2004-09-14 - 5:15 p.m.
Crazy rollercoaster time here.
Remember that birthday party? Turns out there was a case of the killer stomach flu circulating among the kids. Both the Professor and her cousin came down with it about a week later. Took another week to get over. She didn’t want to eat or drink anything, she was listless and sunken-eyed, and terribly dehydrated from the diarrhea… J stayed home from work to take care of her, kept forcing liquids on her, and kept in close touch with the pediatrician. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go to the emergency room for IV treatment, although it was pretty touch-and go for a while.
By Saturday she was pretty well healed up. While J was at work, I decided it would be nice to go visit my mother. Bad idea. I had noticed some problems with the transmission in the Cavalier for a while now. Lack of power, sluggish response, the whole bit. I figured it was going to crap out sooner or later, but I thought it would hold out over the weekend. We were on the interstate when we started to slow down, whether I liked it or not. We managed to get over to the shoulder without incident. Within five minutes Motorist Assist showed up. Five minutes later, a patrol car from Sunset Hills showed up. Right behind the patrol car was… Dafydd.
Dafydd and I are not exactly friends, and we’ve had our bad patches here and there. He had been driving with his family, on his way to have lunch, when he saw me and the Professor standing by the highway. He turned around as quickly as he could and came back to see if he could help. So we had a safe, cool place to sit while waiting for the tow truck, and a ride back to the house afterward. Dafydd and Gina kept the Professor entertained during the whole escapade, even while sitting in the parking lot of the garage waiting for me to get everything settled. They took two hours out of their day and delayed having lunch to help us. I knew they were hungry; I could hear the tummy rumblings. Dafydd even refused the bottle of cherry ale I offered in thanks.
I may gripe about the SCA and SCA politics and the general lack of maturity and consideration shown by many people in it. But something like this reminds me of what the Dream is all about. Not the pageantry, not the valor shown on the battlefield, not the fancy clothes and pretend kingdoms. The Dream is about bringing courtesy, chivalry, charity and all the other virtues into your everyday, modern life. I am truly blessed to have such friends as these.
