Three Beautiful Things 10-18-19: Blood Draw and Mom, Working on Pictures, Can't Hate the Yanks *Bonus* (More River Pictures)

1. Once a month, I stagger into the Shoshone Medical Center with the blood draw kit sent to me from a lab in Spokane and I have a tube of blood drawn. Today, the first phlebotomist couldn't get my blood to come out after trying a couple of places. He called in another phlebotomist and she succeeded. I don't know what the deal was, but I was unruffled by the guy's difficulties. I've been having blood drawn monthly now for over four years and this was only the second time the first couple of pokes didn't draw blood. Two things came to mind. One, I am going to try to remember to drink more water before my next blood draw; two, it seems like as Mom got older, drawing her blood became more and more difficult and I didn't face anything today like some of the ordeals I seem to remember she did when the phlebotomists couldn't find a vein. I thought a lot about the many such difficulties and indignities Mom suffered in her last couple of years of life and her courage.

2. I spent a short time this afternoon backing up folders of pictures and looking through my flickr account to see if I had neglected to upload some of the files off of my Pentax Q's memory card. Sure enough. For starters, I found several pictures from the days at Molly and Hiram's in Groveton, VA that I hadn't uploaded. I'll continue looking for more.

I posted one of my pictures from up the Little North Fork on the North Idaho Life Facebook page I belong to. I don't think I've ever posted a picture that roused more positive response. That was fun. If you saw my 3BThings yesterday, it's the bottom picture of the six I posted.

3. I am a decidedly less partisan baseball fan in my senior years than I was when I was younger. In the olden days, Dad had a huge impact on my partisanship as a fan. So, in the ALCS, I want the Astros to win, but I enjoyed seeing the Yankee bats come to life in the first inning of last night's game. I came to admire the Yankees' DJ LeMahieu's as the 2019 season developed and his lead off home run was a bomb for the Yanks. So was Aaron Hicks' three-run shot of the foul pole later in the first inning. After the first inning, the Yankees led the Astros, 4-1, and neither team scored again. Remarkably, it's the first time in 1609 postseason games in MLB history that two teams scored in inning #1 and were both shut out the rest of the game (hat tip to Byrdman for that bit of trivia!).

Dad used to "hate" the teams he rooted against and I've lost that "hatred". I'm enjoying pulling for the Astros, but, tonight, I enjoyed seeing this series tighten up a bit and admired the way the Yankees bounced back from a humiliating loss on Thursday.

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Byrdman asked me to post some more pictures from our outing up the Little North Fork on Thursday. Here are a few more pictures I snapped that day (I think these images show better if you click on them):