1. Lab day!
I'm always eager to get going to Spokane on lab day and so I bolted out of bed at 4:15 this morning, got cleaned up, gathered a few things, completed Wordle, and by 5:45 I was on I-90 for a fairly uneventful drive to Spokane.
Until November 1, I went to a lab in the same building on Sacred Heart's campus for labs as houses the transplant clinic.
Sacred Heart closed that lab.
Now I go to the main hospital, check in at the surgery check in area, and wait to be called in.
It was all quick this morning and lo and behold the superb Angela drew my blood -- it was good to see she came over to the hospital when Sacred Hearts bosses closed that other lab.
How quick?
I was out of the parking garage I use in under a half and hour and so parking was FREE! Ha ha ha! I saved three bucks!
Test results came quickly, too, and I hope the transplant team is happy with the numbers.
I sure was.
2. My day continued to be fun when I left Sacred Heart.
I immediately blasted over to Great Harvest and bought a loaf of Harvest Blend bread, a magnificent Morning Glory muffin, and a 16 oz cup of Cravens Earth & Sky dark roast coffee.
I dove back into Haruk Murakami's book Underground and learned that I was reading a newer edition with material added to the book that had not been in the original.
Originally, Murakami's plan was to interview only victims of the gas attack along with a few medical personnel and a few relatives of victims.
But, reader responses to his original book moved him to interview members of the cult, Aum, who perpetrated the attack.
I'm reading those interviews now.
I relaxed and read.
Mornings at Great Harvest are quiet.
Morning customers tend to be, like me, older people, often in small coffee clatches.
Today, the counter person who took my order lit up when she saw I was reading a book by Murakami, told me she enjoyed his fiction, and asked me to report back to her when I finished Underground.
I'll do that.
3. Back around the time of Don Knott's Celebration of Life, Don's sister Shelley and I agreed to get together for lunch some time. We made some plans that fell through for good reasons, but today our plan didn't fall through.
I arrived in Coeur d'Alene about an hour so ahead of our appointed time to meet.
I spent that hour happily wandering around Fred Meyer, looking at what coffees they sell, checking out kitchen ware, browsing their men's T-shirts, and seeing if anything else caught my eye.
I wasn't in the buying mood, so I left the store empty handed.
I buzzed over to Tomato Street and met up with Shelley.
We had a splendid lunch.
I enjoyed a plate of spaghetti topped with a sauce of brown butter and myzithra, a Greek cheese made from goat or sheep milk. I splurged and added three meatballs to my pasta and enjoyed a small green salad and Tomato Street's garlic bread.
Shelley and I had a lot to talk about. We told each other what we experienced in the time period around the celebration of Don's life. Shelley filled me in on how the area around the Kellogg cemetery was a place where she and her brothers spent fun times growing up and how she and Don had returned to that area not too long ago and that some of Don's ashes are now scattered there.
I enjoyed how wide ranging our conversation was and that I got to know Shelley better, a delight.
I lost track of time, but I think we talked for nearly two hours.
I wanted to check out the Trader Joe's that opened Tuesday in Coeur d'Alene, but, ha!, the fairly ample parking lot was full with several cars driving around looking for shoppers to leave.
I almost immediately gave up. I'll go back later. I also wanted to buy some groceries at Pilgrim's Market and so drove across the street (its parking lot was almost full!) and purchased produce, Cravens Earth and Sky coffee, Nancy's kefir, raw almonds, and maybe one or two other items.
Back home, I was happy to find Copper was relaxed and content despite being behind a closed door for nearly eight hours.
I was tired.
I napped.
I relished that I had done today what I enjoy most: expanding my post-transplant trips to Sacred Heart into fun times in Spokane and Coeur d'Alene.
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