Non-inspirational

We got back yesterday from a week's holiday in Sicily. I've done so much thinking, I have so much to write, that I don't really know where to start. So I'm starting with some fairly basic things about Sicily. This post certainly isn't very inspirational.

We only went to two main places in Sicily as we didn't want to be packing up our bags every day to change hotels. We flew to Catania on the eastern side of the island (nice view of Mt. Etna when there are no clouds). If we ever go to Sicily again, we'll fly to Palermo and visit the other side of the island. We stayed in Taormina and on Lipari, one of the Eolian Islands. From a boat trip, we saw the active volcano of Stromboli, another one of the Eolian Islands, spewing red lava into a very starry night sky.

We took a lot of pictures but I don't feel much like posting any. I do remember from back reading Laura's blog that the picture of the Smart car was popular. So just for you here's one of the Smart car's tiny classic predecessors: an old-style Fiat Cinqueciento. The difference being that a Smart car is a two seater and the Fiat Cinqueciento is for 4-5 people....



I learned that Saturdays in airports are not good if you want to avoid seeing little kids. (The bigger ones are already back at school). I cried every day we were there but there was a difference to each day in terms of despair levels. I don't mean it got progressively better, just that at least there was a discernable difference to each day. I had a two extremely low lowpoints (maybe more about them later) and the rest was just your general run-of-the-mill deep sadness and ordinary despair. There is no taking a vacation from what happened to Moksha.

Great news upon my return. Last night, my period returned. Yes, after just over one week since the last one. WTF is going on? Is this normal?

Two, my brother also has the heterozygous version of Factor V Leiden. He got tested as soon as I told him I had it. My mum told me this morning - she's pretty upset as she was holding on to the idea that there was somehow a mistake in my test. Guess there's no need for me to get retested. My pregnant SIL is also going to get tested to see if there's a possibility that their baby has the homozygous version and if she is at risk too. (She's Caucasian and it's more common in Caucasians). I don't know what my brother is going to do, he does tens of long-haul flights a year (US-Europe and US-Asia).

Is this why Moksha gave his life? To warn the rest of his family about FVL? It's clear that we never ever would have been tested for this if he hadn't died.