Thanks for the Good Wishes

I got up at six or so and stumbled stiffly into the loo, took a shower, brushed my teeth with a swirl of harsh chemicals labeled Listerine^®. My loved one gave me a card that was lovely and true. Around six thirty I drove away in the perfect summer morning. Sunshine angled in, east by northeast. Trees were green, the verge of the roadway was weedy, sprinklers flicked, a dog watched me go and chose not to bark.

I had a teleconference at seven with some gentlemen in Europe for whom my seven in the morning was their four in the afternoon. At four to seven I parked and walked swiftly into the building, flashed my badge at security, took the elevator to the top floor. It was dark and quiet, no one in yet at seven o’clock on a Monday. I attached my laptop to the docking station and woke it up and waited patiently, oh so patiently, for Windows to decide when it was time to release the calendar item to me that held the security codes with which I could make the call.

By two past seven the OS had exhausted all its timeouts and allowed me to work. I found a mail had been sent just past midnight to tell me the telco was postponed until nine o’clock. I sent a mail asking what was I supposed to do in the meantime, work or something?

I had the telco at nine and my loved one met me for birthday lunch at noon and I went home at five. In between times I faked it as usual.

After work my loved one and our son and I went to dinner and had steaks and salads and beer. We had a wonderful time as we always do. Afterwards we said goodbye, I took the car to the freeway and they took the other car home. I drove all by myself down the interstate, past the suburbs, past the state capital, past more suburbs and farmlands and suburbs and farmlands, listening to the new Rush CD and remembering the Rush concert we saw last Saturday, down out of the valley and through some hills and over a river, seventy miles an hour down narrow nighttime lanes with lights flashing by and to my father’s house. I unfolded the couch, and got five hours’ sleep, and took him early next morning to the hospital for angioplasty.

It was a good birthday, a good day, a day alive. (He's fine, thanks.)