How do I answer that question?

She was so cheery, grabbing the menus, leading me to my table.

"How's your day been so far?"

How on earth to answer that question? I wondered.

I'd awakened before my iPhone alarm was scheduled to go off at 6 am this morning.

[When did I start to use a phone as my night clock and alarm? Not just a cordless phone. A phone I can take ANYWHERE, communicate immediately with anyone who has a similar phone without even uttering one word aloud. A phone that allowed me to snatch out of thin air images that make the phone act and look just like the sony flip numbers clock I used in college--only this one was free!]

I walked my dogs, though I was not supposed to yet, because I'm still recovering from shoulder surgery during which a small camera probe and tiny tools had been inserted into the joint, the bursa exploded, and some diseased bone shaved off -- all so I can continue to mush.

[I'm not even sure they would have performed this surgery on someone older than 30 two decades ago. Mush? Five years ago, I hated winter in Minnesota.]

And when I got back from the walk, Mr. B was ready for me to drive him to the hospital where a precision team would work to reverse a process that not so long ago would have meant certain blindness. When he went to bed last night, Mr. B could see out of the bottom half of his left eye. When he woke up, he could see only out of one-third. By 7 am we were on our way to have his retina reattached.

[That's right. His RETINA reattached. Retina. As in the part of the eye we learned about in grade school that is very very important to seeing. Mr. B and I are fortunate to have excellent health insurance and  healthcare providers who yesterday shuffled Mr. him off post-haste to a super-specialist who arranged for emergency surgery first thing this morning.]

I mean, my head was beginning to spin with the incredibleness of it all. It reminded me of how weird it feels to cover thousands of miles across country in just a few hours by plane, and how LONG that same trip would take by car, let alone by bike or horse!

Within an hour after our arrival at the hospital, a surgeon had removed the vitreous of Mr. B's left eye, tacked the retina back down, and placed a gas bubble into his eye to ensure the handiwork stayed in place. Half an hour later, we were ready to go home.

[Wait! The surgeon just dug around in my husband's eyeball and forestalled imminent blindness. He even told Mr. B he could go back to work on Monday if he felt up to it. How is that possible??]

But before we left, I needed to let the family know that Mr. B was fine. So I sent a group text message and posted a status update on Facebook.

[No phone tree necessary. Everyone who needed to know had the information within 60 seconds. No long distance bills, no busy signals, no messages to leave, no repeating myself 10 times. Just one little press of a button, and swoosh, everyone had the same information I had.]

When we got home, Mr. B snuggled down on the couch with his iPad and drifted off the sleep. My son took over the shift, and I left to run some errands. I also knew I needed to simply process the past crazy 24 hours. So I made a stop at a little cafe.

Enter the hostess and her completely innocuous question, "How's your day been so far?"

I paused a little longer than I normally would, considered how to answer that question, and chose the only response that made any sense at the moment.

Just fine. Thanks.


Image by feeb