Well, here we are, a new year. Will it end on 12/21/12 as the Mayans predicted or be a new beginning? Choices abound. And yet...last night we spent New Year's Eve in the ER with my father-in-law who took (another) fall and required stitches. Warning to those who may need stitches: you have to advocate hard for any kind of pain relief; we didn't and the doctor just did the "job" and left. Not impressed with TMC's care. I would give it a "C", if that.
It took 5 1/2 hours on a non busy night (we got there before 5 p.m. and thus the crazy stuff, if it happened, hadn't started yet). So best laid plans get set awry and, sitting in the area where they carousel patients in curtain swathed "rooms", I saw an elderly woman near death and a young teenage girl blithly texting on her cell before and after the doctor, who looked maybe 30, told her she probably had the flu and a migraine and not something more tragic. Still, while in the presence of accidents, illness and dying, I succumb to the feelings of causality, chance, mortality and want to spend most of my day today recovering.
There is plenty of sunshine tempting me to talk a walk on the Rillito and we'll do that later in the day. A natural dose of Vitamin D could help boost my attitude as well as my metabolism. I started a great new book (Christmas gift to myself and available at Costco at $10.00 less than the regular price), Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. It got terrific reviews from the NY Times Book Review and is on the best seller list and deserves to be there. Set seven years after Elizabeth Bennet marries Mr. Darcy (yes, Pride and Prejudice lives on in yet another story), a murder-mystery slowly evolves, involving her impetuous younger sister, Lydia, and her infamous husband, Mr. Wickam. I am not a murder mystery fan, but I love Jane Austen and the idea of curling up under the bedcovers to read a chapter or two before noon sounds absolutely divine to me. So, I am adding that to my short "to do" list for today.
We have seen several movies this past week (all good): Moneyball, Mission Impossible, Ides of March, Happy Feet Two and Puss in Boots (the last was a scheduling surprise but it was fun, smart and had a bit of James Bond tucked into the fairy tale extension of "Shrek"). All is still right with the world if good stories, written and visual, can be experienced, along with nature's bounty of birdlife, sunshine and turquoise sky.
So, last night's ER is a reminder of life's brevity, impermanence and surprise; today can be a reminder of a new day, new year, new beginnings.
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