This weekend was spent knitting. Mostly. Knitting and visiting. Maybe a little cleaning and grocery fetching. Mostly knitting. I had a scarf commissioned a long, long time ago and had to get it finished for spring. Wool is supposed to keep you warm, and cool. Right?

The visiting was good. Morbid, but good. There’s really not a lot more to tell.

Today I bought a copy of The Friday Night Knitting Club. I don’t love paperback fiction, but sometimes I enjoy the emptiness of it. Sometimes I find a nice shallow chick-lit type of paperback to be the cheesy relief I need from the dull ache in my chest that the rest of life seems to bring. Hopefully this is a good book. It has the New York Times Bestseller flag on it. So did Eat Pray Love. I think what I’m hoping for from a book with both knitting and club in the title is an artificial sense of community that exists on the interwebs and in fiction, and in what appears to be reality in some cities. Just not here. This is the harsh, harsh land of pump-jacks and gas-pumps.

I don’t feel so well tonight.
Namaste

It has been a long week. A longer week than normal. I scurry off to the hospital after work every day. Except today. Today I took a break. It has been totally worth it though. It’s amazing how fulfilling it is to help someone out. To re-teach them things like their name. To sneak a potato chip into their crappy mashed potatoes. Just to hang out and distract them from the knowledge that they can read a book, an ingredient’s list, or their hospital bracelet that says penicillin… but only know what a quarter of it actually means. It has to be insane to know that you can read an analogue clock perfectly… but can’t remember the number that comes after six, or the name of the country that you live in….. Newfoundland? no… Newfoundland… no that’s not it. I know, Newfoundland! Gah! I said Newfoundland again, didn’t I.”

So. I’ve been researching hospice care in our area. Even though it’s not my mom who is sick, I feel like my opinion is important and my research is appreciated. Plus, she’s my common-(not in-law)-mom and she’s such a ridiculously adorable little person despite 70% her body mass being cancerous. Seriously. Her smile is so cute, and even though a piece of her brain has essentially hemorrhaged into goop she’s still the detective she always has been. Last night I was trying to help her with her recall… First she remembered my boyfriend’s birthday. Sort of. She was off by 4 days, but had the right month then we moved on to hers, which is in the same month as his.

Me: I think I remember when your birthday is… Do you?
Her:My birthday? Do you know it?
Me:I’m pretty sure I do.
Her:When is it?
Me:It’s… Hey, wait a second! Nice try! I asked you first!

She just giggled and then got it right on her first try. It was pretty amazing. The crazy thing is that this time last week she was playing sudoku and watching the stock market like a hawk. This week she’s learning how to count again.

i’m in the waiting area for the ER right now. i’m on an unlocked wireless network called “docuse.” i feel confident that it was left unlock for people like me. not quite family enough to get into the ICU, not quite lacking in interest enough to stay at home.

we’ve been here for about four hours. the first half hour or so was before the ambulance had even arrived. the triage nurses kept looking at us and shaking their heads in sadness after the ambulance arrived. i’m imagining that is not the greatest sign. then again, the appearance of an older woman complete bald from chemo and on a hospital stretcher can easily invoke the pity of even the hardest of the hardened ER triage nurses. i think.

i was planning to do laundry today. we were going to visit some open houses and talk property purchasing power. laundry was to be done, and some easter visiting. this is a kind of visiting, i guess. where i mostly just sit and watch people come and go from the hospital in varying degrees of pain and illness. drink coffee from the cafe i the lobby, buy a muffin now and then to sustain the 3 of us. it’s not really what i would have hoped for… and then, when i was laying in bed this morning, planning my day somehow i knew that this is how i would be spending it. i hope everything turns out ok. i know it will, it just might be a slightly different outcome than we were hoping for.

they really could use a color palette makeover in here. i can’t imagine anyone finding the institutional green and blue very soothing. i’m concerned about the feng shui. it’s quiet today too. i’m the only one sitting in a fairly large waiting room. i can’t imagine that it’s always so empty that the colors would be even noticeable to anyone waiting. the wireless is a nice touch though.