AlarumsandDiversions

Arnold succeeded in becoming less peaky and Ned sprung him from the hospital today. This went faster than anything else on this hospital visit, and unimaginably faster than the last time we did it, when we waited long enough that people kept coming around to see if they could have the bed for somebody else yet, with varying degrees of sensitivity.

The going-to-the-hospital process involved my waking Opal up and putting her into the car, over her protests: "It's the middle of the night! It isn't even dawn yet! Everybody's still asleep!" (It was, in fact, not yet 11 pm, so large numbers of people hadn't gone to sleep yet; I didn't get reminded that Palo Alto still turns off the traffic lights until I came back.) Once she'd gotten past that, she harrumphed "I never did anything like this in my whole life! You should have warned me!" "But I didn't know, darling." "You could have told me at dinner, then." "No, I didn't know until just before I woke you up." "Well, you still should have told me about it earlier. I don't like this kind of surprise."