Pokey Pokey

The veins on my arms do not stand out. Ever. The clinic drew blood for my semi-annual checkup and it took two staff members four pokes to obtain a sufficient sample. I’m an adult and can stand the pokey pokey. I also know about my hiding veins.

The blood test results were posted same day on a health profile hosted by the hospital. Let’s just say I have some work to do after last winter.

My high school friend Mike Tandy died on Thursday. He was on stage crew and close friends with most of our 1970s band members. He occasionally played bass guitar. He was a teacher most of his working life. Rest in peace, buddy.

The last ten days have been relentless with deaths of people I knew well. Now that spring is here, maybe I’ll get some relief. In any case, I bookmarked the three funeral homes in my home town for easy reference.

A thunderstorm blew through Big Grove Township last night. It was severe enough for us to retreat to our safe place on the lower level. After the 2020 derecho, it was no biggie. A little hail and moderate rain fell. We lost electricity for an hour or so. When the lights and stove went out, I put away the dinner I was making and took the ingredients back out when electricity returned. I left the half-cooked brown rice on the stove and without additional heat, it turned out exceptionally well. We need to replicate that process without the loss of electricity.

I binged on poetry reading at the end of the month, finishing books by Czesław Miłosz, Alice Walker, Adrienne Rich, and James Wright. I liked each one in different ways. The fewer mass culture references in poetry, the better. None of them was clean enough for my liking. It bugged me a little that Walker repeated she was “writing poetry again.” Just show me, don’t tell me is a basic tenet of poetry.

The cleaning of an external hard drive proceeds a little each day. Unfortunately, there are unique and useful files on it, so the computer spends several hours each day with the transfer. My obsessive compulsion about saving my computer work paid off in the new finds I have made. It is a drudgery, though.

I don’t care about sports, yet last night’s win by the University of Iowa Women’s basketball team against number one ranked South Carolina was a big deal. I noticed in social media, some friends flew to Dallas for the game. We talk a lot about how divided the country has become. Yet, if one can’t get behind the success of this team, you may be the problem and need a look in the mirror.

It’s tomato and pepper planting day in Big Grove. I had better get after it.