380 days, 7 hours, 42 minutes, 31 seconds

So thank you for reminding me about the importance of being a good mom and a great volunteer as well. – President Bush in St Louis, January 5, 2004

The Bye-Bye Bush calendar gives this quote a whole weekend. She bought this calendar months ago, has been waiting for the quotes to start, then almost missed it. Her first weekend home. With all the boxes it’s as small as that private room she was moved to when her first and best roommate was having a bone marrow transplant. The canes are too high for her and have to be sawed off. She wonders if they saw through bone to reach the marrow. Her roommate’s 17th day on continuous chemo. She doesn’t want to live like this.

The woman’s family gathers around her.

A good mom? Best of all, Bush would stay home with his daughters. He’d watch over their mumps and their viruses. He’d learn to dress wounds and make a wonderful nursemaid. He’d make sure both girls got flu shots before the vaccine ran out. He’d bake healthy carrot-cake and banana nut muffins for them to take to school on their birthday, and he’d include a few extra, in case there was someone new in the class, or one kid dropped his. No child left behind. A boy might even throw one at another boy, in which case he’d kneel down at the boy’s desk and explain that throwing things can dangerous, and some things explode in mid-air. He’d volunteer more muffins for the bake sales. And he’d become the leader of a cub scout troop. You have to start somewhere, he’d remind all the boys in uniform.

381 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes, 25 seconds

Hillary came in third in the Iowa caucus. A woman who knows her place. Behind Obama. Behind John Edwards, whose real wife has cancer. For the second time. It’s treatable but not curable. It’s spread to the bones now, very painful. Hillary limps.

381 days, 13 hours, 30 minutes, 26 seconds

New York City window washer who fell 47 floors is awake and talking to family. She finds this news depressing.

382 days, 22 hours, 35 minutes, 13 seconds

Klutz. He steps on her shoelace. Four times.

384 days, 5 hours, 35 minutes, 36.4 seconds

Bush, two years ago today: I can't think of a better way to start 2006 then here at this fantastic hospital -- a hospital that's full of healers and compassionate people who care deeply about our men and women in uniform… As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself -- not here at the hospital, but in combat with a Cedar. I eventually won. The cedar’s a Christmas tree. And she’s home.

385 days, 6 hours, 33 minutes, 46.7seconds

Actually she thinks she probably did hurt her back. Backwards Bush. Watch your back. Back to the future. Back to business. With their favorite flower shop closed till Wednesday.

385 days, 6 hours, 54 minutes, 4 seconds

Had she been smart she wouldn’t have leaned to the left like that.

385 days, 7 hours, 6 minutes, 54 seconds

Last New Years Eve, after the fireworks, they sat around munching coldcuts and talking about Social Security.

385 days, 7 hours, 17 minutes, 11 seconds

It’s going to be a strange new years eve celebration. He and friends from college, like every year. One died three years ago. One has the flu. One’s just home after his second pacemaker and a collapsed heart valve. And she’s stuck here.

385 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes, 46 seconds

All she does is reach down for her pocketbook, to look at the Backwards Bush clock (she hasn’t gotten on the Internet yet today). She wanted to write the above lines, praising the bed. And the bed traps her. Or the siderail traps her. Or is it a guardrail? Whatever, it presses straight across at about the level of her underarms. Really digs in. She imagines a huge bruise she’ll never see. At least it’s not the neck breaking. At least it’s not the heart.

385 days, 7 hours, 51 minutes, 54 seconds

She laughs and the world laughs with her. Turns in bed and the bed realigns itself. But mostly she cries in bed.