CALL ME SICKO

In this household, we recognize the importance of preventative medicine. With that in mind, we betook ourselves to the doctor to get our annual flu shots. And came home with the flu.

We didn't get it from the shot. That's a myth. No, we got it from the nice lady who was coughing and refusing to wear a mask because she said it was "just allergies." Finally, they made her put one on. By then, she had spread the love and I'm betting every person in the waiting room that day is sick now.

You know you are feeling really lousy when the list of things you want to do reads like this:

1. Nothing.
2. Be unconscious.
3. Take enough drugs to make me not care,
4. Nothing.

My back isn't good with the idea of spending a day in bed. It lodges a strong objection. The rest of me takes issue with Spine, which always  seems to have the final word. It doesn't matter if the other body parts would prefer a few days of unconsciousness huddled under the down comforter.

"Why," ask the Gasping Lungs, "Is it always your call? What makes you so special?"

Spine causes one of the trapezoid muscles to seize, forcing little shrieks of pain from Throat, which is sore.

"Okay, fine, I get it," say the remainder of the body parts. There's not going to be a happy compromise here.

As of this writing, there is no part of me that feels good. Most of me feels terrible. I can't think. My brain is jumbled. My stomach is heaving, probably from the decongestants and other stuff I've swallowed in an attempt to get some relief. My head hurts and I have a fever. How high? I don't know. I lost the thermometer last year.

Is this really the flu? Maybe it's just a really nasty cold. Whatever it is, I don't like it.

BLOOD EVIDENCE

I watch too many shows about murders and forensics. NCIS, Law & Order, Criminal Minds, CSI, Body of Evidence and so many more. I've seen an awful lot of people convicted on blood evidence. I know how incriminating traces of a victim's blood can make someone look.

This evening, while making dinner, I nicked myself with a paring knife. This isn't an unusual event. I am not nearly careful enough in the kitchen. I have a bad habit of slicing off the tips of fingers, stabbing myself, then bleeding all over the place. I used to joke that the blood of the cook was mixed in the food, but it wasn't entirely untrue. My son and my husband both have been known to pull knives out of my hands and chop the veggies themselves because watching me using a knife made them unbearably nervous.

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't bleed so much, but I do. This is ironic. When I go for tests at the hospital, they can never find a vein or get any blood out of me. I've suggested I bring a paring knife and slice open a finger. They will have more blood than they'll know what to do with. For some reason, they don't find this suggestion nearly as funny as I do.

Anyway, I nicked myself cutting up the chicken. It wasn't a bad cut as these things go and if I hadn't been in the middle of preparing dinner while simultaneously fighting with the cable company on the telephone, I might have put a band-aid onto my finger sooner. Then there wouldn't have been drops of my blood all over the kitchen. It wasn't a gusher. Just a dribbler. Drip. Drip. Drip. Damn, not on my sweater. Blood is so hard to get out of clothing.

After I finally got the food going. I put the knife down, ended the phone call, still snarling at Charter Cable. I really hate them. I made my way to the cupboard, managed to get the blood flow stopped. That was when I realized my blood is all over the kitchen - from this little nick and all the other cuts, nicks and stabs when I have been slicing, dicing, mincing or paring. CSI would have a field day in our kitchen.

If anything ever happens to me and my poor guiltless husband is accused of doing me in, they'll find my blood everywhere. The poor dear will look terribly guilty and all he's ever done is try to protect me from myself. This is probably the right time point out many of my self stabbings take place while fighting an endless battle with shrink-wrap and other packaging.

Have you ever tried to get a couple of blister-packed pills out of their containers in the middle of the night? It says "press here" and you do, but all it does is stretch, the urgently needed medication still out of reach.

I have found myself using hemostats (I use them for stringing dolls; I am not a doctor for living people, only plastic ones) to pull cotton out of pill bottles, stabbing blister packs with tweezers (the only pointy things in my bathroom), using a steak knife to cut the plastic seals on a spray bottle, attacking packing tape with a hunting knife. I have two knives: a 4" folding knife with a turquoise handle and a 5" sheath knife with a deer antler handle. Nobody has taken them away from me yet, but that's probably because I hide them.

I cut myself regularly, but I also damage the contents of packages in my frenzied attempt to actually extract whatever is in there with any tools I have at hand. My favorite tool is a box cutter which I have used for things like prying the back off my Blackberry to get at the battery. It isn't supposed to require special tools, but my Blackberry Torch was hermetically sealed against owner interference. Unfortunately, taking the back off and removing the battery is the only way to reboot the phone. I gave up and got an iPhone, not because I like the iPhone better. I don't. I just couldn't battle my way into the battery compartment one more time.

I do not set out to do myself injury, but in the contest of me against packaging, packaging is the clear winner.

Thus you can find traces of my blood anywhere I've ever opened a package. Everywhere in my kitchen. You'll find blood on my computer keys, my mouse, my knives, tweezers and especially my beloved box cutter. I hide my box cutter, always afraid someone will take it from me in a pointless (sorry about the pun) attempt to save me from myself.

If CSI comes here, just show them this post. Maybe they won't send anyone up for life on my behalf.

A BLOG ISN'T JUST A PLACE TO POST

I've been trying to figure out why I miss my original site - Serendipity - so much. I mean, after all, isn't one site the same as another?

It turns out, no, they aren't. Every blog has a unique flavor, a personality. They grow and change with whoever is minding it and in response to feedback from readers and followers. It took me close to two years to develop an active following for Serendipity. I know many as friends, as people. I know about their lives. I know what makes them laugh, grabs their interest. Over the almost 1500 posts I put up in the life and times of Serendipity, I tailored my writing to accommodate my audience. Because I love making people smile. Their comments and responses gave me ideas and fed my muse (so to speak).

Not knowing who I'm reaching is a little strange, like standing at a podium in a city I've never visited before, knowing I have to give a speech to an auditorium full of strangers. I know some of my old friends are out there, but I can't see past the footlights. I'm not sure if you'll like me.

Most of you don't know my history. That's another thing. When you have a continuity of work, your continuing life story, so to speak, you don't have to keep repeating the stuff that shows who the essential "you" is. You can build from the last story, link earlier stories, refer to things you've written about before. It's the difference between comfortably chatting with an old friend and cultivating a new friend who doesn't know your personal history or the weird twists and turns your brain takes.

New acquaintances can easily misunderstand my odd brand of humor! It's definitely odd. Peculiar, even.

Forgive me as I fumble a bit, trying to find my feet. The ground is slippery and this is new territory. I didn't intend to start over, though I knew I would have to, sooner or later because the volume of material being supported on Serendipity was perilously large, graphics and text. The mechanics of Blogger are quite different than the mechanics at WordPress. It's not a criticism of either platform: it's just different and I'm still hard put to even find the menus on Blogger.

Welcome old friends. Please comment or email to let me know that you're there.

Welcome new friends. Come meet me. Introduce yourselves. I'm sure I'll love you when I've had a chance to get to know you. I'm a stranger in a strange land (thank you, Robert Heinlein) and I have a feeling it's about to get stranger still.