Continued Adventures in the Prius

Just a quick shout out to my good friend Tim who volunteered to come with me to treatment today. A reliable carpool buddy as always, he generously offered to drive me today in his sleek, eco-friendly Prius. Made a pit-stop at Cafe Ladro and enjoyed foamy, aromatic lattes in real cups & saucers with a slice of spinach & feta quiche as a chaser. Both of us sheepishly admitted it was our second breakfast. We cruised down the I-405 corridor to Evergreen Hospital, then on to Overlake in Bellevue. It amused me to no end to point out that it is the same route as our old commute together except the mission at hand involved hitting every major hospital on the way, evidently. Once there, we circled three floors of the parking garage before ending up with the spot right in front of the elevator.

The perfect little waiting room was introduced to Tim as a nascent celebrity entity of its own. The mini-fridge filled with apple, orange, grape, cranberry juice cups and massive amounts of Ensure. The demure, tasteful and comfortably worn magazines, and the chairs which own up to all the same adjectives. And the piece de resistance--the beautiful, secret Japanese waterfall and garden enclosed in the privacy of its own shrubbery, framed elegantly in the picture window. We settled in, discussed the merits of an Obama & Hillary ticket, the unequivocal evidence of global warming, the virtues of organic farming and pastoral rediscovery given the conspicuous accumulation of toxins in the ecosystem. Tim is a dependable conversationalist and I sincerely miss our daily intellectual interstate interchanges when we used to drive in to work together. Say that 3 times really fast...

Scheduling mix-up in radiation caused me to be late for my chemo appointment. Arrived at the infusion room to find all the nurses huddled together in their rolling office chairs, cheerfully greeting us. Tim was able to see the process involved in disconnecting the needle from my port and switching out my chemo cassette. We then went to Whole Foods to grab carry-out Indian food at the hot bar and Tim generously treated me to lunch. So after two hospitals and two meals, we called it a fairly good day together. Hope the Indian food didn't stink up the Prius too much...