Wiiiiiii!

(You have to say that out loud. The double entendre is in the onomatopoeia. Gesundheit.)

I think that somehow today I recommitted to my "change your mind and change the world" plan, that I again decided optimism for its own sake was warranted. The last week has tried very hard to suck the life out of me, and rather than fight it, I've decided instead to simply refuse to let it.

Today wound up being another good day. In truth? Yesterday was pretty hard, but when I focused on the good in it, I found that there actually was quite a lot. Today had it's rough edges as well, but, you know...

I overslept a little, but managed to pick my cousin up in time for her to carpool with me to CH. I dropped her off at work, ran some errands, went to Starbucks and mostly played on Facebook worked (I'm still buried beneath a pile of unwritten and overdue notes. But I got two discharge summaries done this morning. There's hope). I met my completely awesome shrink (have I mentioned how much she rocks, offering me a Saturday slot and whatnot?) and we actually had a really good and productive session. I bummed around at Border's for a while, picked up a book for me, one for my dad, one for my aunt, and then swung by and picked up my cousin, who it turns out had a very interesting morning (and has also caught the plague, which is sad. Damn patients, can't keep their germs to themselves). I dropped her off, got lunch, hung out with my folks.

And? I finally broke down and bought a Wii. I? So totally heart that thing (don't worry, Claud, I don't have the cow game yet). It was a bit beyond my means, but my folks helped out and there were gift cards involved. I bought a second controller used at GameStop.

I have to say... it was completely and totally worth every penny, merely to play Wii Bowling with my dad.

I also sucked it up and bought Super Mario Brothers for Wii, which is not actually that good a Wii game, but totally makes up for it in nostalgia. If, of course, you're from the generation that spent countless hours of their childhood playing low-resolution but high-awesomeness games on the NES. It was remarkable, how I even remembered where the little one-ups and bonus boxes and whatnot were in the original game, like it was somehow stored in my body memory. And after my parents went to bed, I sat there remembering sleepovers and Skittles and Cool Ranch Doritos, summer afternoons with my cousin D (who saved the princess way before I did), big hair, "boy-crazy" friends, jelly shoes and Hypercolor t-shirts.

It made me smile way more than any of those things ever did at the time.

And in the midst of today I made plans for tomorrow. Family time in the AM, folks have to be at the airport by 3ish, and then they get on the big silver bird back to the Chi. After I drop them off, though, Cleo and I are celebrating our collective survival of the past two months or so in typical girly fashion (what isn't made better by a mani-pedi?). And then I have dinner plans later, although so far the plan is exactly as cohesive has, "Let's have dinner tomorrow. What, 7? Yeah, that'll work."

Plus, Maggie and I found the first evidence of daffodils poking through the ground today. Spring is coming!!

Even as completely stressful as this week has been, it's been good to have my family here. And the stress I know about (much less what's lurking in the shadows) doesn't show too many signs of letting up anytime soon. So, I guess there's a choice to be made. I have strong family ties, good friends around me, I have the best dog ever. And every day people let me intimately into their lives and get a fleeting glimpse of the boundless expanse of wonder that is the human psyche.

How can I pass that up?