There are a couple of unreated, but marginally interesting things to talk about today. First is that I may have had a greeting from my friend Michele, who died a little over a year ago. I subscribe to a "birthday alarm" service which reminds me when it's time to send a birthday card and so a few days ago, I had a reminder that Michele was about to turn 66.
Naturally this brought a momentary pang to the heart, missing Michele, realizing that she's not here any more and that it also would have been her birthday. I wrote to Char about it. She is missing Michele as much, or much more, than I am. And remember that Char's last name is Blackford...that's important.
So the next night Walt and I went to a show in Sacramento and at intermission, I decided to bring a book and see if my eyes would let me read (they wouldn't). I had chosen a book at random off of my bookshelf to stick in my purse. It was an early Tess Gerritsen and I chose it because it was thin, and I thought maybe even with the eye problem I could get through a shorter book.
When I went to open it, I discovered there was a bookmark in it. I use all sorts of weird things for bookmarks -- anything from real legitimate bookmarks to tissues, to napkins, to anything that happens to be sitting next to wherever I'm reading. Apparently I had started this book before and I had stuck in a little packet of forget-me-not seeds that we had received at Michele's memorial service as a bookmark. But the thing about it was that the package was kind of stuck by one edge to the spine of the book so that the lower corner was pointing at the following sentence:
I just kind of smiled and wished Michele a happy birthday--just in case she was hovering around somewhere.
The other thing is that I hope not to continue to whine about my eyes, now that I have the problem diagnosed and surgery scheduled, but there are still bad days and better days. Today is not a better day. I've enlarged the print for a lot of the internet, but some things can't be enlarged, like MailWasher, which I use to prescreen e-mail before downloading it. I discovered this morning that I absolutely could not read that screen, so I had to Do Something. I've ended up buying myself a magnifying glass to see the screen for pages that I can't read otherwise. It slowed things down considerably, but it is very helpful.
It's also helpful for reading the tiny print in some theatre programs. I had a devil of a time reading the program for the University show(s) that I reviewed last night. I was very sorry I didn't have this glass then!
The university show was difficult for me. Walt and I were going to go, of course, but his brother has been in the hospital for several days. He needed surgery, but they had to wait until an infection cleared. The surgery was done two days ago, late in the day. It turns out that there were complications and he developed pneumonia and was in the ICU. Walt decided he wanted to go down to the hospital (about 80 miles away). He asked if I could drive myself to the theatre.
I told him I could, since it would be after dark and I'm better about driving after dark, as long as it's not on the freeway. We only have one car, so he rented a car and went off to Santa Rosa. He called later to say Norm was sedated and didn't know he was there, and he thought he would spend the night so he could go back again today.
I went off to the theatre thinking nothing about it, hoping that Norm would be able to get out of the ICU today. Literally three minutes before the lights went down in the theatre, I went to turn my cell phone off and saw that I had a voice mail. It was from Norm's wife, looking for Walt (she had called earlier in the afternoon). Her message about Norm was that the doctors said he was "very critical" and that he "might die."
It was too late to call her as the lights went down right then, but I've been so worried. Walt called this morning to say that his fever is finally coming down, which was a good sign. He's still sedated and considered critical, and mostly he doesn't know they are there and seems confused about where he is, but maybe he's passed the crisis. None of us will breathe easy until he is out of the ICU.
I don't like thinking that this is the way the rest of my life is going to go...burying friends, visiting loved ones in the hospital and worrying about my own deteriorating body.
Anybody who wants to live forever has got to be nuts.
Norm and Ned
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