It didn't work. And how you sometimes have to grovel...

Called the Spital... to tell him it was tomorrow.

Punch to the gut, hey. What sounded ok yesterday, didn't sound ok today.

Listen: I had no reason to be alarmist till now. Yesterday the voice was half-way back, he laughed... and I thought, 'ok, that is good...' Today was 'different'. And suspiciously, there was no noise. In that hospital, the wards usually hold six patients. So there is some background noise. So I asked, 'Errm, how many patients are in your room?' And he said, 'It's a single.' And all I could HEAR in the background was this whispering sound. I recognised it from watching 'da soaps'. It was a respirator.

And he said it was 'pretty bad'.

Oh, I could curse, and be SO FUCKING ANGRY right now, I could choke.

Listen: You do NOT get a single room in a county hospital if it isn't dire. You do not. And that whispering noise.... oh. my. gawwd. And I'm not THERE.

And there he was, trying to calm ME down... the idjit. He didn't TELL me, but I KNOW.

He was so tired out, he didn't wanna talk long.

Owwwww... Weh...

That is when I started crying. Not histrionic. My eyes started to 'sweat', my nose got congested, and it hasn't really stopped.

This is SO frustrating, I can't even begin to describe anything.

It is 'Can I Get There in Time? Can I BE there, and hold his hand if this is the final act?'

I don't wanna it to be like San Diego, where I couldn't get there, and just lose a big part of my life without saying goodbye.

I am so upset with D. For a former nurse, her empathy level is nil, but most of them have that wall built up so as not to get hurt.

I don't care HOW I get there. That is grovelling....

Yeah, I went off the charts... who wouldn't? And visited a neighbor whom I can hardly stomach, because he has a printer, and I do not, and asked him if I could have one copy of 'The Venerable' so that I can brag about him out on the square... The V is legendary here, and I never had a good one to show.

It kept me from going really ballistic, and maybe going to jail.

For getting violent.

My neighbor offered to lend me the money to get to Wagna. Which would have been ok, coming from someone else.... I'd rather eat dog doo than accept anything him, the printing of the foto was humiliation enough.

And just to distract myself... you really should have seen Rachel Maddow last night. From New Orleans. Five years after, but it was so incisive, and made my eyes sweat. Because it wasn't about 'then', but about now.

I had just met one of the dearest friends I have ever had, a bit before. Someone whom I have come to love. So when I watch GOOD reporting, my eyes sweat. Someone should DO something about carbon emissions. We Oldies get 'algerisch', which means 'Algerian' to it. It was a long in-joke between Peter and me.

I hope we get to share that one more time.....