December Part 1

Christmas Cactus
Ho ho ho!

It’s freaking December already and the year went suddenly. I took a painting class at KCC while applying to grad school in what I will affectionately call my mid-life retirement, which lasted all of the fall 2014 semester.

January will be a change. Gotta work at least part time, and take (hopefully) 3 classes.

I cut my left pointer finger’s tip today. I went to my sister’s place and while waiting for them to return, decided to do some yard work for them. I trimmed hedges around their house, and while snipping them into smaller pieces for the green waste bin, I somehow managed to get my finger tip between the blades of the shears and snip. Ow. Blood.

I went inside the house and had a moment of panic as the blood started dripping out of the wound and I scrambled to find band-aids, or bandages to stop the bleeding. I called my sister because I couldn’t find anything to bandage the cut with at first, and grabbed a dark green dish towel, held it around my finger, applying pressure and getting irritated when my call went to voicemail. I left a message I’d cut myself kinda deep and couldn’t find any bandages or band aids… After my moment of self-pity and panic, I managed to find some band-aids and sprayed some isopropyl alcohol on it. I applied pressure while laying on the couch with my hand elevated. Then I called my emergency contact (EC): a buddy of mine I’ve known for almost 20 years. He ALSO did not answer his phone, but I didn’t feel it was serious enough to go to a hospital or anything. I texted him “911” and “Help!!!” in case the bleeding wasn’t gonna stop and I needed a ride somewhere. To his credit, he called me back within 10 minutes of my text. We knew it couldn’t be too serious since the blood wasn’t oozing through the band-aid, and my initial feeling of panic had kind of subsided so I asked questions about whether or not he thought I’d need a tetanus shot, and some other random crap just to be talking to someone and reassure myself all was fine. My finger was cold and my head felt tingly and my chest was also kinda feeling weird – adrenaline. 15 minutes after talking to my EC, my sister called back and I told her things were under control. I went outside and finished more yard work once I felt good to go.

Admittedly, a few thoughts popped into my head during my mini-panic over the finger crisis: 1) I hope I don’t pass out, 2) Life Alert commercials, and Ha ha ha! and 3) This is the type of situation where it’d be kinda cool to have a spouse in my life.

In the end, I was too chicken to take off the bandage until my sister got home. When we checked on it, she had me put an antibiotic band-aid on it, and looked at it for me. It was OK, and throbbed a lot and bled a bit, but not too much. I didn’t try to pull the skin apart like my friend had suggested earlier. (Fuck that)! I’m a big baby when I’m allowed to be.

I had a hamburger happy meal for dinner, with an extra hamburger. Discovered McDonalds added cuties clementine oranges as an option over Go-Gurt or apple slices to go with your mini-sized fries. My niece had a chicken nugget happy meal. I decided I deserved a real McDonalds coke, and not a diet coke tonight.

Before leaving, I packed up a bunch of my chemistry textbooks I’d left at their place. I used to go and study between classes since they lived close to LCC. I will miss being a Chemistry major, but think I’m making a good choice with the new path I’m on. I hope to have time to review some of the concepts in my old texts from time to time. I’ll always cherish the year and a half I spent studying Chemistry.

Painting is a hobby I hope to keep until I die. I’d told my Ex his birthday present would be a painting of his cat I’m working on that’s been sitting in my drying rack in the art studio since October. I don’t know if I will finish it or not. I usually try to keep my word and follow through on things, but … we’ll see. Not sure I can finish it by Christmas. Maybe he’ll get it in a year or two or three. lol! Hmm.

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