So my day started with a phone call about hospitals and me having to go to one. "The patient" makes me impatient; it is never fun to walk into a hospital room, but even less fun if you get a verbal shot fired at you before you walk all of the way into the room.

The problem is that damn story, Peter and the Wolf. We all know about how Peter cried wolf, and the townspeople came, but there was no wolf. This went on and on until eventually no one came - except the wolf.

I have my very own Peter, who feels the need for largely unneeded medical attention, at almost regular intervals. The wolf is the "something wrong with me", and one of these days there MAY be something wrong, but... usually not so much. So there is annoyance and then guilt and reluctant driving to hospitals with hands clenched around the steering wheel. Because someday, certainly, the wolf WILL freaking be there, just when I stop going.

There is aimless shopping afterward, and trying to find something to buy that will soothe the anger and frustration enough to allow one to return home to innocent bystanders. Today it was potting soil, and some plain pots. That didn't quite beat down the monster, so I went to a craft store. The new wilton yearbook is out. That helped.

My mother stopped by today; she has already remarked "tile? on the kitchen floor? the kind with grout?" on the phone so I really wasn't optimistic about the outcome of the visit. Indeed, she whipped out "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but..." and then did; something about radioactive - radon- releasing granite that I tuned out... then later referred to my new family room as "a canyon" and had I been in the room when she said that to Mr. C I might have shot back "Yes, it's GRAND, isn't it?"

My bike is moved aside to allow for interior painting on the porch, so I gardened tonight, out on my deck, as the sky grew dark. I took the crazy basil and divided it into three pots and may have mangled some, but then I had WAY too much anyway. I can't say if the parsley seedlings survived my stress - or was it the oregano? It helped a little bit, to mush the dirt around and divide and conquer at least one tiny area of my life.