16:38 3/5/2003
In the heart of the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas....
Well, not really so beautiful on this gloomy day, it's a study in greys. Pretty, of course, but it is what it is... desolate prairie, covered with frozen mist, each branch, each leaf of grass encased in its own glass sheath, waiting for the sun.
I started off the day living dangerously, once again shutting off my alarm before I got out of bed. I had planned on getting up at 05:30, but I had a helluva time getting to sleep last night, and I didn't roll out until almost 06:00. A quick shower, then out to get the car warmed up to get the ice melted off of the windshield. I discovered that one of the wipers was heavily damaged, and would have to be replaced before starting off today.
I got to work just barely on time, lugging in some salsa that Karen had made for my birthday. People at work just love Karen's salsa, and it's practically carb- and calorie-free, except for the chips, of course, which are pure carbs.
We had a very light schedule, many people had called in yesterday and last night to cancel exams for today because of the weather.
Speaking of which, it wasn't really all that bad... we only got about a half-inch of powdery snow on top of the quarter-inch of ice. I had no trouble at all getting to work this morning.
I decided to leave early, since the last patient was scheduled for 13:15... so I left at 12:30. I walked out of the door thinking about all of the stuff that I needed to do before we started the drive to Enid... and promptly fell flat on my ass on a slick spot.
I was almost to the other side of the drive to the south of the Mulvane building, and my left knee wound up hitting the curb, as did my left elbow. My right leg was turned underneath me. I sat there several seconds, contemplating how very cold the concrete was and how there were stars (asterisks, really (askerii?)) spinning around my head in a counterclockwise direction. I briefly wondered if the stars go clockwise if you're south of the equator.
I was brought out of my brief reverie by a guy in a van asking me if I was OK. I waved him off and brought myself slowly to my feet. Everything seemed to be working OK, but my knee was throbbing already, but moving it didn't make it any worse, so it wasn't broken, just bruised. Same with the elbow. I think that I was seeing stars because of the jolt, not because I'd hit my head, which was my first impression.
By the time I'd walked to the car I knew I was gonna be fine, with bruises.
I had to go to Walgreens to pick up a coupla scripts for Karen and get my BS testing supplies... but the script still hadn't been called in from my doc's office, so I picked up Karen's stuff and went on home.
Karen was pretty well packed up but we weren't hurrying, we had plenty of time. The schools were out today, so Drew had been with Karen all morning, then he went over to Patrick's and Lacee came over to spend some time with Karen, and Lacee was still there when I got there. I took her home and then I called Walgreens, they had the strips but not the lancettes. The girl thought that they had some arriving on a shipment that had just hit their dock.
(We're just south of ElDorado, and I glanced out the window and saw a hawk watching me from a post beside the road. I've always been fascinated by hawks....)
Anyways, back to the story; we loaded up and headed out about 15:00. Went by Walgreens, and they had the strips, but the lancettes had been back-ordered. I had them transfer the script to the Walgreens in Enid. I just hope that they have them, else I'll have to use my pocket-knife.
And I also found out that the testing supplies aren't covered by insurance... and they're about $0.80 apiece. Of course, I can go to just testing once a day once I get everything figgered out a little closer.
Last night I was at 125 before bedtime, a little higher than I want to be... but I had three pieces of a sub sandwich, since Karen didn't want hers, and I think that the extra 15 or 20 carbs in the bread put me over.
Karen and I stopped at McDonalds on the pike, we both had a fish sandwich and fries. Yeah, fries are really bad for carbs, but I only ate about half of a small, and I had a small shake, that's the first time that I've ever ordered a small shake. And I didn't eat a good portion of the bread either... I'm getting this shit figgered out, I am.
South of Wichita now... I've been writing here and listening to Pink Floyd with earphones on the laptop while Karen is driving and listening to 50-60s stuff on the car stereo. Pretty soon I'll have to relieve her, it's getting close to dark and I'll need to take over, due to her night blindness, if that's the proper term for it.
I do enjoy driving, though... and I enjoy riding, and I enjoy being with Karen.
This is my grandma Mable's birthday, she would be... well, she was born in 1895 maybe, or was it '98? I loved both of my grandmas, and they both died younger than they should have, dammit. So did my grandpas. I never had much of a relationship with either of them, though.
And it's time to wrap this up, 17:46 on Wednesday.
21:03 3/5/2003... Coupla things happened today that I forgot to mention before. The first thing is the wiper blade changing... while Karen was taking a shower, I went down to the parts supply store to get a blade for the driver's side of Camry. Last time that I'd bought blades I went to Wal-Mart and they were $3.00. This one was $15.00. I'm sure that it's much higher quality.
So I took it outside and took the old one off. And then I spent about ten minutes trying to put the new one on.
Maybe they have TV cameras in the store, but pretty soon the guy who sold me the blade came out and showed me the trick... part of the holder snaps out, *then* you put the blade in the slot and snap the holder back in place. The guy was going back into the store with the trash when I thought to ask him if the directions worked... I hadn't gotten around to reading them yet... and he told me no, they didn't really help much, you have to see it being done once.
And dammit, I can't remember what else I was gonna say, I guess that it'll wait until another time.
We made it to Moms in pretty good time, a little over four hours. She is doing marvelously, of course. Got her email fixed, it hasn't been working since 13 FEB. I talked to the tech guy, and he said that nothing was wrong, but he "re-set" the password to the original values and it worked. In the process, he lost all of her messages. Didn't even apologize.