Three Beautiful Things 08-12-2025: Nurse Jenn Checks In, A Welcome Long Wait, I Call Debbie

1. Nurse Jenn from the transplant team messaged me a cheery report that the blood work I had done last week looks stable. I see Dr. Bieber on Thursday the 14th and I'll have some questions for him, especially about my blood pressure and the lower than usual diastolic readings. It's also not clear to me just yet if the new medication I started taking a couple of weeks ago is helping with the problem of protein leaking into my urine. 

2. On the spur of the moment, I decided I'd had it with my shaggy hair and so I drove to CdA, enjoyed lunch at The Breakfast Nook, went to Supercuts and came out relieved that I no longer looked like Fred MacMurray's sheepdog, and I bought a few items at Trader Joe's. 

It didn't take long for the heat to make me feel a bit shaky. All I had to do was walk across the Trader Joe's parking lot and put groceries in the trunk.

So I got back in the car, drove to Costco to fuel up, and I saw that a huge vehicle pulling another car was in the lane of the pump I prefer to use. 

I eased the Camry behind this behemoth, kept the A/C going, and relaxed to the music of Sirius/XM's Symphony Hall.

A woman tapped on the passenger side window. 

I put the window down and she told that I might want to gas up at a different pump because the leviathan in front of me was going to need about 65 gallons of gas. 

I made her laugh when I said, "Thanks, but I'm right where I want to be. I got too hot and I'm enjoying letting the air conditioner cool me off. I was actually happy to see that I was going to have a long wait so that I could listen to music here in the car and get more comfortable. Thank you for thinking of me."

Giggling, she said, "Okay! As you wish! I'm glad we could help you feel better!"

This worked out perfectly. I did get more comfortable. I loved the Tchaikovsky piece playing on the radio. And by the time I gassed up, I felt normal again and I had a most comfortable drive home. 

3. I got an email from Debbie that prompted me to call her just to clarify one thing and it took about a second to find out we are on the same page about some home business. To my surprise, on Thursday, Debbie will drive Jack (who just returned from a visit to his grandmother in Eugene) to the Diaz home in Woodbridge, VA for a weekend visit. 

I was staggered to hear that she is going to hit the road, especially given how very tired she was after her trip to Lake Michigan, Chicago, and to Woodbridge. 

But, Jack will get to see his cousins. Debbie will have more time with her grandchildren and with Molly. (I don't know when Hiram returns from his music trip to Portugal.) 

I told Debbie that I don't know how she's doing it. 

Her response, "Neither do I."