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March 4, 1997
It's drizzling out there. I know the Merrimack Valley wasn't supposed to get as much snow as Rhode Island, but this is ridiculous. Yesterday's news was showing kids sledding, men shoveling, people bundled up (all footage from previous storms) to get us in the mood for the return of winter. Apparently they forgot to tell winter it was supposed to return. A few flakes of snow amongst the drizzle is not a winter storm.
I went to CVS to fill yesterday's prescription for Motrin. The pharmacist said it would be about 5 minutes so I should wait. I wandered over to browse the magazines while I waited. I hear the pharmacist call my name. She doesn't wait until I limp back to the pharmacy counter to shout "I have to call your doctor. There's an interaction between the Motrin and your triamterene. This will take awhile." She calls the walk-in clinic and explains this situation about 10 times to 10 different nurses before she gets ahold of the doctor. Meanwhile, many elderly customers begin to form a line. I wish I could sink into the floor. Here I am holding up elders from their prescriptions again. I feel like I should apologize to the elders but I haven't done anything to them. The pharmacist repeats my story endlessly while elders wait. She gets put on hold so she waits on a couple of elders. This makes me feel better. Finally she talks to the doctor who explains that I'm only taking the Motrin for a short time as needed for pain, not as a regular regimen. She relents and fills the prescription. She tells me I can get in line behind the elders. I get in line. The cashier questions my purchase of aspirin along with the Motrin and the heating pad. I explain the doctor prescribed it to thin the blood in case of blood clots. She tells me I should be taking a different dose. I shrug, pay for the Motrin, aspirin, and heating pad and leave.
Bored with staying home and visiting CVS I decide that staying off the knee doesn't mean I can't go to Tower Records. So I do. I buy Huun-Huur-Tu's If I'd Been Born an Eagle, the soundtrack to 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould, and Scandinavian Soundscapes (which despite its new age title and its proximity to the new age section is actually a field recording of bird songs in various habitats - I noticed it because the liner has a wonderful painting of an eider.) Flush with shopping success, I go next door to Barnes and Noble and sure enough find Ralph Leighton's Tuva or Bust on the first try. I also pick up A Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic for good measure. I've always denied having the shopping gene supposedly common to the female gender, but I have to admit that all these CDs and books cheered me up.
I drove home, heated up the hot pack, and settled in to read Tuva or Bust and listen to If I'd Been Born and Eagle. I kept playing the Huun-Huur-Tu CD over and over and never got to the other 2 new CDs. I brought it upstairs and put in the CD drive of my Mac to listen to it while I caught up on my journal entries for the past several days. The sharp eyed among you will notice I've been listening to it during the writing of the last few days' entries. I decided it would be OK to just fill in the events of the past few days on their correct dates rather than write a humungous catch-up entry today.
Someone from the walk in clinic called to tell me my x-rays showed nothing but a little arthritis. The arthritis is not enough to explain the pain. They ask if I'm any better. I say yes - of course I just took 800mg of Motrin and have had a heating pad on it for the last hour...
Joan calls to see if I want to walk tonight. I decline for the next 2 weeks.
Sigh.
Music: I'm listening to Huun-Huur-Tu's latest album, If I'd Been Born an Eagle as I write this.
Reading: Tuva or Bust: Richard Feynman's Last Journey by Ralph Leighton.
Weather: drizzly snow