Gone To The Beach: 09.15.2023

Friday, September 15, 2023

Bizarro Land ~ and Mid month Miscellaneous

Hi everyone! I'll start with this lovely surprise flower that bloomed this week.

I thought it was a huge weed--''jack in the beanstalk"--- maybe a mullein or dune cockleburr?

It is huge, with big hairy leaves and odd buds.

You can see why I thought it is a cockleburr, via google:

I was so surprised to find this lovely bright red flower. Maybe it's a form of gerbera daisy? edit: Pia on Instagram kindly ID'd this as a Mexican Sunflower!

****************
Newest Perpetual Journal drawing, the dreaded Chinese Lantern Fly. It was only here, very here! one week but I understand they lay their eggs everywhere before perishing on the beach tideline. Really icky, not as pretty as they may look.

Next drawing, just started, is a golden heart leaf I picked up yesterday--similar to this one, but lost in the shuffle, and again, there also will be some butterflies.

*******************

My brother got to go to the big Springfield Ohio Extravaganza Flea today and tomorrow. Color me so green with envy. Maybe he'll send photos for me to share. And yes, I gave him my Christmas list.

********

While everyone else seems to be jumping on the Scrappy Ohio Stars sewalong from Taryn at Repro Quilt Lover, I am still sewing away on my hand applique projects. I finished the first block: White Tulips.

It's intended for a ''modern farmhouse'' style quilt with the blocks set in natural /off white linen .

Very Lizzy, this block anyway. [the running stitch applique adds dimension and texture].

_______________________________

Now for my visit to the bizarre world of a hospital emergency room. Or as they now call it the ED, which makes me think of couples in bathtubs, champagne clutched desperately as the sun sets on their future: ads for ED, erectile disfunction.

Anyway:

On Wednesday I got a frantic text from the primary care doctor's office after an annual check up. "You must go to the emergency room immediately and get blood transfusions!!!!"

"Don't drive, call an ambulance." Let me start with: I wouldn't call an ambulance unless I was dying---was I dying? No. My friend drove me. The wait wasn't too long to be seen--maybe two hours?---but then...I waited 7 hours for the transfusions to start. My friends went home to bed, I was all alone in this scary freezing cold place.

Now if it was such a crisis, why the long wait? I asked what was taking so long? "Coming from the blood bank."

"Oh okay, where is the blood bank?" picturing it being miles away, maybe even in the city? "Oh well it's here, in the hospital." oh.

Uh huh.

I was there all afternoon, all night, into the morning yesterday. Of course no way to sleep and in the almost 24 hours I was there, I was so cold and so hungry! This is all I was given to eat, by a kindly nurse who went hunting for food. There's no regular food service in the ED, of course.

This is the night desk.
That wall lights up and jiggles. Is it a heart monitor or art? Plus ongoing ''call' strobes. Migraine time.

Room one in main sector.

A cleaner if barren room two. Private with its own staff of nurses, sort of ER intensive care-ish?

Because omigosh this place is NOT clean at all, only about one in six persons were masked, though i wore my own mask until I was left alone all night with my bags of blood. I hope I don't get Covid!

All this because I hadn't taken my iron supplements for a few weeks [stomachache trigger], and got a bad report on my lab work. Now I'm awaiting a grocery delivery so I can do my food prep / cooking before my regular IV day on Monday. There's a reason for the word "patient"! LOL.

I will say the nurses and other helpers were efficient and very kind, which is rare indeed. The doctors were---I'll say, "curt''. But again, not really rude.

Baby Mo had to go stay with friends. He loves kids but is a bit shy.