Reverie at Sonata 23/8 - evening, tired and lonely...

It was harder, today, to leave M at the clinic and come ‘home’ alone... I wandered through some different parts of the streets, half-looking for a small ‘milk bar’; half-hoping for a restaurant to entice me in; half-ready to cry. It’s all very well being practical and patient, but the implicit drama of ‘M is in hospital in Russia, with fluctuating heartbeat, blood pressure and liver function’ is playing its part. He’s fine in himself, getting bored with the very limited reading we have, and none of the signs of illness are worsening. I bumped into the doctor as I went in this evening (having failed to have my internet fix, which I think has got me down a bit, I’d dearly love to read some news from home); his rundown is that M’s signs are still not stable, and he (the doc) is relieved that we are prepared to stay as long as necessary to make sure M is quite well, before we resume our travels.

He said M’s heartbeat was very low during the day, combined with big fluctuations in blood pressure. The white blood cell count has come down (good); the potassium level has gone up a bit (good), and he has no purging or further signs of gastric disturbance. He’s been up and walking around, eating his light diet, absorbing buckets of IV fluids, etc etc... why am I so uneasy?

Maybe I’m a bit lonely. A hotel room with a dead-donkey-coloured rug is not exactly inspiring. Then again the staff have gone out of their way to make sure I’m comfy, supplied with anything and everything they can offer me; the maid chattered to me in Russian as she tenderly made my bed with fresh sheets (and had a loooong fight to get the doona back into the cover, that was funny). The plumber came in and inspyekted the side and back of the wardrobe (ie the walls) to see where the leak was coming from, but of course when HE ran the shower, nothing happened. Purrhaps I overcharged the system with all my rinsing of clothes before lavishly showering myself, those two times it puddled. I dunno.

I found a little superette and bought a big bottle of still water (I can’t get used to the fizzing when I clean my teeth with the sparkling stuff); some poppyseed crackers, and some chocolate. They didn’t have tins of gin and tonic, only gallons of beer and vodka, and something called Red Martini. Looks like cherry port - syrupy and a bit toxic! I decided to go back to the bakery to get some bread; nothing like a bit of carbohydrate. No problem getting it; in fact I got a discount! My purchase was R56, and I only had a R1000 note, or R53. The assistant didn’t like the R1000 note; said sternly to me ‘SMALL MONEY!’, and I showed her I only had the R53. ‘Okay’ she said. Amazing! I worked it out, a discount of 3 roubles is worth about .15 of one Australian cent. Won’t be able to retire on that just yet.

Got meself back to the hotel room and then remembered - booze. Damn. I can’t be stuffed going back out for that. On with the ‘lympix and try to cheer up a bit. Here is my recipe for cheering-up-of-lonely-nearly-birthday-grrl-in-anonymously-average-Russian-hotel:

-take shoes and socks off
-take t-shirt off, hot hot hot
-wash hands lavishly and apply Aquium
-eat crust of bread - not bad
-eat next slice of bread too, thinking ‘I should go and get some butter’ but don’t act on it
-eat small sticky bun purchased against my weak willpower
-unpack 1.5 litre bottle of water and have a glug of cold, fresh, not-fizzy water
-look skeptically at poppy-seed crackers and open chocolate instead
-discover it is similar to a giant Kit Kat, nom
-eat 2/3 of it without the willpower issue causing any further problems
-wish I had some booze but drink more water
-turn shower on to get hot water to steam wrinkles out of tomorrow’s daks
-change into clean nightie, turn down bed, spray self lavishly with Chanel No. 5
-think about darling dorter, mother, father and dear friends; add 10 hours to current time and think that they won’t love me back much if I ring now
-think about ringing M but don’t want to wake him if he’s finally stopped having things poured into his wrists [he has to watch the fluid level in the IV bags and ring ze bell for ze nurse when it gets low. Not the nurse’s chob apparently... he was hoping his 10pm bag would start early so he could get to sleep; he’s tired. Didn’t/couldn’t sleep much last night; pillows and bed all wrong; worry; lack of wifey etc etc..]
-watch a bit of ‘lympic biffo on the teev - a kickboxer disagreeing with the umpire had a shout and then kicked him in the head! tsk tsk..
-realise I must write out my wowwies so I can sleep myself. I could, of course, take extra meds, but I don’t want to be groggy in ze morgen (sorry, yes dad of course I mean ‘groggiER’). Ha ha etc.

If you follow this recipe, you will be feeling more like this:

-you’ll smell great
-your feet will have stopped aching
-you’ll have that ‘organised Virgo’ feeling about your clothes for tomorrow
-you’ll be able to tell yourself that no booze means your willpower DID work, just not in the usual field of calories
-you’ll also be able to enjoy rather than be irritated by the loud bangs and thumps going on outside, which is more RF Flag Day fireworks going off in the Heritage Square, about 150m away behind a row of buildings. [I can just see the edges of some of the pretties... not sufficiently well to take photos. And no, I’m not going out to join the crowd. I’ll get my feets trodden on or my pockets pickled or my purrson propositioned or somesuch. Not my cuppa tea today.]. Yep, here comes ze nekxt rrrevolutionsk!
-and, you might even feel better in general. A bit. Sort of. Nothing a cat couldn’t fix propurrly if a cat was anywhere it was NEEDED.