Day +34: Adieu from Ralph

Quiet day for Sile and me.  We went to City of Hope this morning for Sile's daily infusion of an infection fighting drug.  There was an uncharacteristic delay in getting the drug due to a computer snafu earlier in the morning. This stretched the hour and a half appointment to almost three hours, but we were still back in time for lunch.  Post lunch I headed for the pool and Sile took a rest.

Sile continues doing well.  Back pain still troubles her, but she is experiencing fatigue more than anything else.  As well as she's doing in general it is easy for me (and I think perhaps for her) to forget how much her body has been and is continuing to go through.  She will need to continue to take it slow and step by step, with plenty of rest at each juncture along the way.

Jim arrives tomorrow and I will head home.  According to the Master Schedule, compiled by Master Scheduler Eoin, I won't be back for a while.   I am not overwhelmed with sadness at this parting, though there are a few things I will miss.  These include:

1.  The LA Times.  What a pleasure to have a really good newspaper on hand every morning (the paper is complimentary here at the Marriott so all I have to do each morning is stroll down to the office to pick it up.)  And speaking of the Marriott...

2.  The friendly, competent, thoroughly nice people here at the Marriott Residence Inn.  All of us have been impressed with how well-run this place is, and how great it is to stay somewhere that is so competently managed.  And all of us have been impressed with how nice all the people working here are.  Which leads me to...

3.  Nice people everywhere.  The folks I have dealt with (cashiers at Trader Joes and Walgreens, nurses, doctors, strangers in the elevator) have, for the most part, been unfailingly polite and pleasant.  Given the poor regard us snobs up North have for LA,  this has been a welcome surprise.

4.  The pool at the Rose Bowl Acquatic Center.  50 meters, lovely setting, good temperature, and never more than one other person in my lane.  A definite A+ swimming facility.

And the things I will definitely not miss:

1.  The smog.  It's better since last week's rains, of course, but the sky is still murky.  And on many days I was here it was positively awful.  There are many places with worse air, I know, and it's not as bad as it used to be, I know, but still - bad air affects everything.

2.  The traffic.  The swish of traffic on the freeway is omnipresent.  

3.  Time spent inside my automobile.  (Note relationship between numbers 1,2, and 3).  We are fortunate here at the Residence Inn to be walking distance of restaurants and shopping, including Trader Joes, and I have strolled down with my shopping bags a number of times.  I am, however, in the minority on this - it's not part of the zeitgiest of the place, let us say.   Life is seriously attached to the automobile - whenever I left the hospital at night the nurses offered their farewells not with "Good night" or "See you tomorrow" but with a cheery "Drive safe!".  Every time.  

I'm sure I could come up with a few more complaints but I think I'll stop now, with the list of things I will miss edging out what I dislike by 1 item!

And so I bid farewell to Duarte and environs and to all you blog readers as well.  I leave you with this photo of Sile as she headed out for her evening stroll around the grounds of the Marriott: