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Who Said So?

Michael 2 Comments

This Saturday is National Coffee Day. It might have been the brain child of somebody at Maxwell House but since it seems to have been celebrated only since 2005 or so, chances are better it was the work of those Starbucks people.  Or maybe not.

Did you know you can find a food to celebrate every day of the year? Some days two or three! Did you ever wonder where they all come from? Cynically, I used to think they are all promotional activities of a company that produces the particular celebrant. But I recently discovered that’s not always the case. In fact it seems to be not often the case.

CuppaThe key that this might be true is is the description of those many heralded food stuffs’ celebratory dates. Quite often they read “probably first observed in…” or “not much is known about the origins of…”. Really? We can pinpoint the day and time Dunkin’ Donuts becomes Dunkin’ (Start of Business, Jan. 1, 2019; parent company will continue to be known as Dunkin’ Brands (in case you really needed to know)) but not when Coffee Day became a day when all those chains that push coffee will push free coffee (probably with an additional purchase) that day. But if it was one of those, would they (it?) not have registered or trademarked or whatevered “Coffee Day” so all caffeine addicts would have to beat paths to their doors and thus take full and sole (or sole and full, even) advantage of those additional purchases?

Maybe they didn’t. Um, they being them, those companies, or associations or user groups or other sort of official folk. Maybe it was John-Bryan Hopkins, founder of the Foodimentary website. In a 2004 interview with Money, he said he created hundreds of such “holidays.” When Foodimentary.com went live in 2006, “there were already around 175 food-related holidays. ‘I filled in the rest,’ he said, to ensure there was at least one food holiday for every day of the year.”

So do we thank Mr. Hopkins for Coffee Day, or International Tea Day (December 15) for non-coffee-drinkers (coffee non-drinkers?)? I don’t know, but thanks to him, if it wasn’t before it is now possible to wake up any day of the year and say to yourself “Self, what makes today unlike any other day, food wise that is?” and have an answer.

By the way, if you can’t wait for Saturday to guzzle a mug full of your favorite stimulant, Friday is Drink a Beer Day.🍺

Fall Fetched Ideas

Michael 5 Comments

Fall arrived two days ago. Up here, north of the Equator fall arrived. In the Southern Hemisphere you’re just getting to spring so you might want to bookmark this and come back to it in 6 months. Yeah, there are a few brave souls south of zero degrees that read this. I was amazed also but thank you my Southern friends.

Anyway, fall rolled in here a little after 9:30 pm (2130 hours to those with 24 hour clocks) (just in case) and that should have been the end of it. “It” could be summer but in this case “it” is the question, “When does fall begin?” Apparently it’s not at the end of summer. Who knew?

This morning I read an article about the upcoming harvest moon, that being the full moon closest to the Autumnal Equinox, which you recall from 3 sentences ago was Saturday evening. Or night depending on your interpretation of a day’s divisions. The full moon closest to that day and time happens tonight, which according to the article signals the start of fall. Hmm.

Three weeks ago Americans celebrated Labor Day which not only commemorates violent confrontation between labor and management but also rocking hot, year-end deals on leftover 2018 model cars and trucks. And…the “unofficial end of summer” and darned if not then by extrapolation, the “unofficial start of fall.” That’s three down.

Starbucks, AKA If We Say So It Must Be So, Inc., released their Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL to those under 35), which according to Business Insider, “has become an iconic marker of the beginning of autumn.” That’s four.

FloridaFallTo meteorologists, also known as weather guys (or weather people to the more inclusive (which is the more inclusive term for politically correct)), “Meteorological Fall” begins September 1. To football fans (American Football naturally) fall begins with the first high school, college or NFL game of the year, to horse racing enthusiasts the summer ends after the Breeders Cup and by that same extrapolation used above, fall will start the day after (November 4 this year), and to residents of South Florida, fall never comes. We’re up to 5 through 8 if you’re still counting.

And then there are those who mark the change of season with the changing of time as Daylight Saving Time morphs into regular, old, ordinary Time, which itself keeps moving around. The last time I checked, and when I’m planning on changing my clocks, that is the first Sunday of November which is November 4 in 2018. Hey, that’s the same day as the beginning of the Fall of the Horse People. Should it count twice? My post, my rules, I say yes. Number 9.

Personally for me, fall begins the last Sunday of October (this October that’s the 28th) when I pull the battery on the Miata and consign it to the garage until spring (my spring, but that’s a different post).

Ten ways to figure out when fall starts. And in a few months, nobody will think twice about winter other than to question will it never end. Well, give me six months and I’ll see if I can figure out when the first day of spring arrives for 2019. Except for the Southern Hemisphere.

Sorry, you’re still on your own down there, but thanks for reading!

99

Michael 7 Comments

99.4% pure

99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 luftballons

99 parts perspiration

99 days until Christmas

SantaFrankYikes! Only 99 days until Christmas! That must explain why I’m starting to see Christmas displays and decorations for sale in the stores. They don’t have themselves decorated yet. Halloween is the theme for their own decor but there are indeed in store Christmas displays started to crop up. I went to At Home last week and walked by close to a hundred artificial trees just inside the main entrance.

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve tried (often failed but tried) to adhere to the adage “proper planning prevents poor performance” but I don’t think the first space shot took three months of preparation. Ok, that’s probably not true but still.

Since the world is giving us three months to prepare for Christmas (or whatever winter holiday you want to celebrate, I’m picking Christmas), here are 99 suggested activities. One for each day.

 

  1. Tell someone you love them
  2. Tell someone you love who you haven’t talked to for a while that you love them
  3. Read something you know will make you smile
  4. Watch a movie
  5. Give blood or give a donation to your local blood bank
  6. Listen to a song you used to sing along to
  7. Send somebody a card or letter – a real one, not one with an “e” in front
  8. Hug a friend
  9. Buy flowers for yourself
  10. Offer to help
  11. Take a walk
  12. Read something you know will make you cry
  13. Update your emergency contact information
  14. Splurge on yourself
  15. Pet a dog
  16. Watch a cartoon
  17. Call a friend (Don’t text!)
  18. Do something without thinking
  19. Apologize for what you did yesterday
  20. Straighten your sock drawer
  21. Meditate
  22. Hold a door open
  23. See the dentist! At least make an appointment
  24. Try something healthy
  25. Eat a cookie
  26. Try something new
  27. Retry something old
  28. Have a waffle
  29. Go to a museum
  30. Sing along to a song you used to listen to.
  31. Leave a penny
  32. Call a relative
  33. Play with a child’s toy
  34. Draw a picture
  35. Play solitaire
  36. Exercise until you like it
  37. Watch an old movie
  38. Change (or make) your email signature
  39. Read a short story
  40. Sing a song a capella
  41. Laugh for no reason
  42. Make up a knock knock joke
  43. Be nice to someone you don’t agree with
  44. Eat an apple
  45. Eat candy
  46. Unplug
  47. Talk with an accent
  48. Sleep late
  49. Put together a jigsaw puzzle
  50. Take a ride for no reason
  51. Pet a cat
  52. Hug a friend again
  53. Recycle
  54. Give something away
  55. Change the batteries in your smoke detectors
  56. Whistle a happy tune
  57. Pickle something
  58. Be bold
  59. Be careful
  60. Admit fault
  61. Talk to others nicely
  62. Tell a story
  63. Invite a friend over
  64. Talk to yourself nicely
  65. Let someone go in front of you
  66. Don’t be late!
  67. Take a chance
  68. Buy a chance
  69. Yell out loud
  70. Say something nice
  71. Give thanks
  72. Buy something you don’t need
  73. Put on a happy face
  74. Take a selfie
  75. Organize the spice cabinet
  76. Go to bed early
  77. Offer to help
  78. Have a brownie
  79. Donate something you haven’t used yet this year
  80. Smile
  81. Agree – respectfully ChristmasTree
  82. Look at old pictures
  83. Work it out
  84. Be silly
  85. Clear your mind
  86. Ask for help
  87. Disagree – respectfully
  88. Wear plaid
  89. Write a review
  90. Clean the mirrors
  91. Clean the refrigerator
  92. Tell someone a secret
  93. Learn three new words
  94. Draw something
  95. Wave to the neighbors
  96. Welcome an old friend
  97. Plan next year’s resolution(s)
  98. Take responsibility
  99. Say a prayer

 

Merry Christmas. Eventually.

What Faux Fall Flora Wrought

Michael 6 Comments

We are almost half way through September which means if you haven’t yet, you soon are going to be too late to buy any of the good Halloween decorations. I was thinking about this last weekend when I was taking stock of my meager faux fall flora for my coffee table and front door. I like fall. I like the colors. I like the calmness that seems to fall upon fall mornings. But except for fun size candy bars, I’m not so much into Halloween.

Apparently I didn’t get the memo. Last year Americans spent over $9 million on Halloween decorations. Right around 9,100,000 dollars according to The Balance e-zine. They went on to say that is because it’s an economical holiday and people “are willing to spend money on something if it provides a lot of value. Halloween does that.” I guess they didn’t see the $14 hairy spider at Big Lots. Or maybe they did and their idea of value is different from mine.

FauxFallFloraIf you crunch some numbers and divide this into that, that being how many people claim to celebrate Halloween with more than spiked cider and this being that 9 million figure, you come up with a spend of about $86 per person. I’ve spent that much on a nativity set and I have well over 50 of them. (Really. Some people are into hairy spiders, I’m into nativities. I have them, many complete with wise men, made of clothes pins, cheesecloth, corn husks, ceramic, glass, plastic, straw, bronze, wood (carved, sculpted, machine cut and assembled, hinged, and nested), bronze, stone, steel, marble, paper, wool and rubber, sawn from barn board, and cut out of paper.) It’s what I do for Christmas so I can’t say if you want to eighty-some bucks on Halloween you’re nuts. But if you’re planning on spending eighty-some bucks on Halloween, you’re nuts! Except for the little candy bars. Those are cool.

Anyway…just yesterday I was going through my email and I came across a headline “Ugly Halloween Sweaters Were Made For People Who Are Too Lazy to Dress Up.” Well, I couldn’t pass up that piece of bait and I clicked away. What I discovered is, like ugly Christmas sweaters, the ugly Halloween sweaters really aren’t. This is just my opinion but that opinion is that they are kind of cute. The other thing I discovered is that somebody’s going to have to revise that $86 per person spending estimate. Those sweaters go for about $40 per.

For myself, I’m sticking with the faux fall flora. Maybe I’ll spend my $86 on another manger scene this Christmas.

 

Cold Comfort (Food)

Michael 4 Comments

We are moving toward the end of summer and harvest time seems to be in full swing at the local farmers’ markets. A modest investment in fresh produce turned into a couple days spinning circles in my tiny kitchen meal prepping for the next few weeks.

I always try to have something ready to eat on the days when I get home from dialysis. My scheduled time at the clinic is 11:30 which puts me back home around 5 in the afternoon. That’s the perfect time to start dinner except the last thing I want to do after dialysis is … well, anything.

During the summer I spend most of my cooking time in front of the grill on the patio. There it is easy to throw on extra of whatever I’m cooking and pack up a second meal that I would heat up for a future dialysis day dinner (DDD). In the winter, not unlike so many kitchens, mine plays host to casseroles, stews, and chilies. All yield multiple meals that can be refrigerated or frozen for use on those days when the thought of actually preparing a meal is more exhausting that actually preparing a meal.

But now we’ve entered that in between season. Eventually even I tire of my fabulous smoked chicken thighs with grilled zucchini planks and I’m not ready for Italian sausage and acorn squash casserole. What to do? Take some of that farmers’ market bounty and turn it into frozen dinners or sides. So yesterday I did just that, blanching beans, stuffing peppers, rolling cabbage leaves, and more. Now I have a freezer full of DDDs.

TVDinner

The Original

What makes any of this blog worthy? Because today celebrates the birthday of the classic American frozen dinner, Swanson TV Dinner. Yep, Sept 10, 1953 the frozen turkey dinner hit the markets and Swanson figured they’d sell maybe 5,000 of them. The first year they sold over 10 million dinners and created a new market niche.

In 1962 Swanson stopped labeling them as the “TV Dinner” but the term stuck and anybody who ever adjusted a pair of rabbit ears (go ask your grandfather) still calls any frozen meal a TV dinner.

So I’m happy to say I have celebrated National TV Dinner Day with gusto and with gustatory appropriateness (or appropriate gustatoriness).

And it’s been a pleasure to post about anything actually older than me!

Step 1 Again…The Donor Perspective

Michael 12 Comments

Now that I’ve been added to the kidney transplant waiting list the hard work begins. Finding a donor. On one hand you can sit around, stay healthy, make sure the transplant center has your current contact information, and just wait. On the other hand, you can try to find a living donor and go through all new sorts of levels of stress.

My immediate family has dwindled to a pair of sisters and a daughter. That would not be a good hand to hold in poker. But all three have expressed interest in donating and that closes the odds. They decided they would go through the donor evaluation process before we would ask if we should look to others. All three are currently in the process but at different stages. Two have been determined to be acceptable matches, one still awaits those results, and none is anywhere near completing the battery of tests donor candidates face.

You remember all the examinations and tests I had to go through? If you don’t, type “kidney transplant” in the site search bar and refresh your memory. We’ll wait. … Ok, ready? Well, as the saying goes, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Like mine, their first appointment was a phone interview, a few basic questions designed to screen for obvious exclusions like diabetes, untreated high blood pressure, or various cancers. Also like mine, their first on site appointment meant lots of tubes of blood, a chest x-ray, an EKG, and face to face interviews with a nephrologist, surgeon, nurse, social worker, and transplant coordinator. Unlike mine, theirs also includes a donor advocate who is also a previous donor.

Like my first appointment at the hospital they left with a handful of appointments for follow up tests. Unlike mine, theirs were unlike mine. Where mine were targeted to make certain I could sustain the rigors of the operation and maintain the required follow up to prevent rejection, potential donors are tested to make as certain as possible that they are as healthy as possible and will be able to withstand the rigors of life with a single kidney.

Potential organ donors must be at least 18 and not more than 70 years old. That’s quite a range and obviously an 18 year old is going to be and is going to expect a different level of health than a 70 year old. My potential donors are just shy of 29 and a little over 67 years old. The one in between just turned 56. Three different stages of life, three different batteries of tests. Any single test can exclude the person or become the focus of a follow-up test. Surprisingly the youngest has the biggest list of baseline tests. As she explained it, the reviewing nephrologist said a 48 year old who is healthy today has a pretty good chance of still being healthy in 20 years. He has already passed the age when chronic illnesses would have taken hold even if they aren’t obviously obvious. Being healthy today means less to the 28 year old and how she will be at 68, 58, or even 48 so her testing will be more in depth and her expected results more stringent to mitigate missing sign of problems that might develop in the future.

In all cases they are going to get the best physical they’ve ever received. And if they pass all the physical exams they even get to have a go with a psychiatrist.

That’s just in case you thought you were nuts giving away part of your body.

——

If you’d like to re-read all the posts in this thread as well as other related posts, I’ve put links to all of them on one page. Go here, to join the journey.

Related posts

First Steps (Feb. 15, 2018)
The Next Step (March 15, 2018)
The Journey Continues (April 16, 2018)
More Steps (May 31, 2018)
Step 4: The List (July 12, 2018)

 

Aw, Quit Your Wining

Michael 8 Comments

You can pretty much always find a bottle of white wine and one of Prosecco in my refrigerator. Which is really a shame when you think about it because not only should they not be committed to the same temperature, neither temperature that either should be chilled to is what a kitchen refrigerator is kept at. I used to have that handled by way of a stand-alone wine refrigerator that could handle different temperatures in different zones for different wines. Two refrigerators in fact. But those days are over.

Some of you let that pass right on by. Some noticed but didn’t notice. Some are just now wondering in almost 700 posts I’ve never given any indication of being a garden variety sot. Why so much wine? It actually isn’t a mystery of so much wine as so many refrigerators. Let me explain. If I can.

Many years ago I saw this really nice counter top wine refrigerator for some ridiculously cheap price in a remainder store. (Tuesday Morning actually if you have one of them near you. You can check them out or not. I get nothing for mentioning them. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I mentioned them. Anyway…) I looked it over and decided it would sit nicely on the bar in the family room of my old house.

This was all going on during my wine phase. I would go to the local winery every other week and always would bring something back. There were trips to the Erie and Niagara wine trails. I would explore the neighborhood wine shop for an interesting find. (By the way, one of my favorite methods for selecting new wines was the look of the label. I said I was in a wine phase, not that I had become a wine expert.) (Wait. What was I saying? Oh, right. Labels. It was by that very method that I discovered Plungerhead Lodi, a respectable old vine zinfandel.) (I don’t get anything from them either.) (Don’t worry, that didn’t go into the refrigerator. I’m not that much of a Neanderthal!)

Since I was also in a phase where I had to go overboard with everything, I had to have a separate refrigerator for wine. It couldn’t go in the beer refrigerator. The optimal temperatures for beer and wine are nothing alike. And I was in a wine phase. I needed that wine chiller. And by all that was alcoholic, I got that wine chiller. So shortly after I spotted it, the countertop wine cooler was in the back of the car and we were heading home.

Now that worked well for a time then I noticed a problem. The bar and its counter, upon which sat the countertop refrigerator, were in the family room in the lower level of the house. A reasonable place to watch hockey and drink beer. But not wine. Wine was had with dinner, after dinner, in the evening on the patio, and occasionally in the hot tub, all upper level activities.  I decided that if I drank wine upstairs I had to store it upstairs. Suddenly the cute little wine refrigerator sitting so neatly on the corner of the bar was inconvenient. I had to correct that. And since I was making more money than sense, I couldn’t just move the one I had.

WineCoolerSo it was back on the hunt. In fact, it was back to Tuesday Morning (who still isn’t giving me anything for mentioning them, the nerve!), where I found an upright wine refrigerator with two zones, each one’s temperature individually controlled so you could keep different wines at their own optimal temps. (I was getting better in this wine phase thingy.) Of course I had to have it, so it came home with me and went into the sun room on the upper level where after dinner drinking and near where during dinner drinking and on patio drinking and drunken hot tubing drinking happened. Yet all the while the cute little counter top wine cooler continued to cool wine on top of the counter on the bar just in case I had the urge to raise a Riesling while watching hockey on the big screen. And all was right with the world. For several years actually.

But then I moved and the new place doesn’t have an upstairs or a downstairs or a dining room or even a hot tub. I really wanted somebody in the family to take custody of one or the other of the wine refrigerators but my sisters already had their version and my daughter didn’t have room.  So both refrigerators were sold and less was right with the world for now I have to keep my Prosecco chilling next to the orange juice.

But that really isn’t such a bad thing since most Sunday mornings they get together anyway. Well, I still have a patio.

What Have You

Michael 4 Comments

I spent a day in the car last week doing some visiting, running some errands, and generally taking on a “what have you” type day. In the course of that day I discovered a few things.

I had the radio on listening to a sports talk program. A question came up regarding how we listen to music. It’s not hockey season so sports talk takes in rather diverse subject matters. Both hosts mentioned the listen to songs stored on their phones or streamed on a service. One admitted he still listens to the radio but only in the car. Both said they haven’t played a CD in years and iPods are basically modern relics. Boy am I behind the times! Almost all my music is on CDs and what isn’t is on an MP3 player.

ReceiptsReceipts continue to be out of control. Just earlier this year I wrote about the nearly 22 inch long receipt I got at the grocery store. Any paper saved by newspapers no longer printing hard copy editions is being used in store receipts. It was reinforced on my “what have you” day when I got home and emptied my bags and pockets and sat two receipts side by side. I present the photographic evidence here. Together, both receipts reflect a total of 7 items purchased. The longer receipt from Walgreens is for 2 each of 2 different items. The shorter Walmart receipt represents 3 individual pieces. I guess if you’re looking to save the environment, go to Walmart.

Because I got hungry on my “what have you” day, I made a quick run through the drive through at Burger King. Since I had just read about it in some magazine I thought I’d try their Veggie King, basically a Whopper made with a veggie burger. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. What merits inclusion of this stop in this post of what have you’s is not the faux burger but the soft drink. You cannot drink a soft drink in a moving vehicle without a straw given the current lids used on soft drink cups. Of course anybody who is anybody is denouncing plastic drinking straws this year so much so that McDonald’s and Starbucks have both announced plans to move to biodegradable straws in some unspecified future. As I sipped my soft drink through the offending tube I wonder if those chains will also be shifting to biodegradable trash bags or if their expensive earth saving sipper will remain undegraded for a few thousand years encased in black plastic.

Can I come up with some random thoughts while doing what have you!

All of the Somebodies

Michael 6 Comments

Before I begin I want to say that if you’ve become accustomed to my constant comments and I’ve become inexplicably silent on your blogs, I’ve had some issue commenting. For some reason, WordPress doesn’t think I’m logged in to my account even after I log in to my account. I can post. I can “like.” I just can’t comment. Sometimes. Most of the times. But not not all of the times. I can comment on all of the people some of the time; I can comment on some of the people all of the time; but I can’t comment on all of the people all of the time. And if I haven’t been commenting on yours, you’re probably some of the all. But probably not all of the some.

And before I continue, you might have noticed over the past few weeks I hadn’t posted as often or as regularly. As regularly or as often? I’m sure it makes a difference as to which comes first but not to the world which remarkably kept spinning regardless of me posting often or regularly. Or regularly or often. Anyway, I hadn’t. I hadn’t had much to say.

I think I might have not had much to say because I hadn’t been feeling myself. This was odd because so many people I have run across the past few weeks have taken what seemed to be pains to tell me how well I looked. I’m not sure why that surprised so many. I don’t have a flesh eating bacterial infection which with maybe gross morbid obesity are the only conditions that could make one not look well. Just about anything else isn’t readily evident. Well, just about any other chronic condition. You give somebody a full blown summer cold with the sneezing and the running nose and the watery eyes and that person will look like the definition of not well for a week to 10 days. But if you saddle somebody with a chronic condition, particularly one controlled with medication or treatment, that somebody tends to look like everybody else.

I almost cringe when I see the commercials on TV for this month’s miracle cure in which the person playing the person in need of the cure looks into the camera and says with all the sincerity a poorly paid commercial actor, “but I look normal.” Well, guess what? So does everybody else. It is not only the rare diseases that masquerade as normal. I bet you couldn’t pick out of the crowd somebody with high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, COPD, or hypothyroidism.

I also almost cringe whenever I hear people use the terms “chronic disease” and “chronic illness” when what they really want to say is “this thing I have that nobody understands and took me a dozen doctors before I found one who understands it.” I can say that because I’ve probably done that. But really, if you’re going to add for special consideration or exceptional treatment because you have a “chronic illness” you better include somebody with high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, COPD, or hypothyroidism because those are just as chronic.

But I digress. I guess I haven’t written much because I haven’t felt like myself. Don’t worry though. The world indeed will continue to spin and I’ll soon snap out of it and will be back to rambling in no time.

Until then, I think I might try to comment on this post. That should really confuse WordPress.

Bloody Hell

Michael 1 Comment

It’s nice to have memories. Pictures are good reminders of things fun times and people. Certificates bring back the pride of recognition. Scars are my reminders of usually something stupid I did.

Last week I was reminded of a scar as I was conversing with a friend. She had mentioned the previous night, actually early that morning, unusual activity in the house across the street from her. Lights were on at a time they shouldn’t have been and cars were in the driveway that shouldn’t have been. Immediately my mind went to activity at my house that shouldn’t have been.

I once ended up in the emergency room seven stitches to close a cut that I got from walking into a cardboard box. I don’t know why nobody could understand how a piece of cardboard sliced my leg open so efficiently that I had left a trail of blood from the living room through the dining room into the kitchen where it collected into a pool of blood rivaling what one usually finds beneath a freshly slaughtered chicken. And I use that animal as the example because I was scared like the proverbial chicken not just at the thought that I might die of massive blood loss on a newly laid kitchen floor while all the sharp objects lay safely nestled in their holders, but that if I lived long enough for someone to try to close that gash it was going to involve other sharp objects like scrapers and needles and undoubtedly a tetanus shot. Maybe it wasn’t a chicken I was channeling as much as a scaredy cat.

What happened that one morning I was up early roaming the house with only the light coming through the windows to guide me. There wasn’t much light because it just shortly after five in the morning but it was an August morning so full sunrise wasn’t that far away. Besides I had gone down that hall to the living room for 29 years and I was certain where to step. Except this was that period of time between having a contract to sale the house and actually moving out and closing on the deal. More specifically it was at the moving out stage and that’s why there were boxes hither and yon. One of the ones in yon was right next to my chair where I had planned to plop myself and watch the morning news. As I rounded the bend I walked into the box catching a top corner with the outside of my leg and I knew immediately I had done something unpleasant. I knew immediately because that’s how long it took for me to feel blood running down my leg.

TheBoxI thought at first it was just a scratch and I started a hobble back down the hall to the bathroom to wash and dress it. Then I saw how much blood covered my hand when I brought it back up from checking what I’d done. I altered course for the nearer kitchen sink and by the time I got there I had left a trail Dracula could have sniffed out from his home in Transylvania. I grabbed a towel and tied it around my leg, grabbed the phone, called my daughter for help, and went back to apply as much pressure as I could to the outside of my leg.

I should mention that all this was happening about 8 weeks after I got out of the hospital for the marathon four month stay and probably hadn’t the strength to apply sufficient pressure to stop a paper cut. By the time my daughter got to the house I looked like the victim of a mugging. I was on the floor with my leg elevated on the lower rung of a kitchen stool. I was whiter than the towel that continued to get redder. I held the phone in one hand trying to dial 911 with just that hand while the other was feebly twisting said kitchen towel around my calf. Between the calling of the daughter and her arrival I decided we weren’t going to be able to staunch this flow and navigate our way to the required help ourselves and opted for professional assistance.

Not much later were in the ER, an IV running to replace my lost fluids, a clean dressing covering my first stitches not associated with surgery, and awaiting the dreaded tetanus shot, we discussed where to go for breakfast. It was after all still morning and my kitchen was busy doing its imitation of a crime scene. Not much gets between me and food.

So that’s what I thought of when my friend had seen activity in the early hours across the street and as I ran my hand over the scar on my lower leg I wondered what my neighbors might have thought on my unusually active morning.

Incidentally, if you ever want to get the front of the line at an emergency room, show up in an ambulance and bleeding.