Okay, I’m bored again. Nothing new here so you might as well
move along, find another blog to read or go sit in the sunshine or dodge
some rain drops if that’s what’s happening on the other side of your window
pane. Speaking of dodging rain drops, I tried to do that last week when I came
home from the infusion center and the monsoons hit while I was on the road. It
was so bad I could hardly see past the window-shield wipers that were going
at full-bore. So I pulled off into the driveway to a condo community to wait it
out and as I did a huge tree fell across the road I’d just pulled off from. Did I mention the wind? Had
I stayed on the road, I would have been smacked flatter than a pancake. By the time
got back to my own neighborhood I was so happy to be alive I decided to wait
out a second wave of rain in the parking lot of a Tai Infusion take-out food place that
I hadn’t been to since before the pandemic. Their front door was standing open
and calling my name.
I grabbed my umbrella but it wouldn’t open. Damn umbrella!
It went in the trash when I got home. But sitting there I thought, what’s a few rain drops after my near-miss
with the tree? Turns out it was more than a few rain drops. I got drenched but
as stood under their store-front canopy waiting for my drunken noodles I’d
never felt better. All around me was a fleet of lawn care trucks waiting out the rain but
I had the canopy space all to myself. It seemed fitting that I should have ‘infusion
food’---whatever that mean---after spending the afternoon with an IV line in my
arm getting an infusion of a drug that should keep my bones glued together for
another year. Now all I have to do it follow the post-infusion diet for the
next two weeks. Lots of calcium rich foods, only one cup of coffee a day and
for me that translates to eating a can of spinach every day like it was a bowl
of ice cream after a bad break up with a boyfriend. I'll eat other calcium rich
foods including tins of sardines as well but I really, REALLY love Pop-eye’s spinach. Fresh spinach, not
so much but Levi loves it. I get two bites and he gets one leaf. Eating a
spinach salad at my house is painfully slow because with each piece for Levi, I have to break off the
stem and make sure each leaf gets some dressing and cheese on it.
And water: With these yearly infusions you have to drink at
least eight full glasses of water for several days on each side of the
treatment. Beforehand to make your veins plump up so the needle goes in easier
and your veins can better carry the meds to where they need to go. Afterward
to protect your kidneys and decrease any side effects.
Speaking of Levi,
that dog keeps me on my toes. I thought he’d left his habit of bringing frogs
into the house back in his puppyhood when I had to check mouth to make sure he
wasn’t smuggling them inside after every trip outside. There was a point when at night I couldn’t even
let him into his dog pen without first checking the place with a flashlight and
relocating the frogs who wandered in from the cattail bog close by. I had a see-through Starbucks plastic cup staged by the back door to catch
them. Fast forward to his adult years. Now when I let him outside before
bedtime I put him on his retractable leash and when he finds a frog I hold him back to just short of kissing distance, but he can't pick them up. At least I didn’t think he could until today. I was sitting at my
computer when a movement off to the side caught my attention. Yup, you guessed
it. A frog goes hopping by.
My Starbucks catching cup was thrown out a long time
ago so I called on my inner child and caught the thing with my bare hands. I
didn’t think I could move that fast. I’m just glad that in my haste I didn’t
fall and require a trip to ER. Imagine trying to explain that I broke a bone
trying to catch a grown-ass frog in my kitchen. While I was holding it I did
think about testing the kiss-a-frog tale to see if it would bring forth a
prince but: 1) I didn’t know if fairy tales age-shifted like shape-shifters and I’d
bring forth a warty old man instead of a young prince, and 2) what if I did get a
prince, what would I do with him? Since I have no desire to be a cougar, finding
him a princess would seem like the best solution but that would just add another
job to my To-Do List. So no kissing amphibians took place in my life. I can’t
vouch for Levi, though. He seems to be a dog-slut who will kiss anyone and anything.
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