The darkness ahead.

I read about the uptick in positive cases and think about the small hospitals in the middle of the country who are taking care of those patients. What a struggle for everyone involved. For a lot of the time now, I can just live my life and I’m mostly content. Jeremy and I and Edda are settling into our triad life. Patents get examined apace and attorneys no longer spend extra minutes on the telephone telling me about their families in lockdown. Even at the hospital, I felt on Monday, it was allllmost like it was Before Times, with families milling about, asking questions. Not a single COVID patient on the unit. We had nursing students being precepted and the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation was expected to show up on their annual surprise (and delayed) visit. (Listen for Code 100 on the intercom, that means that they are in the building.) The week here in Maryland was unusually warm and humid, but I’m waking up in the dark and can feel winter coming. This is why the flu is worse in the winter, right? We all crowd around the hearth, tumbling over each other, singing songs and laughing with each other keeping spirits up and sharing all our germs waiting for the warm, long days to reemerge.

Jeremy spends a long time thinking about his bicycles. I try to listen to him about them (it can be hours. and I retain very little. listening is really my worst way of remembering anything. i had to request breaks so I could do other things). One (of his two) bike is broken and has been in the shop for a week. He had long conversations with the bike repair person. I started affectionately calling this REI employee his bike friend. Bike friend loves talking about bikes. It was a nice to see, Jeremy having fun on the phone. But the relationship has ended. Jeremy took home the bike unfixed. He was grumpy about this yesterday.