A couple of firsts

Yesterday I joined a TAI CHI class given here at our place. At 8.30 AM. I walked down the hill with my walker. It was sunny even then, so I had to wear my straw hat. (that hat always makes me feel jaunty) People think it is an affectation but my dermatologist insists. Tai Chi was a blast. I did everything wrong. The teacher asked before we began if I am dyslexic and I said I was when I was young and she looked 'Oh, not another one' But all my fellow searchers for balance told me not to give up too soon. For forty five minutes we strove for perfection. I was facing the teacher and when she said 'right arm' I moved my left arm. Next time I will try to sit next to her, so I can copy her better.

At ten I had an appointment to have my nails done. I walked back up the hill when the class was over, got my shopping cart where I had Jane's birthday present ready to mail, maneuvered up the seven steps to the level where my garage is, and realized that there was very little time to get half way to Sequim. So I broke a few speeding laws and made it with only a few minutes over due. And now my second first. At 12.05 I arrived at the Port Angeles post office. There was one human being besides me. The clerk. Never before have I encountered that kind of scene. By the time the clerk was through with me,  there were six people waiting to be served.

In the afternoon I had to call down to the office and ask if we had a nursing service available. There was so I said I would be down directly. Got my walker again and began walking down the hill. Our wonderful office director chased me down thinking I was in need of assistance. I just had an angry looking injury on the back of my arm. Before moving from the house on the beach I had thrown out a bowl full of small rocks that grand children had given me through the years. There were heart shaped ones and round ones and square ones. I needed those rocks for a project Jane had started us on earlier. I drove over, and there by the garage and near the Lilac bushes we had planted in 1983 was the whole bunch of my rocks. So I stole them. Reaching for the best one, way inside the lilac bush, a branch hurt my arm. I needed that very one and pushed harder. I checked for blood, but there was none. When I got home I checked again but only an ugly spot with something protruding. It did not hurt any more so I forgot it. Doing my hair in my sleeveless shirt I saw an even angrier spot with something looking like a part of the bush and a fairly large red area surrounding it. Since it was Friday and I had nothing that would kill germs I felt I needed some one to look at it. The nurse practitioner pulled out what was protruding and put germ killing stuff on it. And finally it began bleeding. Today is Saturday and I think I will live. Or in other words I think whatever kills me, it won't be a lilac bush.