Clayton Antique Storefront Window
Today was one of those days, as one anonymous text that I received today said, “A Fruit Loopy kind of day”. There was a lot going on, but none of it was momentous enough to comprise the entirety of one decent sized blog post and a lot of it was a little bit on the screwball comedy level. So today’s post should be a delicious blend of potpourri, I hope.
Our son, Dave posted to Facebook yesterday the phrase, “Best Day Ever.” Along with this post was a photo of his car’s odometer, which read “123456”. I co-opted this picture and reposted it on this blog this morning. Anne decided to check her car’s odometer, which it turns out read “124000”. It is too bad that she just missed the same six-digit sequential number milestone that Dave had. Anne’s car is the oldest car in the fleet and as such is rightly the highest mileage vehicle, but her lead is little more than one roundtrip from Purdue to Saint Louis and back. Anne’s commute is about three miles roundtrip. I suspect by Thanksgiving, Dave will have overtaken her. I also suspect that if the Cardinals make the World Series this year, this overtaking may occur by Halloween.
It was a relief to put those pesky Pirates down yesterday. They have been a plague on Saint Louis all season. I am less concerned about the Dodgers than I was about the Pirates, maybe foolishly so, but that’s my gut check. Over the last week, I’ve noticed a lot more red about town. The trees are only just beginning to turn, so it can’t be autumnal foliage, but I bet that by the World Series our red maple will be in full Redbirds colors. In addition to the opportunity of luring Dave back to town, the possibility exists that our nephew Rey will also visit Saint Louis, if and when the American League comes to town.
I visited my doctor today and he gave me another lease on life. He also gave me a flu shot. I like my doctor, but I hate that he is always running late. I had a 9:00 appointment, but I didn’t see him until 9:45.
During my examination, he asked me if I had seen the game, either game, both the Cards and the Blues played last night. I told him no, instead Anne and I watched The Proposal, a schlocky Sandra Bullock Rom-Com. I mentioned then that I watched this movie, because I had just seen Gravity. This piqued my doctor’s interest. He had heard about some of the geeky pushback from this movie. I’m sure that he was expecting something along the lines of flaws in the movie’s orbital mechanics, so I threw him my first curveball. There is a scene in Gravity, where Ms. Bullock is in some space station and is seen slipping out of her spacesuit and left wearing only a sexy little two piece, a tight t-shirt with boy’s under shorts. Realistically she should have been wearing the standard astronaut blue diaper, but from an artistic point of view that wouldn’t have worked as well. I got a knowing laugh out of him with that. Strike One!
I guess that it was because of the flu shot that we got on the subject of multiple vaccinations at one time. I had told him about a new pediatric device that involves vibrating ice cubes that numb the arm before the injection. It is packaged in a yellow plastic bumblebee like shell. He is an ex-navy flight surgeon, so he thought that he had the best story to tell about taking multiple shots. I trumped him though, when I recounted all the shots that I needed to take before a family vacation to South Asia, the Philippines, Thailand and India. It was in the 1950s and I was not yet in grade school. I had to have some twenty needles, because then none of the vaccines were yet combined. Strike Two!
I think that I horrified my doctor death a bit with that story, so I decided to go for his jugular, because in his heart-of-hearts he is still a Navy doctor. Before this tour of Asia, we were stationed on Guam. My brother Chris and I had managed to pick up some tropical parasite. It created boils about our bodies, which our parents then had to cut out the larva from. My doctor suggested blowflies, but I don’t know. I remember the shots and the subsequent trip, but I’ve repressed the other incident. Strike Three!
I score today’s doctor visit a complete 3-0 success. Go Cardinals!