;)
I slept with my iPhone right by my ear and so was awakened a bit before 11:00 AM by Margie's call to tell me that she would soon be released and so I could come in and get her.
11:00 AM - sounds very lazy. But I had not been able to go to sleep until 5:00 and I ran out of Vicodin two days okay and while it is possible that I could call the doctor and get the prescription refilled I have decided that I don't want to take it anymore and will just tough it out. I did not sleep that good. I bet my shingles woke me up AT LEAST 30 times. Maybe I should rethink that decision. We'll see. So, even at 11:00, it was very difficult to get up, but I did not want to leave my wife in the hospital, so I got up.
When I reached her, I was a little dismayed to learn that she has a plastic tube going into the place were her gall bladder used to be. Fluids drain out of that place into a little bag that she keeps safety pinned to the inside of her shirt. She must bear this burden until November 30, when I bring her back to see the doctor again.
Still, you can see that she was happy to be getting out of the hospital and headed toward home.
Anyone who read yesterday's post has probably already figured out that the building seen through the window is the hospital - the Alaska Native Medical Center.
;)
Soon, we were on the Glenn Highway, headed toward the Parks Highway and home. As you can see, the traffic was absolutely insane. For some reason, when I look at this picture, I hear that old TV jingle that used to accompany Chevy commericials on TV:
"See the USA in your Chevrolet..."
Back then, our family car was a Ford.
And today, I was driving a Ford.
Ford Escape.
"See the USA, in your Ford Escape..."
;)
There were school buses roaming about, packed with studious kids who would have preferred to remain at school, but now had to go home.
About this time, a text came to our phones simultaneously. Margie was free to look at hers. It was from Lisa. It was an iPhone shot of her and Melanie, in Carrizo, Arizona, White Mountain Apache Tribe, standing with their Grandma Rose, Margie's mom.
;)
Finally, we were in Wasilla, headed up Lucille Street. Just before we reached Metro Cafe, this moose crossed the road in front of us. When you see moose crossing the roads right in front of traffic and often dying in the process, they seem like pretty stupid animals. But I think in the woods they are pretty smart. Not as smart as bears and wolves, but pretty smart just the same.
If they weren't, they wouldn't still be here. The bears and wolves would have got them all and then the poor ravens would have had to make do without their moose carrion. It's just that living in the woods for how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or milliions of years, moose had no need to learn about roads so they didn't. They didn't even bother to develop the capacity to learn about roads.
Now they are undergoing a crash course and maybe sooner or later the survivors will ultimately evolve to the point where they figure it out.
They might even start driving cars themselves; they might run over us, sometimes.
I asked Marige if she wanted me to pull into the Metro drive through but she just wanted to go home.
The moment we got home, Margie asked if I would take a picture of her with her iPhone so she could send it in return to Lisa and Lisa could show it to Rose and all present so they would know that their mother and daughter had made it home safely.
So I did.