Bringing Coffee for Alice

This was written around three months before Alice’s passing.

I ran an errand of mercy for Alice yesterday morning: bring coffee! She refuses to drink the hospital coffee; she says it tastes nasty. So I filled up a thermos cup for her, set it in the cupholder in my car, and off I went!

Sitting in a long line of cars at a red light, suddenly the car lurched with a mighty thump!

“Not todaaay!” I cried out in frustration.

I got out of the car and sure enough, the lady behind me had hit my car from behind. She was profusely apologetic. “My foot just slipped off the brake for a second!” she said.

I have bad news to report. Alice’s coffee had tipped over and spilled.

What’s that? What about the car, you ask?

Well, you aren’t going to believe this, but my car was completely unharmed; not even a scratch.

Both the manically apologizing lady and myself were considerably relieved, although she seemed a bit bemused by my jumping up and down shouting, “Praise God! Hallelujah!”

Despite the spillage, there was still plenty left for a hot cup of Costa Rican coffee, which Alice gulped down happily.

Her dietician is concerned that she isn’t eating enough, so she asked me to bring in a low sodium meal from Alice’s favorite restaurant for dinner.

Well, Alice’s favorite restaurant is Red Lobster, which seasons their food with salt by the bucketful, so good luck with that, but on the order I added the note, “Make as low sodium as possible.”

And so last night Alice and I had a date night! (“…in the hospital,” she said dryly. “How romantic.”) She absolutely loved her broiled rainbow trout, rice, and green bean dinner and ate most of it.

She eyed my dinner—shrimp skewers—enviously, but I didn’t order that for her for fear it’d be too salty, but it wasn’t. So I’ll get her that next time.