After Mom’s two surgeries and ten days in the hospital, her recovery is slow but she’s a little better today than the day before, when she was a little better than the day before that. She knows who I am, what year it is, and doesn’t like Donald Trump, but her energy levels are low, she barely talks and falls asleep every ten minutes, and she needs help standing up. Today she was discharged from the hospital to a rehab facility, where we’re hoping she’ll get her strength back and re-learn how to walk and be able to come home in a few weeks.
Lucky, Dad had platinum life insurance, so money isn’t a problem.
♦ ♦ ♦
I visited Mom in the hospital every day during her stay, but she hasn’t been Mom except for a brief moment today. She was asleep in her bed, with the TV (always) on, with captions but no volume, and I was reading a book in a chair, with my back to the tube. I stood to stretch my legs, and glanced at the TV to see what stupidity passes for entertainment in 2026. Mom’s favorite all-reality channel was showing a fat-people show, about enormous people trying to lose weight.
So there I was, standing and looking at the stupidity, and from behind came Mom’s voice: “Why is your mouth hanging open?”
And indeed, my mouth had been hanging open, but before I could come up with a retort, Mom had closed her eyes and gone back to sleep. So she is recovering, becoming Mom again, bit by bit.
♦ ♦ ♦
On today’s train ride home from the hospital, I accidentally left my notebook on the seat, or on the floor. That notebook is basically my brain, so that’s my brain left behind.
In that notebook are hundreds of observations and ideas, about half of which usually make it onto this blog. The notebook also contains all my preliminary work on a major writing project I’ve been piecing together and plotting for months. It’s all gone.
Of course, I’ve filed a form with Sound Transit’s lost-and-found, but what I’ve lost is only a paper notebook half-filled with hand-scribbled notes that’ll make sense to nobody but me. I don’t think anyone’s going to turn it in. Hell, I routinely turn in such finds as random phones, books, a wallet a week ago, etc, but my notebook is so mangled and blotched I’m not sure I’d turn it in, if it wasn’t mine and I found it.
There’s no-one to be mad at but me, and I am frickin’ furious at myself. I remember jotting some notes as we rolled through the downtown tunnel (though of course I don’t remember what notes I jotted — that’s why I jot), and very specifically I remember putting the notebook on the empty seat beside me, in front of my backpack, as I checked messages on my phone. Probably the notebook slipped off the seat, so I didn’t see it when I picked up my backpack. And now it’s never to be seen again.
3/20/2026
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