Surprise

A good day, all round. Tennis, breakfast, shower, rest and then blood work. My white cells are in an acceptable range, but are down from a week ago (which was pre chemo). So please email me any white cells that you have laying around.

Now, let me tell you. When I was 18, I had a summer job as Sports Director at an Adult Bible Conference Grounds. If I recall, the primary duty of the Sports Director was to rake and roll the clay tennis court.

In any event, one Friday afternoon, I took a late afternoon break and went canoeing with one of the waitresses, with whom I was acquainted. We took a picnic dinner and paddled over to an island. Docking, we scrambled up the hill on the island and found a spot for a picnic. Before you knew it, it had gotten dark and we had trouble finding our way back to the canoe. So much trouble, in fact, that we both fell over a 6 foot cliff and got bruised limbs and egos.

How did it get dark so quickly? I guess you would say that we had been messing around.

And that is why, I was interested in hearing the research manager suggest that we mess around after I got  my blood work done at 3:00. We did not have to be at the bridge club until 6.

Leaving the cancer center, we went to a doctor that the research manager wanted to meet as part of her guardian duties. Then we had to check out two health food stores looking for quality vitamin E.

By then, it was time enough for dinner and ended up at Sweet Tomatoes, which is a cool place. The research manager suggested that this gave us time to eat slowly for whatever reason. We ate slowly. We lingered. I was even able to get a mini-ice cream cone. She took a call, sent an email and finally determined that we could leave.

We got to the club, but she wanted me to wait while she checked yet another email. Finally, we got out of the car and went to the club to be greeted by a happy group and a table full of food (mostly healthy) to wish me a happy birthday. I  got the sense that something was up toward the end of the afternoon, but truly had forgotten about my pending birthday.

It was truly a surprise. A different surprise ending to messing around. Of course, the messing around was different also.