Warm (44°) and sunny and no wind. A great improvement on yesterday's snowing in ball form as I was driving to work. I had to go to the Clinic at 8:20 to have lab work - a blood draw - and it didn't go badly, all things considered. Not a long wait. When I told the phlebotomist that I was cold and that it's often difficult to get blood from my arm so taking it from my hand is an option, she said, "OK, I'll check your arm first but if I'll move to your hand if there's nothing in your arm." Unlike those who take it as a personal challenge to find a vein where there don't seem to be any. I'm 33 years old. I've had blood drawn hundreds of times. You'd think they'd realize that I'm not kidding when I say that there aren't usually veins in my arms big enough to get blood from. But they put on the tourniquet and poke (with their fingers) and then inevitably say, "I think I've got one." And then poke with the needle and say that word that someone with a sharp thing should never say: "Oops."
But she tried my right elbow (rare) and my left elbow (1 time in 1000), then tried my left forearm - never before! - and got one. Used a butterfly, told me it would hurt more than usual, used one good jab, and got it. And it didn't really hurt all that much after all. And (I just checked) it didn't bruise - at all! There's one tiny needle hole but no bruise. Should've kissed her when I had the chance.
When I left the Clinic, I'd only been inside for about 10 minutes. There was an inch and a half of snow on the car. I had to brush it off. While I did that, I got covered with it. Yes, I have a hood, but I didn't even think to wear it until I was covered with snow. IT'S MARCH, damn it. I hadn't even considered it. So I drove to work in the sludgy crap behind 2 plows that were side by side so no one could pass them (it wasn't deep enough to plow, people! And they were going 20 mph in a 40 mph zone!) By the time I got to work, I was steaming. Literally. And when I looked at myself in the mirror next to the clock, I saw what the damned snow had done to me - it had turned my hair into a freak-show. The left side of my head was a perfect flip. The right side was a perfect bob. It was my 8th grade class picture come to life. Argh.
So my intended plan for the day, which was to do some work (duh), and eventually to go to the courthouse (across the street from the library) to start weeding the county law library in anticipation for its relocation to the library building (yes, I'm being exploited for my J.D. - more on this topic as time and interest warrants), but in the meantime, I was planning to begin doing something that I'd been thinking about more and more in the intervening week - flirting with Sleek. For those of you who've never worked in a public library, or those of you who are not female and who have worked in a public library, you cannot know the sense of utter...testosterone withdrawal that one goes through in a situation like that. It's positively withering. The only people of the male persuasion that one is likely to see during the course of the typical day are 1. small children (boo!), 2. the homeless (not bad in themselves, but certainly not an example of those with whom the average, much less the professional, library worker should show any extra-professional interest - and they're often smelly), 3. the elderly (basically ditto to the explanation for #2 except that they're sometimes smelly but in a different direction), and 4. the temporary worker. #4 includes delivery workers (e.g. UPS), maintenance and repair guys, and occasional personnel - like computer consultants. Our UPS guy has zero personality and cringes when we say "Hello," so there's no point in trying to develop rapport with him. As for repair or maintenance guys, no one will ever measure up to...never mind. That's a story best left untold. But the main point is that they show up so rarely that it's just about impossible to create anything. But the last example is quite different. He's there weekly, he's in my office, and he seems to think - at least, I seem to believe that he thinks - that I'm...'not the same as everybody else'. Because when there's no one else in the room, he'll often ask me questions (like the "is 20 too young to get married?" gem that set off the flurry of comments last week) and look at me rather strangely. No, I can't lay that all on him; I'm sure that I'm the one who starts the strange looks. But there's almost always someone else in the room, damn it, and that's impeding my sense of progress. I'm not proposing anything untoward, people, just some gentle flirting to make the day go more quickly and much, much more pleasantly. And that's not happening with a babysitter (or an Amy-sitter?!) in the room.
I wonder if he knows that I'm thinking that? Would he be charmed, or something less?
Friends from college coming down to visit this weekend. Dan is a math teacher and football coach at a high school. Mary is a paralegal for a legal services organization. I'm very pleased and humbled that we're still friends. They definitely saw me at my worst, or close to it. "They knew me when...," and like me anyway. It'll be a good weekend and hard to say goodbye.
P's having a hard time right now. The sun has shifted enough that it's not coming in strongly through the east windows anymore, but it's not yet pounding in through the picture window (southern exposure) in the living room (where I am). She's wandering back and forth, occasionally looking up at me and saying, "Mrowr?" Like, "Turn the heat on, damn it!" She's almost all black and likes to soak up the sun. H, who's gray, doesn't like the sun as much. I think her skin is a lighter tone and she feels too hot too fast. Like, say, me. I never did get the hang of laying out in the sun. I tried many times - I'd spread out a blanket in the back yard (we lived in the country so it was no big deal) and I'd read for a while with my book in the shadow of my giant melon head (it seemed like that, anyway). I'd get sleepy so I'd put the book down and snuggle up to M the homecat. The next thing I knew it would be 2 hours later and I'd have been asleep in the sun the whole time - only I'd have pulled the blanket on top of myself! Some suntan - I was just undone by heatstroke! Pathetic, truly.
Now, to answer The Friday Five, courtesy of J.R. (where are you getting these, J.R.?):
If you...
1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve? Tea. Dessert - cookies, brownies, scones. Homemade, and the kind of stuff that when they eat it people say, "How did you do this?!"
2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell? Definitely books. Perhaps paper & pens - the kind that I want, but have to go to Geneva or Oak Brook to get. Decent writing paper, and pens that don't have removable caps.
3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be? Fiction, for sure. Probably an elegy.
4. ...ran a school, what would you teach? This is too funny. I would make the world's worst teacher because I have no patience, and I do not care a whit for the general public's ability to do or know anything. That being said, and in the spirit of doing questionnaire-like things (which I adore), I'll say... Constitutional Law. Or First Amendment Law. Definitely to law students, though, as part of a regular law school curriculum, and not college or (god forbid) anything younger than that.
5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it? I saw Sabrina (with Harrison Ford and Julia Ormond) for the first time last night, so my first response is Hobo Music! But seriously, I personally have very little musical talent - I have musical "skill" in the sense of being able to put things together that sound good. I think. So I'd make a compilation album, I guess. A mix, if you will. I'm sure it would include some 80s stuff. Maybe I'd call it, "The 80s didn't suck as much as certain people think they did - See?!" And I'd be right.
Time to vacuum and otherwise prepare for Dan & Mary's arrival. Bon weekend, everyone!
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