Midnight

Yesterday was a good dozen hours with a surgeon who, um, put it this way, I wouldn't let him work on me. Add to that he is very difficult to work with. The last three hours I was scrubbed in with him, while he asked for items, then ignored when the instrument was proffered, then he worked on my table while the fellow and resident asked for things, which I couldn't get to because of him, and he would ask for an item not used in the case before, that I had to find, and he kept asking for it, over and over without giving me enough time to get it. Or having used an item, threw it back on the back table randomly, and then asked for it, which took me some time to find, since I was not the one who put it there.

Oh, and there was a med student keeping me from passing sharps safely, so I had to keep asking him to move so I would pass the blade or suture. And it's not like this surgeon wasn't making it up as he went along anyway. The resident, after surgeon left as they closed, made a point of thanking and assuring me I kept up very well, which I did not feel I did, but I appreciated his thoughtfulness. The fellow who was on her second day of the fellowship, treated me politely throughout. Shall I mention that it was a very sad, rather difficult, and unusual case? And that I didn't set it up initially, which made it just that touch more awkward? My legs hurt a bit more than every other part of me.

So, when I got home I found this waiting for me.



An advanced reader's copy. Because I have this "book" connection, ahem. I finished reading it by noon today. There are a few editing blips, and Pratchett's brain issues show a bit, a few details that disturb the flow, a certain repetitiousness not typical of his writing of years ago. But, given these minor roughnesses, it's delightful and potent and funny, a worthy story. I also got the feeling that perhaps he writes each book as the one he could feel proud of to be his last. As such, this absolutely qualifies, with some unexpected tying up of very old threads.

I suspect he is also rather glad he has a well established motif of time travel, and the issue of which leg of the Trousers of Time one ends up in changing the circumstances to some degree. Covers a multitude of, oh, call it variation. His themes are there, it's full of love and courage and Nac Mac Feegles. What else could I ask for?