Three Beautiful Things 07-08-2024: Blood Draw and The Beanery, Moving Transplant Central, Whoa -- *Lethal Weapon*

1. For eight weeks, now, with two exceptions, Mondays continue to be blood draw days. The transplant team no longer needs the results immediately, so now I can have these labs completed uptown in Kellogg. 

I wasn't alone today. Debbie had a 7:00 a.m. appointment with her primary care physician. The lab opens at 7:30. We went to the clinic together and were done by 8:00.

Instead of going straight home, we stopped at The Beanery. I headed out in their big yard area to a picnic table in the shade. Debbie went inside and brought out our espresso drinks and a cinnamon roll to share.

This was a welcome change of pace. I hadn't been out for a coffee since the May 11th surgery. I've thought about stopping at The Beanery, but I haven't wanted to order inside, especially if they were busy. 

This arrangement, however, worked perfectly. The morning was refreshingly cool, I stayed out of the sun, and Debbie and I enjoyed a relaxing time together. 

2. Our kitchen table has been transplant central. My bottles of pills, pill box, transplant information, record keeping binder, and other paraphernalia have been dominating the table.

I've also had some piles of papers in the living room. 

Today that changed. 

I set up a card table in the room where I sleep and moved everything onto it.

I like this set up a lot. 

I'm very happy to no longer be foisting all my miscellaneous transplant stuff on our common living spaces. 

I get a kick out of that term "manspreading". I also like feeling much less like I'm manspreading my medical stuff throughout the house! 

3. I continued my viewing of 1980s action-comedy buddy movies today. 

I watched Lethal Weapon. 

I was glad that I watch movies as a believer. 

I enjoy having movies take me into the implausible. I never judge a movie by saying, "That would never happen in real life." 

Lethal Weapon built its story lines and its characterizations upon exaggeration and it was fun to give myself over to that and marvel at just how awful the evil characters in this movie could be, just how astonishingly fit and capable, even in the direst of situations, Mel Gibson's character was, and how manic the movie's different explosions, vehicle chases, and killings proved to be. 

Alongside the action scenes ranging from torture to shootouts to chases to hand to hand combat to explosions, this was a Christmas family movie of sorts and it was a story about a trust and friendship developing between Danny Glover's and Mel Gibson's characters. 

Given my predelictions for movies more of the art house variety, I could sure see why I'd never watched Lethal Weapon before. 

It's a whole different kind of movie making than I'm used to and it was fun to venture out into this movie's world of violence, heroic action, and heart warming scenes of family life and a budding friendship.