Warning Shots?

**It has been an odd week, full of ominous portends. If I were at all religious or superstitious, I would most likely be hiding in the crawl space with a bible (or bibles) and a rabbit's foot (or feet). Since I have grown out of one of the former, and never understood the other (you decide which is which), I find myself left with a vague sense of unease, and a firm conviction that I need to get moving. Read on to find out why.

**Sniff...Sniff...

Earlier this week, I had noticed a bit of an odor in the garage. Not your usual garbage odor, which is not unusual, considering that's where the garbage cans are, but something a bit more funky. Not quite dog poop, but something else. Dead mouse, perhaps? Then I remembered that When the guy from Terminix last came, he had put down some glue traps in the garage to catch anything that made it past the perimeter spray. So, I walked over to the closest one, lifted it up, and there, stuck inside, quite dead, was a little brown bird. I was not amused. A freakin bird?! This trap thing was on the floor of the garage, in front of the car! It wasn't supposed to catch birds! I like birds. Mostly. Not that I want then to get stuck on a pad of glue till they die or anything like that! I was very very not happy. That was brush with death #1.

**Say What??

We hadn't seen our neighbor for a while. We also hadn't seen our neighbor's dogs for a while. We knew that she had been being treated for cancer of some sort, but she seemed to be fine the last time we saw her. Came to find out that she had died at the age of 33. Leukemia. Ginger and Roy, her greyhounds, are back in the care of REGAP, and we have no idea what's to become of her house and all. Visitation was Friday, funeral was Saturday. That was brush with death #2. Again, I was not real happy.

**GPC in Chains

It came to my attention on Friday that a patient that had been in our hospital and was transferred to Rockford had been diagnosed and confirmed to have a blood infection of 'flesh eating bacteria'. So, the infection control nurse was running around trying to get a list of anyone who had been in direct contact with this person or any of their specimens. The night before, I had handles 3 broth cultures that were so full of this bacteria I couldn't believe it. I just didn't know at the time that's what it was. So I made the list. Since there is no treatment for asymptomatic people, I was told that if I felt sick at all to get to the ED right away. This continued my string of unhappiness, and is ongoing possible brush with death #3.

**One Taillight

This Saturday was not my day to work. But a friend of mine asked if I could cover a few hours for her, and the notion of an easy three hours of overtime was quite appealing, since I had it in mind to make a run to get more art supplies. So, six o' clock came, and I made my way out the door to a nicer day than it was when I came in at 3. Hopped in the car, cracked the windows, and headed for home with PUSA blaring on the stereo. I was sitting on Dresser, stopped, waiting to make a left turn onto the little street that leads to my house, when there was a screeching of tires, and a tap on the back of my car. In the split second it took me to process this info, a car shot into my line of sight from behind and to my left and smashed head-on into a minivan that was headed in the opposite direction. The sound was indescribable. Pieces went flying everywhere. The blue car rolled backward out of my line of sight and I was left staring at the demolished minivan in front of me. In my terror, I still had the clutch pushed in. I pulled off the road, a mere two blocks from my house, and got on the phone to 911. My next call was to Sheri.

Bits of smashed car were all over the place. the car that clipped me had rolled backwards 20 feet or so after hitting the minivan. The smell of antifreeze was strong in the air and people were coming from all directions to see what had happened.

This is where my exact recollection of events and time get really fuzzy. People got the driver of the minivan out and had him laying in the road next to his car. I hear the bone in his ankle was sticking out. His passenger was out and moving around, seemingly OK. Sheri came running up in her bare feet, wanting to know that I was OK. The passenger in the blue car couldn't get out because her door was jammed shut. The fire dept ended up using the jaws to get her door open. The driver of the blue car was out and moving around, but eventually she wound up on a backboard and on her way to the hospital. I just kinda stood in the vicinity of my car, watching all this happen around me. Which it literally had. Count that one as brush with death #4.

**And did I happen to mention that this was the week of the full moon?

**So I don't think I'm totally unjustified in feeling like the universe is taking some ranging shots in my general direction. And if I get moving, maybe it won't be able to hit me for a while.