The Visitation

I got to the hospital this afternoon only to find that Mel was noticeably absent from her room. Instead I found her bed made and the window sills filled with so many cards that it looked like a Hallmark™ store. And so I took a seat on the floor and played solitaire until she returned. It didn’t take long as she was just out in the hallway with her therapist working on getting up from and back into her wheelchair. I had brought those lemony biscotti with me and I presented them to her. She accepted them with the gleeful abandon of a drunk let loose in a bottle bank. We sat and ate while chatting. Mel’s therapy progresses well, if slowly. It was just heartening to see her dressed in street clothing instead of a hospital gown. Her speech is slightly slurred but, on the whole, she sounds remarkably normal. Her sense of humor was intact as was her appetite.

She’s looking at about 3½ more weeks at the hospital before she can go home. I can only imagine how greatly she desires to be there. Besides perhaps full movement on her left side, I’d say that being home with Miss Regan is the thing she desires most. And so October 22nd is the target date. Dogger and I shall have to coordinate some kind of welcome-home party. For the near term, she can look forward to getting an overnight pass to spend a weekend at home. For the even nearer term, I’m planning on making spaghetti mit Italian sausage either tonight or tomorrow and bringing her some.

Tomorrow also brings my job interview. I am looking forward to it being done. I swear to Christ, if I have to answer any stupid fucking questions such as, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”, I an going to go postal. Employers tend to treat employees vastly differently than they did back in the 50s & 60s yet expect us to treat them the same way. We have been reduced to the wholly disposable automatons yet are expected to have incredible loyalty towards our employers.

One side effect of Mel’s stroke is that my attention has been driven away from politics. I'm so fed up with news coverage of the Presidential race being mostly polls. As if I give a flying fuck what "likely voters" think. November can't come soon enough.