phew! boy am i ready for the weekend.
this morning Ulrich’s daughter Anneliese and I got out of bed early and drove together down to Bonn, about 1.5 hrs from where Ulrich & I live and famous for being the birthplace of Beethoven (as well as the former capital of West Germany). Anneliese has an upcoming surgery on monday at the bonn university hospital to fuse together the joints in one of her cheeks, which have slowly eroded and become angular instead of rounded at the edges after years of inflammation from juvenile rheumatism. i think i will have more to say about Anneliese and her illness, but i will save that for another, more cognizant moment when i’m not nodding off to the beat of my fingers typing.
anneliese’s appointment, originally planned as a short meeting with the anesthesiologist to sign an informed consent document for monday, dragged into a multi-hour affair. the hospital staff appeared to be overwhelmed by the number of patients showing up for their pre-surgery appointments. i wondered, for a fleeting moment, why this whole process couldn’t have been carried out online, but since we were already there and had plenty of time, i decided to take an exploratory stroll through the neighborhood while Anneliese waited for the line of patients to whittle down.
finally i arrive at the main thing i wanted to share with you: the perfect resting spot i found today - through the hospital neighborhood, down an alley and into another neighborhood, across a park, alongside a playground, and then into a surprising woods that i didn’t know existed. unfortunately i didn’t sit down on the bench; it was cold and i felt compelled to keep my arms and legs in perpetual motion to retain some warmth. but i will go back someday, i think. isn’t it perfect?
Perfect! Hope the surgery went well!