You're a long time dead..

With mildly childish glee, i watched the bright headlight on the horizon, at idiot-o'clock this morning, & slowed, & even stopped, to time my run under the Sawyers Bay railway over-bridge just when the locomotive thundered overhead, with its train of container wagons..

To the tune of a JS Bach cantata, or some such..

Looked out this morning, feeling tired & mildly head-achy, & the sun was shining!
"Get up you lazy cow!  Got a headache? Take some paracetamol..  Hungry? Eat something  go & see the debt collector people today & get it over with.."

So i did.  They were quite nice.  They actually meant what they said when they wrote 'cash, cheque, or credit card'.  No EftPos.  Never mind.. 
A lot better than the the private health insurer who said to my late best friend Amanda 'cash or credit?' 
'Cash' says Amanda, & fronts up with $600 in folding stuff.
'Oh we can't handle cash.  Besides, we haven't made up the invoice yet.'
Amanda was already beside herself with worry - her partner's tracheoscopy (oesophagoscopy? -to the stomach, not the lungs) had revealed no sign of the (hoped-for) stomach ulcer, & dreaded thoughts of something far worse distracted her so much she left her wallet on top of the car as we headed for home.  
It took her too long to register our cries of 'Stop, stop!' as i briefly glimpsed something flick past the rear window.  
By the time we did stop, a cyclist behind us had picked up the wallet, done a u-turn straight across the (rather wide) road, knowing we couldn't follow quickly, & disappeared down a side street.

A couple of weeks later, her partner was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer.
That was at the beginning of October 2003.
Her partner died three days before Christmas..