with the main law school building behind it.

The End. I hope you enjoyed this; for those of you who already know what Notre Dame looks like, or don't care, I apologize and promise to post something of actual substance sometime before summer (i.e., June.)

Also, it occurred to me today that when/if I have son(s), and they are about the age of 8, I should saran wrap his bedroom door before he gets up in the morning and videotape the ensuing shenanigans.

A new post.

I can feel this thing already slipping away from me as I get more and more involved with school. I have about 20 minutes before I have to catch the bus home (still not really feeling like walking) so I will just stream of consciousness for 20 minutes and call it an update.

The last post by either of us was March 18th, 10 days ago. Since then, we have finished spring break, gone back to work/school, and immediately been sucked back into the morass of life. That makes it sound a lot worse than it actually is, but I'll stick with it!

My recovery is more or less complete at this point. the stitches fell off my stomach on Saturday, 9 days after they went on, so I am theoretically no longer hindered by them. I can still feel the scar tissue there, though, and I have a follow up appointment later on this week, so I'm going to try not to overexert myself before then. I have been feeling a little cooped up, since I literally have hardly moved at all in the last 11 days, especially in the early part. No more pain either, though, which is nice. Today is the 2nd Monday after spring break; classes continue to slip by seemingly without event as we all look forward to Easter and then Summer break.

This past weekend I was involved in the 1L Oral argument tournament, an annual event which any first year students can enter and pits teams of two against each other in a single elimination format over two weekends. In each round you go before a panel of 3 judges and present an appellate argument and face questions for 15 minutes. From ~45 teams, 8 remain and will argue in the quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals this coming weekend. My partner and I were eliminated in the round of 16 last night. It was a close decision, we were told, and one which all of the participants felt could have gone either way, but Julie and Isy (our opponents) were very deserving, so we couldn't be too upset about losing to them. Besides, this means I will not have to prepare for another round during the week and therefore will have more free time (ha ha.) It was a lot of fun and a really good experience, even though I suspect that I will not go into litigation.

That is mostly what consumed my life over the past week, along with making sure my stomach didn't burst open. Marie unfortunately had the flu on Saturday and this, in addition to the remnants of morning sickness, was enough to more or less incapacitate her. She is also on the recovery track, and I don't envy her for having to go through both of those at the same time! She is also back to nannying (she had spring break off also, since her "boss" is a student) and I'm not sure how she feels about that. Ask her, I'm sure she'll be happy to tell you.

On the less mundane side of things, Friday night we went to the Notre Dame Glee Club's spring concert, which was fantastic. The Glee Club is going on a European tour this year, so many European folk songs were performed, in addition to sacred music and barbershop. Allow me to point out at this time that I hate the stupid "tradition" (It's not that old) of standing and swaying for the alma mater. I can barely tolerate it at football games but it really annoys me at concerts, masses, etc. when a couple people initiate it and then try to guilt the rest of us into doing it. I will now exit grumpy old man mode.

It's amazing how life just always stays one step ahead of you. Marie and I had the previous referenced plans to clean up the apartment and have the proverbial place for everything, with everything in its place, at the end of spring break. Of course, then I got appendicitis and everything went out the window (I'm a real jerk about that stuff.) Nonetheless, it's just amazing how there is something to fill just about all of every day. Yet we still manage to love living in South Bend and sharing a sometimes ridiculous experience together.

I suppose it helps to be married to your best friend. At least, that's how I feel about it.

Pax Christi!

Well, not really... (the wife's perspective)

I never imagined that having my husband flopped on the couch watching basketball would give me such a warm, fuzzy feeling. After Wednesday, though, there's nothing I'd rather see!

I'd been getting more worried about him all day, as the pain got worse and worse (and less and less flu-like), and when he finally said he needed to go to the ER my brain sort of froze. My husband, the guy who'd been doing all the chores, waiting on me hand and foot, and being my rock for the last two months of morning sickness, was in enough pain that he needed... the ER? I'd suggested it a few hours earlier, but he had brushed it off. Now he was asking me to take him! I probably resembled a chicken with its head cut off, looking up directions to the hospital (which is five minutes away with signs starting practically at our front door - I've passed it multiple times on my way to other places), trying to figure out what I should bring (I ended up grabbing my purse, an energy bar I never ate, and a water bottle I forgot to fill), and unable to decide whether to finish my late lunch first (it sounds heartless, but at that point my brain just wasn't processing the "emergency" part.)

I managed to make it to the hospital without speeding or crashing, with Tim trying to make me "lighten up." Whenever he's behind the wheel, I always drive him crazy by telling him as soon as a stop light turns green, if he doesn't hit the gas within a second. On the way to the hospital, he was doing the same thing to me intentionally to make me laugh! It was a bit hard to laugh with him doubled up groaning the rest of the time, though. By the time the nurses at the ER checked his vitals and asked the normal questions, he couldn't walk. I pushed him back to the waiting room in a wheelchair, and we waited what felt like several hours for them to get him a room and a doctor. In my hyper-emotional state (which was not at all helped by the fact that I'm pregnant), I was dividing the time in the waiting room between tearfully worrying about Tim and silently cursing the poor nurses for "not doing something!" How could they possibly be so calm, how could they possibly sit still, when MY HUSBAND was in so much pain?? I'm sure that guy they just took in could have waited a few hours - I mean, it looked like he only had a few broken limbs. And that woman? For goodness' sake, she's only having a baby! Tell her to man up and wait!

Despite time slowing down, he did actually get a room about an hour after we got there, and a little over half an hour later they finally gave him an IV with morphine. I was probably nearly as relieved as he was! He relaxed almost immediately, and started chatting non-stop with the nurses and me, making us all laugh. We watched TV, and my job was basically to keep him awake to drink all the gross stuff they gave him to have before his CT scan. My wonderful friend Kristi brought me dinner as soon as she found out what happened, which pretty much saved me - a snickers bar and a bag of trail mix will not keep a pregnant lady going for six hours!

The rest of the night went much better, they found out what it was and did the surgery (the surgeon told me afterwards that if we'd waited much longer to come in his appendix would have burst), and I got to see him around midnight when he came out of the anesthetic. I was very proud of myself for not crying (at least, not very much) all evening, but what finally set me off was the mean nurse at the desk telling me I couldn't stay the night. In hindsight she was actually very apologetic and as nice as she could be, but she will forever be "the mean nurse who made me cry." She did let me stay for a bit, even though it was past midnight and visiting hours ended at seven, so I spent awhile crying out the stress of the day on Tim's shoulder (even though he was the one who'd just had surgery after being in excruciating pain all day). I was finally able to think about the day and realize how awful it had been and how worried I was, and I was far too tired to deal with those thoughts!

I came in as soon as visiting hours started in the morning, and took him home a few hours later when they finished giving him antibiotics. I thank God now that he's sitting on our couch, very talkative (probably because of the Vicodin!), watching basketball. Sometimes you don't know what you've got 'till it's threatened.

Well, that was fun.

As you probably now know, one of the Cantus is now -1 appendix. I started throwing up yesterday at 6AM and threw up more and more frequently as the day wore on and had increasing stomach pain. By 3:30 or so I could not take it any more so my dear sweet wife took me to the hospital, where, after sitting in the waiting room briefly, I was given sweet, sweet painkillers. (Seriously. Do not think I have ever been so happy to receive medication.) By 10PM they had given me a CAT scan and determined that it was probably appendicitis, so off I went to surgery! Thankfully it had not ruptured (although I guess it would have if I had waited much longer to come in.) When I came around at midnight, I no longer had said appendix. This morning they kept me on fluids and antibiotics for a while and then sent me home around 2, where I have since been sitting on the couch recuperating (with a short trip to the ND pharmacy for a prescription) and watching basketball. What a great day for it to be 70 degrees!

For those of you who have not had one, I don't recommend appendicitis any time soon. :) This post is probably a little rambly and incoherent but I blame the drugs. Peace, man.

Just for Daniel Quinan.

Fine, Quinan. Here you go.

Meanwhile, what is going on in our life? Well, Marie is pregnant, I am on spring break, and South Bend's weather is South Bend's weather. It's fluctuating between 35 and 55, which is actually reasonably nice, I guess, considering spring is 6 days away. We are staying in for Spring Break, cleaning up the apartment (never really got moved in) and catching up with friends that we don't see enough of. It's a little weird having this break which does not coincide with Easter like it always did at TAC, but it does mean I don't spend a day of break fasting, which is not that bad. Marie is still struggling through morning sickness [:(] so we generally have been sleeping in and staying up late, since she generally gains energy as the day goes on.

We moved in January, news which was never really promulgated since we were still telling our friends about Bean and the move was a giveaway. We are now on the 3rd floor of a different building in the same complex. It's much better, since the heat comes through the floor and there is no one overhead to creak the ceiling. Instead, we get to creak the ceiling and listen to the chaos of a building filled with small children. (For those of you who don't know, we were formerly in a 'Married Students w/o kids' building and are now in a 'Married Students w/ kids' building.) It's mostly the detritus of the move which is now being cleaned, along with hanging stuff on the walls, etc. (I know, I know. What can I say? Law school and morning sickness got in the way - I'll let you figure out which went with whom.)

Finally, I eagerly await the beginning of the NCAA tournament, especially since Notre Dame has a fighting chance this year, or so I tell myself before we flame out in the second round. Marie seems to have resigned herself at this point to the myriad basketball on TV at all hours of the day and night; she's a very understanding wife.

I would provide more details but I think this is quite sufficient for now. (e.g., you'll take what you're given and like it!)

Intro

So Marie and I have decided to start doing this blog thing. We both have very few things on our mind so we thought we would share. No, seriously, my thought was that this can serve as an outlet for our friends to find out what's going on in our life, as well as for Marie's vast creative side and my own small-ish one. It could also play host to more serious topics from time to time but let's face it, there's plenty of that on the internet already. All of this is fungible, since these things never end up as what you intend them to be. You would have to ask her, but I think Marie's thought in starting this was "maybe now he'll stop telling me we should start doing this."