Whelp... here we go again...

Sigh...

The only friend I have left here had to have surgery... one stent in an artery around his heart.

Can I throw a tantrum now and say I Hate Fate?`

I say friend, but am not sure.. our paths divurged so often for long periods of time... distance, mostly, personal things where I wasn't sure of any approval for what I was doing... but somehow, yes, we'd reconnect, and it was always fun, and as if little had happened meanwhile.

We sometimes worked closely and intensely together. I hung out the big English disciplinarian, polishng his papers, teaching him what I knew about how NOT to give a lecture and put people to sleep, to listen to reporters, how they punch up words, for instance. And him dragging me into a sound studio and do the english explanation of a procedure, with one sentence that was so horrible, I needed fifteen takes to get it right, a tongue twister. And the operation I was describing was... well, you need a strong stomach for it. It was for a presentation in the US.

Posssibly, my voice is still out there on that film. It was a cutting edge procedure, you should pardon the pun.

And he and his family have given me much over the years. So I was very consternated that this very talented surgeon ended up so stressed, he had to get a stent. And his wife has always sort of been the cement that kept us in touch.

As an aside, that Costa cruise we took? Peter invited them both to travel with us... but he couldn't get the time off, so she had ber best friend come instead... it was insanely funny. And his father blamed me for all sorts of things when he began having problems shortly thereafter. Which was absurd.

As a surgeon, well, there is a saying... doctors make the worst patients, but I called this evening, he sounds fine. It's raining in Salzburg... but when doesn't it. They only have 1oo days of sun per year on average, and I KNOW... I had my first bout with bronchitis there.

He sounded 'chipper' enough, which was a relief. He only got one stent. His wife said he complained that it really hurt. Peter got five in two operations. But never really complained. Imagine that. If Peter caught cold... it was the end of the world, on the other hand, and made everyone imagineable miserable. But an amputation? Nyeh... People can be hard to figure.

I had the radio on while I was messing around on line killing things and there was a lot of AC/DC, and hard rock, which made it fun optically. And I thought... wow, last time I heard this it was his fiftieth birfday bash, which was wild. Time does march on.

I hope he retires. I do. Before life retires him. Otherwise, the stress will kill him, and there are many other things I do not wish to broach here. He needs some rest. All the early carreer eighteen hour shifts, the resposibility of having to do things to post natal babies because something went wrong... that's a huge load to carry.

He had huge success, and has been a respected guest lecturer world-wide, and I do mean world-wide. I would think that stent would be a call to reconsider what his priorities are for his own health.

I noticed something different the past two calls... he has become introspective, just as Peter did when he got really sick. It was sort of chilling. Self-absorbed, I guess you would call it.

Maybe it was my imagination. But it wasn't something I would ever have wished for them, because his wife has been through much as well, and I like her very much.

Today is chinese new year, the year of the water dragon, which brings luck and happiness and wealth. They got the latter... I hope it will be the former two for them.