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lydamorehouseAs you know, I went down to LaCrosse on Tuesday night to sit with my mom while my dad had sugery to have his right kidney removed. (First, before anyone worries, all went well. My dad sometimes has post-op complications because of blood clot issues, but the doctors seem well on top of that. I left last night, so I'm back home, and quite hopeful that things will continue to go well for him.)
But, ever since that fateful WorldCON trip where I showed up in an East Coast city with no underwear or toothbrush, Shawn has taken over packing for me. Because, left to my own devices, things like this happen... I was happily ensconced in the pre-op waiting room Wednesday morning. My mom and dad had gone back to do that thing where they ask you all the questions that they should already know the answers to and make you lay around in an uncomfortably breezy hospital gown until they finally get around to giving you the happy juice that makes you sleep. For whatever reason, the nurse this time only wanted one family member back there, and so I stayed behind. (I eventually decided screw this, and went back to at least give my dad a kiss goodluck and make a few jokes so he could go under with a smile on his face.) But, at any rate, I'm working away on my various writing projects, figured out how to log-in to the hospital's wifi, and then I realized... oh, crap. I'm the one who packed the computer bag. Sure enough, NO POWERCORD.
Now the one thing I will say for my Toshiba (whom I usually refer to as "Pooh Bear, the Computer of Very Little Brain") is that the battery is absolutely phenomenal. I can go for HOURS. And I did. I managed to keep the computer up and running the whole time we waited for my dad to go into ER. I even had a few moments on-line while we were moved up to the family waiting room.
Then, just at the very end of reading a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
empty_mirrors's latest online, my battery winked out. But, I was able to comment using the waiting room's public terminal.
The other humorous part of my inability to pack my own technology bag is that my cell phone was also very slowly running out of battery (that, at least I knew about and had a charger in the car.) HOWEVER, it was also running out of minutes. And, just as I was finally leaving LaCrosse for the three hour drive back home, it completely died. I had to use my mom's cell to have Shawn send minutes while I charged it in the car.
I'm such a doofus.
I also managed to lose my .mp3 player somewhere in one of the waiting rooms. I kind of wondered if, because my dad's surgery went remarkably well (fingers crossed), the gods demanded I sacrifice some electronic battery-energy or something. But honestly, that's a fine trade. My dad woke up in recovery making jokes and harrassing the nurses in his usual, pleasant way, and we argued philosophy. My dad, for those just tuning in is a college professor (emertius, now, though of course he's still teaching,) and so while he drifted in and out of sleep I read to him from the book he'd brought. It was some philosophy for children book that was making the case for picture books as helpful for young children to learn about emotions. Being who I am, as I read, I editoralized, and my father would perk up and argue Plato and the other sorts of usual professorial things he does... I love my dad.
So, yeah, it was techno-fail, but papa-for-the-win.
But, ever since that fateful WorldCON trip where I showed up in an East Coast city with no underwear or toothbrush, Shawn has taken over packing for me. Because, left to my own devices, things like this happen... I was happily ensconced in the pre-op waiting room Wednesday morning. My mom and dad had gone back to do that thing where they ask you all the questions that they should already know the answers to and make you lay around in an uncomfortably breezy hospital gown until they finally get around to giving you the happy juice that makes you sleep. For whatever reason, the nurse this time only wanted one family member back there, and so I stayed behind. (I eventually decided screw this, and went back to at least give my dad a kiss goodluck and make a few jokes so he could go under with a smile on his face.) But, at any rate, I'm working away on my various writing projects, figured out how to log-in to the hospital's wifi, and then I realized... oh, crap. I'm the one who packed the computer bag. Sure enough, NO POWERCORD.
Now the one thing I will say for my Toshiba (whom I usually refer to as "Pooh Bear, the Computer of Very Little Brain") is that the battery is absolutely phenomenal. I can go for HOURS. And I did. I managed to keep the computer up and running the whole time we waited for my dad to go into ER. I even had a few moments on-line while we were moved up to the family waiting room.
Then, just at the very end of reading a
empty_mirrors's latest online, my battery winked out. But, I was able to comment using the waiting room's public terminal. The other humorous part of my inability to pack my own technology bag is that my cell phone was also very slowly running out of battery (that, at least I knew about and had a charger in the car.) HOWEVER, it was also running out of minutes. And, just as I was finally leaving LaCrosse for the three hour drive back home, it completely died. I had to use my mom's cell to have Shawn send minutes while I charged it in the car.
I'm such a doofus.
I also managed to lose my .mp3 player somewhere in one of the waiting rooms. I kind of wondered if, because my dad's surgery went remarkably well (fingers crossed), the gods demanded I sacrifice some electronic battery-energy or something. But honestly, that's a fine trade. My dad woke up in recovery making jokes and harrassing the nurses in his usual, pleasant way, and we argued philosophy. My dad, for those just tuning in is a college professor (emertius, now, though of course he's still teaching,) and so while he drifted in and out of sleep I read to him from the book he'd brought. It was some philosophy for children book that was making the case for picture books as helpful for young children to learn about emotions. Being who I am, as I read, I editoralized, and my father would perk up and argue Plato and the other sorts of usual professorial things he does... I love my dad.
So, yeah, it was techno-fail, but papa-for-the-win.