My calendar for March...

March 3rd .. annual physical...  oh good, now that I am over 65 I no longer need to be subjected to a pap smear, apparently I am too old for it to matter and my biennial mammogram is due this year because yes, now that I am old, I only need to have a mammogram every two years, I have moved out of that 'sweet spot' and for that I am grateful, so the annual physical just really entailed the usual 'prick the vein' game, something similar to 'whack a mole'. So many pathologists have taken the challenge and many have failed. I am fair, I warn them in advance that my veins like to roll and vanish, they never believe me. But they do discover, that big fat obvious vein is a mirage and it will duck and roll.

So, today I subjected myself to the old person annual, and the whack a mole game, gave up the blood and came home very hungry, after all, I got up at 3 a.m. and started working from home, by 9 a.m. time for my physical and I have had 3 cups of black, unsweetened coffee (luckily I have learned to I like it that way) two bottles of water - hoping it will make my veins easier to catch, and worked for 5 hours.. then the physical which took far too long - 2 hours, most of that time was spent sitting around waiting, partly in the waiting room and partly in one of those stupid gowns in an empty exam room. I finally got home, ready and willing to get some work done, then urgent call to get into the office for a meeting, so almost an hour on the road when I could have been working from home, another hour of meetings, a further hour on the road home.  March sucks, some of the time.

What is next? Oh, nothing till Tuesday the 11th, except Willie Nelson on the 9th! I am so excited about that. (I am hoping to get my nails done before that, but that is hardly important) on the 11th I have a pre-op appointment - two hammer toes, OK, one hammer toe and one that is getting hammered as fast as it can, hopefully the surgeon will agree with me to circumvent nature and fix the friggin' toe already.

Immediately after the pre-op, off we go to Shreveport for 3 days of slot mania, me, my husband and my mother in law... tell me that is not old entertainment? and I don't care, I love it. plus I have to tell you, I loved slot machines when I was 8 and there were no controls in the arcades in O'Connell street in Dublin.

What next you ask, well as soon as we get back from our old age fun, Monday 17th.. oh yes, St. Patrick's day.. or even Paddy's day - hear ye all my American friends, IT IS NOT ST. PATTY'S DAY - there is no such thing!!! Paddy is the shortened version of Patrick - and if you don't believe me, let me explain, Patrick is the anglicized version of the Irish name Padraig, therefore Paddy is the obvious shortended version. Where was I?  yes, Mammogram and bone density test on 17th - how old is that?, next day I get my hair done - that means mostly dumb down the grey that is trying to show through, and I am lucky, my DNA determined that I should not go grey till I am at least 70 - and I know that I am OK for a few more years because at 77 neither of my parents were more than 30% grey.

Next is my first baby's 44th birthday on 20th March.  How the hell did that happen?? not possible, does not compute. Then the day after the traumatic 44th birthday of my baby son, I am scheduled for another surgery on my right foot - the one or (I hope) two hammered toes.

I am looking forward to April. Not only am I done with all this old person sh1t for another year or maybe two, but it is a little bit closer to the HOT weather that Texas promised me.