Easter Bullet Points

• This past week has seen a rapid improvement in the weather. On Thursday the temperature hit the mid 60s ~Tee shirt weather! My Crocuses even started blooming in the front yard. There are still plies of dirty snow in places where the sun can't get to them, but the piles are going down. YAY!!!
  
  
• On Thursday I had a tree man cut down a 60 foot Red Maple in front of the house I bought in October. Red Maples are ostensibly a weed tree, growing extremely fast. If it had been in a better location, I would have been happy to leave it alone, but this one was directly over the house sewer line, directly under the house electric service, and so close to the front walk and city sidewalk as to eventually lift them. Also it leaned over the house and blocked the view of the handsome front façade. This was too tricky a job for Dave, so I hired another tree-man, Trayne, to do the work. Trayne is 43, 6'2" tall, with big broad shoulders, handsome features, longish brown hair, and a sweet, self-effacing personality. He used a file to sharpen the spurs on his tree-climbing boot-straps and then scampered up the tree like a squirrel. He attached a rope high in the tree and used it to haul up his chain saw and also to lower down the cut limbs. I watched the whole process, enjoying his aerial acrobatics as the tree came down piece by piece.
  
  
  
  
  
• Early last week, my computer crashed, hopelessly overloaded with malware. My tech-guy came to the house to try to clean up the mess, but wound up taking the computer back to his shop for a total lobotomy. He returned it the next day, freshly lobotomized, and installed the Kaspersky security system and Carbonite to back up my photo files. Now I am ready to jump back into the internet, safe and protected behind new security programs.
  
  
• On Tuesday, Lily had an appointment with her vet to get her shots and a general check-up. She is fine and "full of beans", to quote the vet. When we got back home, I opened my truck door and she leaped over me and out before I could grab her leash. She took off down the street with wild abandon, me chasing her, always keeping just a few steps ahead of me. At the last house on the block, she turned and headed down their driveway and into the side yard. I tried to head her off by going the other way around their hedge, as I got close to her I ran to grab her leash, but my sneaker caught on a crack in the sidewalk and I went down, very hard, with my face hitting the concrete walk. As I lay there moaning, with blood running into my eye, she came over to me to check out the damage, and I grabbed her leash. I tried to wipe the blood out of my eye, and walked her back to my house, feeling a bit woozy and unsteady. I looked in my mirror, and tried to clean up the injury, but it wouldn't stop bleeding and it was clear that I needed medical attention. I called Bob, who lives across the street, and he drove me to a "Prompt Care" facility connected to a big hospital near the university a mile away. I waited there for assistance for about half an hour. The staff cleaned the wound and a doctor put 7 stitches in my forehead, just over the left eye. They gave me a tetanus shot and a prescription for an antibiotic, checked me for a concussion and a broken nose, CAT-scanned my head, and X-rayed my left hand, which was beginning to swell up. Bob waited there and drove me home when they were done with tests and paperwork.
  
  The next day, my left hand was even more swollen, and becoming quite painful. I went back to the "Prompt Care" facility and they X-rayed my left wrist. The x-rays were inconclusive. They said that sometimes fractures in the small bones of the wrist don't show up until a week later, so to be cautious, they put a cast on my wrist and wrapped it up. I will need to have an Orthopedic Specialist look at it next week.
  
  The total damages from chasing Lily (not including the financial ones):
  7 stitches in my forehead.
  A black eye.
  Large scrapes (and now scabs) on my forehead, nose, and a small one on my cheek.
  A skinned left knee (no big deal).
  A likely broken bone in my left wrist.
  A small chip in a front tooth.
  A torn fingernail on my right hand and a little bit of road-rash on my stomach.
  
  
• My face looks ghastly. The standard reaction that I hear from everyone who sees me is: "What happened to You?". I have told the story at least 20 times now, and am getting tired of telling it. Maybe next time I will simply say: "They had to carry the other guy away on a stretcher!" lol
  
  
• I am going over to George's house this afternoon for dinner with George and Michael, Gary has to work today.
  
  
• I hope you all have a Happy Easter!
  *Hugs*