DOCTOR VISIT

A man visits his doctor with celery stalks stuck in each ear and a carrot stick up each nostril.

He mumbles, "Doc, I'm just not feeling well."

The doctor replies, "Maybe you're not eating right."


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

I know.  It's awful.  Still, the joke gave me my first laugh of the day, so what could I do? 

I'VE NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE!

Yesterday, I went to New Orleans for a routine follow-up visit to the ophthalmologist after my cataract surgery. The good news is my eyes are fine approaching two years after.

The boring news is that I got lost going to the doctor's office. I took the wrong exit off I-10 and ended up hopelessly lost. I had to call the office to get directions. It was one of those situations where you can see the building, but you can't find the service road to get you there.

When I reached the parking lot, there were no parking places. I drove round and round, and nothing. By that time, I had to make an emergency visit to the ladies facilities, so I parked in a spot with red lines, ran into the building which (TBTG!) has a ladies on the ground floor, and raced back to my car. (TMI, I know!) Finally, finally after more circling, I found a spot. Of course, I was late, but no one seemed to mind.

On the way home, I did something I've never done before. I ran a railroad crossing gate. Wait! There was no train! I waited and waited, and cars were going around me weaving their way through the gates, so I inched up and looked and saw no train, so I ran the gates. Far down the road, I could see back to the tracks, and no train ever passed.

I do not recommend that anyone follow my example, but I didn't know what to do. Now I know. Call 911, and someone will (One hopes!) contact whatever authority to fix the problem. Sometimes I act in ways that scare me, that seem reckless, and that was one of those times. What came before, getting lost, no parking place, needing to use the loo badly, badly, all of the frustrations of the day, probably made me irritable and contributed to my poor judgement.

ONE DOCTOR VISIT - TWO TRIPS

Today, my granddaughter, pictured to the left when she was 3 years old, who is now 15, had a doctor's appointment, and the plan was for me to take her for the visit. I went to her school to check her out, and I was told that the proper procedure was to send a note on the morning of the appointment. In GD's case, she became ill over the weekend, so the appointment was made only this morning. Of course, I am only the grandmother and remain out of the loop for certain information on the rules of the schools of my grandchildren. And either my son or I could have called ahead to let the school know, but we did not.

Anyway, the students were at lunch recess, and no one was going to hunt GD down in all the nooks and crannies from amongst the 500 students at the school for anything short of a dire emergency, and a regular doctor's appointment did not fall in that category. The secretary said that the kids would be back in class in about 10 minutes. I called the doctor's office to see if we could come some minutes later, but the receptionist said that the doctor would be at lunch. She was kind enough to schedule us for later in the afternoon. "Oh well," I thought, "one trip for nothing."



Howevah! On the way home, I saw a Great Blue Heron in flight followed by the bird's landing in a nearby tree. Beautiful! The trip was not for nothing.

After a delicious lunch cooked by Grandpère, I headed back to the school, to the doctor's office, to the pharmacy to drop off the prescription, to my house to wait for the medication to be ready, and finally to take GD to her house, because it was too late to return her to school.

Another plus to having a busy day was that I had my mammogram on Friday, and even after 25 years, I tend to be a little anxious as I wait for the results, but I didn't even think about the mammogram today, and around 4:30 the doctor's office called to say that everything was fine. Thanks be to God.

The weather here is cold (still!) with a nasty north wind blowing.

I don't even know why I write these boring accounts of the trivia of my day, except that, at my age, I'm still somewhat taken aback to still be doing this sort of running around with children and teenagers.

Anyway, I gave you two pictures to spice up the post a little. I found the picture of the tiny ballerina while going through old papers. How 'bout that bright red lipstick?