September, 2010
It's been a usual type of day here at Grandpas' Farm. We have just been sitting here admiring the fog rising off the river. I'm not always too fond of fog because it means the season's are about to change. It is almost football season which is ok, except that football always brings colder weather with it.
This evening we needed to go to the Small City to watch our grandson play football but as usual the sequence of events that needed to take place first got going in high gear early.
The first and worst of the events was what I call the Bloodletting Ceremony. For some reason before you can see the doctor you have to give some blood at the Clinic. I suspect that they sell it or something but it's a requirement. I was supposed to be there at 9:30 but I always go at 8:30 just in case they have some no-shows. I was supposed to be in the Small City by 9:30 to work on an apartment. I figured somebody wouldn't show so it would be no problem.
Yes, problem. Everyone and their cat was there to get their blood let. Must have been a hot market for blood. I was very patient and waited my turn, carefully noting who the nurse was taking the blood samples. It turned out to be a nurse I knew from past experience and I figured it was going to be a usual day of bloodletting but at least it would be fun.
My usual experience with blood letting is many pokes - not enough blood. I have sometimes been stuck four or five times before the proper amount could be withdrawn. They always blame it on my jeans but it doesn't matter which ones I wear it always seems to turn out the same. Then they have the audacity to blame it on my parent's jeans. I don't remember either of my parents ever wearing jeans. They were old timers who believed women wore dresses and men wore overalls and if you needed to bleed don't do it on the rug.
Getting poked with a blood letting needle is not my idea of a good time. I'm the guy that once cut my finger with a pocketknife trying to open a pop can, walked clear across the orchard to where the boss was, watched him wrap the finger and promptly passed out as I groped for the door handle of his pickup. I never watched those first aid movies of simulated accidents because my eyes were closed all the time. I wouldn't make a good EMT because there would be two patients to treat if there was blood involved.
Anyway, the nurse I got was a funny one I had had several times before. She usually took about three pokes to draw blood. That beats five any day but as we got started she struck out on number one.
Looks like a usual day (but I didn't look.)
She surprised me and got it on the second one. All the time she was doing this she was giving me a lot of banter about it and gave me several ideas for something to write about which in my usual style I promptly forgot. (Trauma erases memory just like gray hair does.) So, to make a short story long the highlight of my day was to get it over with in two pokes.
After that I was only fifteen minutes late to work which didn't matter because I am self employed. I cut a cabinet in half, helped the rug guy measure the apartment, helped decide to put vinyl in the kitchen and dining room and ripped out the kitchen floor so I could put in new underlayment for the vinyl. In between I washed the old dirty switch plate and outlet covers, vacuumed the floor in the kitchen and put the shelves and brackets back into the closets.
We made it to the football game early and the team lost to a smaller school but our grandson played a really good game. He's a big boy so played almost the whole game at tackle on offense and nose guard on defense or the other way around, whichever. It was fun to watch.
Sorry to not be able to relate that something interesting or exciting happened out here in the country. It was just a usual day with just a little more blood than usual. Wake me up if anything interesting comes along.
(I like it that way!!!)
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