Notes from Saturdays

The nurse walks me to a blue examination room, attaches a clip to my index finger and starts asking questions: do you know where you are? what year is it? what month? what day of the week is today? when did the accident happen?  He's kind and sweet. Almost sympathetic. I hold back my tears, embarrassed, and answer them all correctly, I think, although the year comes to me after a long pause & Wednesday is a wild guess. I hardly ever know what the days between Monday & Friday are. Half the time I think Friday is Thursday & for some curious reason 1985 seems to be the year we are in. I say 2021. "I'll show you three pictures and we'll check again in an hour & hopefully you will remember them all. OK?" He holds out 3 black and white illustrations: a cup -the white ones they put out at hotel breakfasts that hold 2 sips of tea, 2 keys on a ring and a bird. I walk back into the waiting room and join the angry sleepy woman with the sling, the messy builde...

I step out of the lift on ground floor and for the fifth time in 3 months look around in complete loss and amazement; which street was it again that Ubers can get into? The ground floor lobby has 2 exists and I am directionally challenged. Nothing looks familiar. I take my chances with the closer exit and walk out into the blinding sunlight dragging my huge site bag on my shoulder. I'm starving, or rather just bored. The cafes around this part of the city are so posh! The restaurants have actually set the lunch tables with wine glasses and rustic-beach ceramic plates. People in suits, handsome, better paid. Nothing like the dingy -almost dodgy- cafes and restaurants around my office where you get a whiff of marijuana with your burrito, people look grubby, unhealthy, overworked & underpaid if not homeless & on benefit. I spot a cool looking cafe. The guy behind the glass cabinet has unkempt almost hippie-like hair. I decide they won't mind my dirty site boots. I get in, ...