And Yet Again: "You're On My Neck. I can't Breathe!"

This time it was in Canton, Ohio. It wasn't over a possibly bad twenty-dollar bill. It was a traffic accident that broke a pole and the driver fled the scene, went to a bar, and was belligerent. None of those things carry the death penalty... except possibly when the culprit, Frank Tyson,  is a black man and the arresting cops are white men.

But black men are "scary", doncha know! I guess especially so if they can yell and wave their arms around while you outnumber them and carry guns, eh? Even handcuffed down on the floor but still capable of yelling and thrashing around a bit, amiright? Ooooooooooohhhh!

That is just one thing that is a tragic, and which should be criminal, echo of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In his case too, it was one black man against white officers over a much too minor offense. Floyd's death was filmed nonstop for over 9 minutes by a determined young girl with a cell phone. This man's was filmed by multiple police body cams, and without the intent to capture every possible second of what transpired, judging by the quality of the video shown on morning news. Once the man was handcuffed with his hands behind him and lying face down on the floor, struggling, saying over and over that they were trying to kill him, they proceeded to do exactly that. Clearly heard are him protesting faintly, "I can't breathe. I can't... I can't...You're on my neck. I can't breathe." and the officer kneeling on him telling him that he was fine. It takes 5 1/2 minutes before the officers check on him, with one saying, "He might be out." Another three minutes pass before somebody starts chest compressions, obviously too late to do any good. 

What will it take for, first, cops all over to realize that there are better ways to restrain somebody that do not involve stopping them breathing by being on top of them?  Or that (black) people don't have to be totally pacified into complete inertness before they are considered restrained? When will we make lethal force for non-lethal acts itself a crime, not just in one set of trials in Minneapolis but all over?

Or are we (still) the kind of country where we have to teach black males to "play dead so you don't become dead" in hopes that it's actually good advice?

How many more George Floyds and Frank Tysons do we need in order to produce change in this country?

Which Way Shall We Go?

Once we complete our anticipated move, we will be roughly between two different shopping areas, each of which includes a Walmart where our prescriptions are filled, per our insurance companies. Today was a weird day where we had to visit both towns for different reasons. 

One has Steve's bank, and an omission by a phone bank employee has left him without the debit card he needs to function while shopping. He needed to identify himself to an on-site bank employee in order to get it straightened out and get some actual cash in hand. This town also has a gas war going on so prices tend to run 30 cents a gallon cheaper, sometimes more.

The other town is across the state border where sales tax was a bit cheaper, at least last year, but I haven't bothered to check this year. Our prescriptions currently are being filled there, and it has a movie theater, should we ever go to a movie again. (Steve says, "NO" because the movies are too loud, and while I agree about the volume, ear plugs are easy, even if just a wadded piece of napkin.) 

We currently live closest to this town. We're moving in the direction of the other one. Today seemed like an excellent day to do mileage checks to each from the new location. Both were marked from where we'd get on the same highway to where we'd get off for either Walmart. Since I got gas at the larger town with the bank, I hit the trip meter there. 

It registered 12.2 miles as we passed the stoplight for our turn to our new home.

I hit the trip meter again, starting it over. Keeping an eye on it as we went to the other town, I noted to Steve that we were at 10 miles just before we crossed the state line. It was going to be close once we climbed the hill to their Walmart. It was a long hill, giving us a chance to watch in suspense as the odometer climbed... climbed... here comes the light where we turn off the highway..... at 12.3 miles!

We were both in stitches as how close it had been and how little it mattered. But, at least now we knew. Once we move, we'll likely hit both towns  the same way we do now, depending on what we need there. The one to the west has more different places to shop, and while their Walmart is harder to find early afternoon parking spots at, especially handicap ones, the store there has items we don't find in the next state.

But the one across state lines will do a better job of filling our eyes and hearts with beautiful scenery as we climb into and out of the river valley.  Yep, both of them is the answer, though the larger town will likely get our prescriptions transferred in a few months. But the other one has truly spectacularly red maple trees  dotting the parking lot in late September!

Gobsmacked: Sorting Through Blogspot Stats

 Perhaps I'm very late to the table, so to speak. I've been crazy busy lately with the move, of course, and overwhelmed much of the time, and basically blowing off steam just by writing. But Blogspot has added some features for those of us who post on it, and I'm just catching up.... gobsmacked! If you bear with me, I promise there's a surprise at the end.

For years now I've been noting how many readers hit the recent posts here. Some take a day to be noticed if I'm not posting regularly. Some get 5 right away, then sit static for a week, maybe picking up two more on a weekend. Yeah, OK, whatever. I still write for me, and you all are welcome to come along for the ride. It seemed like I have been talking to a very few family members or friends over the years. I as writer never know who the readers are, of course, any more than you readers can see how popular any particular post is... or isn't. I've been presuming "isn't."

After a while I dug a little further, looking at longer time scales, see what is still getting visited, or even just the surprise that some are actually still getting visited. One always stood out, and still brings a lot of people to the blog, my post on the Big Job's Daughter's Secret. It got 68 quick visits shortly after being posted. OK. Another time I noted it had a couple hundred. Hmmm. Interesting. Then it was over a thousand, and just kept growing. Right now it's over 13.7 thousand, and no indication that it's losing readers. Nothing else comes close, although there are some that have steady visits from new eyes, like How Many Bubbles In A Bar Of Soap? or How To Pack A Display Cabinet. Some are approaching a thousand hits individually, which I find gratifying. But when I located the all-time number of hits, I was bowled over by 263K (!), with the largest portion of those by far in the last year. The graphs Blogspot has put together are very skewed to the far recent end, so something recently kicked up a bunch of interest. This post will make 1704 on this site. So people come for some particular thing, apparently, and then check around to see what else is here. So...

               How about a fancy daffodil from the front yard?
 

While scouting what's getting attention, I noted that Blogspot made it much easier to scroll down through pages of titles, recent to further in time, which also gave number of hits. Many that I thought fell into an abyss after, say, 7 views, were now sitting over 50 a couple months later. And there are still a regular stream of them which just aren't all that interesting.

Blogspot gives other kinds of information, once you (finally!) happen to notice some red fine print in a corner saying "More about this blog". No clue how long it's been there, but some of the regular format recently changed, making it easy to conclude it all happened at the same time. No, it doesn't show to you, but when I'm writing I see it. New stuff is on the tool bar which I haven't tried out yet. But someday. Frankly, I'm still struggling with posting pictures. Blogspot apparently is fussy about how much text I put ahead of one and how much after, or it just won't load any. Eventually I'll figure out the "rules."

 Is it cheating to pop some eye candy in to keep interest in boring stats?

Anyway, the first section of deep-dive statistics is about referrers. No surprise here, Google is top. The second is the title of the blog, so people must have bookmarked it and go directly there to see what's new. Heck, I have to in order to find it and it's mine! The list following that has some familiar names as well as new-to-me ones, ending with something called www.vampirestat.com. Seriously, folks? Am I supposed to think I'm attracting vampires now? Listen, all you alleged vampires out there: You are NOT welcomed in my house! I refuse to believe in you, just like I think zombies are incredibly silly and the "rules" governing them/you are ridiculously inconsistent. But in case you actually need an invitation to enter, you do not have one! So there! The last referrer on the list, and most popular of all, is "Other", at 245K. I'm kinda glad they quit listing individual ones at that point. What do you think: 287 pages of individual referrers to go through before reaching the next category? More? Yeah, forget it. I'd never get on to the next category of information.

Next comes top referring URLs. Apparently that's different from referrers, even though the top 4 items all are Google, just now printed with the www and a .com at the end. Once again, all of the "Other" ones vastly outnumber the total of all the others put together.

Getting bored yet? Just hang in there a bit longer please. The final category is what totally blew my mind. It does, however, come after Audience, by which they mean a list of browsers used, not who you all are. Then a list of top keywords searched...  Yawnnnnnn......

Oh heck, let's just skip past the rest and get to the last bit: Where are you all from? Without seeing the map and graph, I'd have thought the answer would be the US. Yes, I know the internet is world wide, and there are English speakers/readers all over. But who else would be interested? This is the part that really gobsmacked me. The US is only number 2. Any guesses about number one? Any at all? Was Singapore on your list? Yes, SINGAPORE !!!!! And the list of countries is nowhere near ending there. In order, from 3rd highest, France, Hong Kong, Russia, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, United Kingdom, and finally, Other.

Just for fun, I clicked on Other and got a new list. I mean, why not? It won't get much crazier, will it? Add Canada, Ukraine, Romania, Poland, China, Japan, "Unknown Region" - had to be in there somewhere, right? An admission of ignorance when we think everything is known online... who knew?  - United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Sweden, and not to be forgotten, Other. Yes, another "Other". If that final Other was a single country, it would have been way up on the list right after United States.

So "Hi," all you you scattered readers. Welcome! Have you met your neighbors yet? Are you as gobsmacked as I when I first read all that? I don't know about you all, but it's going to take me a bit to get used to all of you out there. I'm not sure what it takes to entertain you, but we'll see as we go, eh?

That (Figurative) Pocket In My Brain

That's how I think of it when I have occasion to think about it, a little tiny pocket somewhere among all the folds and neurons and blood vessels. One solitary piece of data fits in there. It's a very old piece, and very out of date, having been replaced numerous times by now in my life. But the data can't be kicked out of that spot however many times new data has been offered up, tagged with a huge "SHOULD REPLACE" sign attached. It's wedged in there, zippered shut, and not about to budge however important more recent data is.

The data is one  letter followed by 12 numbers in four groups of three. You'd think that would be easy to forget, replace with something perhaps shorter, maybe more letters and fewer numbers. It doesn't matter. It's been there for over 50 years. It's stuck, entrenched, stubborn, indelible. It's my very first driver's license number. I can still recite it at the drop of a hat: R200 302 and on to the end. You don't need all of it, and I won't give all of it. 

The R200 is apparently because of my last name when it was issued. I got my license at the tender age of 22. I'd had Drivers Ed of course in high school, but afterwards not many chances to drive. Eventually I had access to a stick shift car, making learning to drive smoothly delayed even longer. But I did get it, the second time. (Nevermind how I flunked the first behind-the-wheel driving test.) When the family moved to Georgia for a few years, the license was my social security number (I do presume they changed that policy long ago) but upon returning to Minnesota after the divorce, the original number reclaimed me. 

Once I started driving for a living, there were times I had to check into a government facility and produce my license... just in case. In case of what? I stole something? Got backed over by one of their semis? Had an accident on their property? Criticized the latest war? Nobody ever explained, it was just done. For decades I was R200 302 and so on.

Then Minnesota changed their numbering system. Don't ask me what that was, though something at the end of the alphabet started my new number. Then I moved, got a license in Arizona, and by now knew enough to not even bother to try to memorize that number. I could look it up since that is still in my possession, but why bother? I'll have a new number on a new piece of plastic coming in the mail shortly anyway. With luck it will be the last license number I'll ever have to be unable to learn.

While I was in getting things switched over, the gal on the other side of the counter asked me if I'd ever had a  license in Minnesota. I told her yes, but it was over 12 years ago, and the one number I remembered was even older than that, then proceeded to rattle the old number off like it was my middle name. As I did she actually found that original number in the system. I, in turn, explained to her about the "pocket" in my brain that is the only place allowing a license number to be stored, but it's been full for ages.

She at least was polite enough not to act as if I were crazy. 

Maybe she's got her own pockets like those.

Observations From A Visit To The Social Security Office

Of course my Social Security card was left in the PODS in Arizona with all those other important papers I need to  officially relocate. Once I'd gotten the birth certificate, the (first) marriage license for the name change since birth, the application for the new MN driver's license (with a much better photo, thank you), I still needed two more things. One I haven't bothered with yet. I'll have time to wait for my car's title if it's just to change my car license plate. But in order to apply to live in the (not-so-) mobile home park which the double-wide we want has our deposit on, I need to prove income, and part of that is proving not only am I me, but I have Social Security.

Note that they also need to see a bank statement to show we can afford the bills, and that would show the SS deposits. But now, I have to have the SS card. I used to carry it in my purse many years ago. Now everybody worries about the number getting out to the general public, enabling fraud of multiple kinds, so I took and put it in the home "safe place", which in turn got packed in the POds because that was a "safe place"while we were in the extended process of relocation. Of course, it's way too safe there. Not only is it over 1800 miles away, but I'd have to totally empty it out and open one of half a dozen boxes to locate it. Of course that's if I accurately labeled all the boxes where it could possibly be. There was some chaos going on at the time after all. If you've been following, you already know this. If not, this is context.

Having been through the process of securing one document to get the next document to get the next document, I brought a fat envelope of all that stuff along, in addition to the old driver's license which I still need to drive, and my only photo ID.

Showing up in person is one option. The other is trying to do it either online or over the phone. I opted for in person, at 1811 Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis. Steve chose to stay home and not get his back bounced by every pothole in kingdon come. (Wise choice. Living in Arizona for a dozen years one tends to forget how full of potholes Minnesota is. Arizona isn't. While roads are still bumpy, they're mostly the cutout grooves for water drainage after the very rare rain, in lieu of actual storm drains.)

My many years as a courier means I know where Chicago Avenue is without needing a map, and which several possible freeway exits can bring me to that address from different directions. Still, it has been a long time, and some memories were a bit hazy until I was actually on the streets again, like which pair of one-way streets, like Park and Portland, went which direction for example. Seeing them as I drove refreshed my mental map. All was not lost in my aging brain. Yet, anyway.

I had worried a bit abut parking, being short of change for a meter at the moment, but the building has a large free parking lot and I found a space quickly. Walking in puts you immediately in a security line, filtering people slowly through. Like an airport, there are guards, a place to empty all your pocket contents for hands-on inspection, and a walk-through metal detector for anything you missed. The guards are polite to those who are polite with them, so I asked one if the detector was magnetic, explained my pacemaker cannot do magnets, and was given a workaround path to be wanded. He even had me cover my pacemaker with one hand during that process just to be safe. The wand beeped in all the right places, and I collected my things after their inspection.

Next is a pair of machine where one checks in, answers a few questions the machine has, so you can be sorted by time of arrival and specific needs. Do you need a replacement card? Reason? Type in the number. Do you need your first card? Since I didn't, I have no idea what the other questions were beyond how many people in your group (they need enough chairs at the window you get called to). In starting the process you were given a bunch of choices of language so the machine already knew to assign you to a window where somebody spoke your language.

Once dispensed a ticket with your number/letter combination on it, there were lots of benches to go sit on while you waited. And waited. Once seated you could see the doors to the bathrooms, and then it was a choice between holding it for however long, or going right away and possibly loose your spot. They were very busy, and at any given time there might be five open spaces, mostly scattered in ones or twos, which could be a challenge for larger groups of, say, 4, of which several came through while I was there.

I opted for two things: people watching, and calling my daughter who happens to live 5 blocs away. Lately she mostly is working on her masters from home, so it's not a ridiculous question to find out was she there and had she some time to get together, say for lunch in an hour or more, looking at the lines. She had a couple things to finish at home, then would be walking over. I'd picked a seat facing the door so I could flag her down if she showed up before my number was called.

The people going through the office for their cards were as eclectic a group as I'd ever seen in such a (relatively) small space. There were many I identified as Somali, having worked with many of them back when they were fairly recent immigrants and working for our courier company. There was a pair who could have been Chinese or, upon reflection, more likely Hmong even though that immigration wave peaked in the early 80s if I recall correctly. I pegged the great majority of them as immigrants, new to this country and needing their first Social Security card. Most were dressed as I was, or "to blend". However some looked in African ethnic dress. Several hijabs were worn, although since the Muslim community in Minneapolis is very openly so in their dress, men and women, they could have been like me, needing a duplicate card.  Skin tones varied from my pasty white to very dark brown, and everything in between. Ages ranged from under one to perhaps 90, and languages, while mostly English, were occasionally unidentifiable. Some came with interpreters,  including the 90-year-old, and a group of Russian speakers. One person had to go to the desk where the guards were and somehow communicate she couldn't use the ticket machine because she didn't find her language written there. She got help, though I'm not sure how well she fared if her language wasn't represented. Perhaps it was a reading issue.

I was impressed by how well all the small children behaved, whether with a single parent or two, or even half a community of adult family. Even though it was nearing lunch time, not a one was crabby. One pair of parents had a daughter who wished to explore and they made of game of catching her before she got more than a couple feet away, lifting her up high with laughter and a hug, and setting her down again. Needless to say, that game lasted a while, but nobody was disturbed.

The line went much faster than I expected, so I was out before my daughter showed up. I called her when done, and it turned out she was in the other entrance. Oops! My bad. I forgot to tell her the proper door was on the Elliot side of the building. We met in the parking lot, had a good long hug, and went off to lunch, leaving three cars to jockey for my parking spot. 

One of them finally figured out  they needed to move away so I could get out, traffic could move, and at least one more parking spot opened up for somebody.

Could I Be A Trump Juror?

It may be obvious to all who have followed me that I'd be rejected. However, I'm of two minds on the subject. 

Why? First, I've been at various times a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent. All those varying choices have been based on a core value system, where I'm still me but the parties have realigned about certain values which came to the fore at various times. My values are not based, therefore, on party lines but on the values - or most of them - that I was raised on by my parents and the humanistic - not theological - ones of the church I was raised in. Feel free to think of that as picking and choosing among the Ten Commandments.

When I say most of my values, I'll give you examples of the exceptions. Mom raised me to be obedient, period. Granted, I was a very independent child, a handful for someone coming out of the recession and with other issues. Today, I follow the laws, with the occasional slipping of vehicular speed into something over the speed limit, a reason I have come to depend on cruise control. If a person says I should/must act in a certain way, I'll personally evaluate the what and why and make my own decision. In terms of religion, my values stem from the humanistic ones universal in most religions, involving honesty, fairness, kindness, integrity, and love. (Yes, it's a process.)  I don't take a Sabbath day. I'm agnostic, so I not only don't worship one god, I don't worship any, including graven images. (Give me a golden calf and I'll promptly sell it for the monetary value, and thank you.) If you insist on any particular theology being the only one in the whole world, the requirement for a certain narrow belief required to enter a heaven which has arisen from the fantasies of living people who've never been there, with or without 76 virgins being part of the package (BORING!),or a limit of 140 people being "raptured", something nowhere written in approved religious scripture, pardon me while I struggle to be polite and not ridicule you. I may well fail to be polite. As far as "end times" is concerned, yes, I believe we're fast approaching those, not for theological reasons but because we have so seriously overpopulated and polluted this planet that too many tipping points have already been passed. We as humans, along with many other life forms, are approaching extinction. In many millions of years, the planet will recover to the point that new life forms will arise. They will mostly be different than this planet holds now, i.e., they won't be us. 

Cockroaches, maybe. I hear they are pretty tough.

But in general, in judging any person or action, I would do my best to be fair and hear all the evidence presented before making a decision. I pride myself on that. No person is a single thing, all good or all bad. Onlookers often judge an action from their own experiences. Is stealing food still worthy of prison when one's children can't eat? Is it different when done as a game or challenge, proof of one's skills at theft, or as a way towards personal enrichment? Can I believe what person A says? Or should I believe person B who claims the opposite? Can this particular evidence be manipulated, or misinterpreted? Are prejudices like race a factor or a coincidence... this time? These questions are why we need juries. With that mindset going in, I believe I could be a fair juror in general.

Donald Trump is a different case. First, there is hardly a person in this country who has no opinion of him. I'm not sure we could even find a jury based only on that. So can we find a jury of people who can set aside their existing opinions and examine the evidence, treat him as Mr. Anybody, and judge the evidence? Can we find jurors who don't fear the lunacy of some of his followers who take his denigration of somebody as an excuse to intimidate them or cause harm to them? He continually defies gag orders meant to protect people who oppose him in any way, so one must know that going in, accept it, look past it to the evidence being presented, and judge his actions fairly and courageously, even knowing his followers threaten harm to your loved ones as well. Could you try to be completely fair if finally chosen, or would you be weighing the possible harm to, say, your child, your mother, your spouse?

Yesterday 96 Americans were grilled as potential jurors and not one was seated. Imagine that in any other trial. Remember, you can self-select as being unfair, and simply walk  out. How many days will it take to select a jury?

Would you, like me, hope to never be put in that position, fascinating as such a case might be to hear all the way through without the editing of the press? 

Would you serve anyway if chosen?

Cryosurgery

It's a big name for a tiny procedure. Today was my visit to a new dermatologist, one of those full body skin exams. It's that time in my life where it gets to be done yearly, or should anyway. My last visit was ten years ago. 

Skin cancer runs in the family. Both my parents had it, tiny splotches on their skin which needed to be removed. I don't know whether back then they had them frozen or cut out, but something must have been removed for a pathologist to examine because they had a name for which of the three kinds they had. I believe they said squamous cell, but for sure neither had melanoma. It kind of surprised me because neither went out sunbathing, the way kids tended to do in my generation to get that desirable tan. They were blaming skin cancers on sun exposure, not something we'd heard about until then. It also wasn't something Mom warned us kids about till then. After that, she never let up with the warnings.

I hated sunbathing. Deliberate exposure to the sun always made me feel slightly ill. That doesn't mean I never did it, because every once in a while I forgot how it made me feel and laid out for a bit again. It was a good reminder for another year or so. I'm "blessed" with fair skin which never really tans, just one more way I never fit in with whatever was popular, like having unrelentingly curly hair when straight was popular.

That doesn't mean I avoided sun exposure. But mostly it happened on my left side, when the sun came in the car windows for the 29 years I was a courier, racking up over 2 million miles behind the wheel. If it's going to happen anywhere, I'll likely get skin cancer on my face. I thought I had some ten years back. There was a small bump on the tip of my nose, the left side of course. It was colorless, but it would grow, get picked off, regrow, and keep recurring. My then-doc sent me to the dermatologist's office down the hall. They looked at it, pronounced it benign, but cryosprayed it anyway. It hurt. The spray made no difference, the cycle continuing for another couple years but now with bumpy scabs that never quite healed, but came off with a washcloth. Then suddenly there was just a little white divot.

I never bothered going back. I was not impressed by them.

I noted a pigment change on the side of my jaw - left, of course. It was/is a light tan. It would easily be covered by makeup, but I don't use that. Several months ago a spot in the middle of that started to rise, and the texture of the skin felt different, rougher, something not quite a scab, but not going away. While I couldn't see it, my finger could always find it. I mentioned it to my new northern doc last week, and she recommended the dermatologist check it out. In fact, I should get the whole body check, given my parent's history and my work history. So I made the appointment, surprisingly quickly after she recommended it. Perhaps it had something to do with her description of it as "highly vascularized".

About the same time I read about a study where they appeared to be finding more fast growth in existing cancers after patients had covid, particular when it became long covid. More study is needed of course, but getting covid twice despite vaccinations got me moving to make the appointment. Today was the day.

Their office is in a wing adjacent to the hospital about 17 miles away, one very familiar from  early cardiology and allergy visits before I retired and moved south. I used to park in handicap parking back then, before knee replacements. Now it's a hike from a far corner of the parking lot. It's not all that's changed. They used to have a concierge desk where some actual human could direct you to which floor and how far your appointment was. Now they have signs, most in fairly small letters at each department, so you have to walk around to find your department the first time. (I was informed later that there is a small TV screen you can fight with to locate a map of the area. Of course you have to find the TV and know why it's there first....)

I'd also been informed that it would be a 90 minute appointment. OK, bring a book then. Check. I was the only patient in the waiting room when I arrived, no paperwork to fill out because it's all in their computerized system which had just been brought up to date the week before, no changes. I made it through two pages of the book before being called in, and once undressed and gowned as directed, had no more time for reading. They were very prompt, very thorough, and explained as they went why this kind of spot was harmless (a result of aging, get used to it) and why this other thing should get the cryospray on it.

If I was willing, of course. 

Of course I was. It was why I went in the first place. Why make another appointment when this one would just take three minutes longer? And it was, literally, three minutes longer. There were three spots treated for being suspicious, one particularly so but not the one I'd gone in for. The first spot was the one I pointed out to them. Zap zap zap from a little aerosol can. She called what it would feel like as a "cold burn." OK, not so bad, not like I remember from my first spray ten years earlier. Maybe the nose is just more sensitive. A second spot  was a couple inches away on the same jaw, one that was labeled with a "pre..." as she checked it, and was quickly treated. That hurt a bit more, zap zap zap, but was quickly over. A third one was located, hiding up in my left eyebrow. Again zap zap zap. I was given a sheet on wound care (like I never had to do that before!) but this time it was mostly using vaseline to keep stuff off the healing skin to prevent infection. I have some of that. A lot of my places benefit from that kind of moisturizing these days. I'd packed it where it was reachable.

It was over and done in 15 minutes. So of course I mentioned I'd been told to plan on 90 minutes.  They have no idea why the schedulers in their central office keep telling patients that. Their own schedule has them with a new patient every 15 minutes. Before they left me to get dressed, I was told to make a new appointment on my way out for a year from now. I didn't have to make it today, but be sure to make it at least 6 months ahead. 

Hmmm, and I got in for this one in just over a week? My doc must have been more concerned than she let on.  It sure beats the nearly year long wait just for an appointment after a positive Cologard test requiring a cclonoscopy, and the 8 months wait for a reschedule after it had to be repeated to get a complete result. I think I like when my possible problems get taken seriously, especially when one possible concern is cancer.

On my way out I hit the restroom out along the hall. When washing my hands I checked the mirror and found the new red spots from the treatment. I also noted that the water from the tap emerged yellow. SAY WHAT? Did somebody connect the pipes the wrong way? Didn't I just flushed that? So I popped into the pharmacy where there was an actual human to talk to and mentioned that they might have a problem, and where. They knew all about it. Yesterday they'd flushed out the entire plumbing system, as has to be done in all plumbing systems on a regular basis. Spring is a good time for it, once there is no threat of getting ice of the roads. When you see water spraying out from a hydrant when there are no fire fighters around, and no vandalism, it likely will be city maintenance crews flushing the system. Of course it knocks a lot of minerals off the inside of the clean water pipes, and it can take a day or so for it to run clear again. If not flushed out through the hydrants it can eventually block the pipes. This particular sink must not get a lot of use.

As soon as I heard the explanation I knew exactly what they were talking about. When I was on the city council we had to deal with that each year. As I drove through town while leaving there were two hydrants getting flushed out along the main drag, and cars driving through getting a free undercarriage flush while also splashing everything within 10 feet. Almost too bad the kids were in school, but it's still too cool for them to get soaked. It's barely spring here, with the snow finally melted. The earliest flowers are celebrating: