Flush It Friday: Weekend Dad Edition
As you likely noticed, Joe has been out of the office all week. In between sips of mojito and having his feet lovingly and consentingly massaged by a gorgeous beach maiden, he briefly logged onto Facebook to let me know that I’m this blog’s “Weekend Dad.” If you thought this week sucked, it’s his fault for abandoning you so that he could focus on his tan.
If, however, you’ve enjoyed this week, I’m glad! List season isn’t exactly my favorite time of the year, but it’s been fun curating selections from our awesome writers and from the awesome artists who keep this whole thing spinning. Thanks for reading everything, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the non-list content too! I’d like to give a special thanks to both Randall Thor and Lacertilian for helping me wrangle guest lists. It takes a village to run a blog, but I’m proud to have been your temporary father for the week. Now onto what we normally do in Flush It Friday: the good-and-bad-and-uglying.
Bad/Good: Yesterday, my mother went in for a surgery that she’s been hoping to get for quite a while. While that may not seem like a good thing, she will, ideally, benefit quite a bit from the procedure. You see, she’s been suffering from a persistent cough for several years now, at least since I got married back in 2013, but I’m pretty sure it started sooner than that. The cough, in addition to being painful and inconvenient, also presented her with a number of additional symptoms, including nausea, exhaustion, and acid reflux. Over the last two years, she’s tried all manner of treatments, ranging from dietary changes to medicine, but nothing has really worked. Finally, earlier this year a surgeon figured out that she suffered what’s called a hiatal hernia.
This hernia actually caused her stomach to leak acid into her lungs, inflicting upon her all of the negative symptoms. Finally, it seemed that we had a treatment in sight. However, the surgery was postponed twice this year. The first time, the surgeon was unsure about some results from a spirometry test and wanted to try one last medicinal treatment. The medicine had no effect. Then, the day before my mom was finally going to get the surgery, my parents were involved in the car crash I posted about a few weeks back. Although the surgeon was still willing to perform the surgery, broken sternum be damned, the anesthesiologist ultimately nixed it because my mom’s breathing was too shallow; anesthesia performed while the patient has shallow breathing runs the risk of causing pneumonia or other problematic side effects. Again, it seemed relief was fleeting.
Finally, though, my mom was able to get the surgery performed yesterday. At the time of writing, I haven’t spoken to her yet, but my dad assures me everything went well. So while surgery is no laughing matter that poses all sorts of risks, I hope that in this case my mother finally finds the relief she needs. She is a strong, vibrant woman whose faith, love, and spirit have been unconquered by this ailment, but it is hard to see the ones you love suffer. Hopefully she’ll finally return to the vitality she has always shown.
Ugly: This week, Toho finally unveiled the new appearance of Godzilla for the upcoming Japanese film Godzilla: Resurgence. The film, slated for release next summer, is unrelated to Legendary‘s 2014 Godzilla film and is being helmed by writer/director Hideaki Anno and special effects guru Shinji Higuchi. You can check out Big G’s new look below.
Yah, it’s ugly, but I like it. In the original Gojira film, Godzilla wasn’t a cuddly defender of humanity. He was a malevolent atomic abomination unleashed by Mother Earth to punish mankind for its scientific transgressions. I’m hoping this film lives up to the hype and returns to the nightmarish ethos of the original.
Let’s listen to something heavy and ugly while we wait for Godzilla: Resurgence to drop.
Well, now that you’ve gotten the good, bad, and ugly from me, it’s time for you to show what you’ve gotten.
Weekend Dad, signing off.
