I woke up this morning at 7 AM and couldn't believe I had slept a full eight hours without waking up once. Normally I wake up at least five times a night. A third of those awakenings are because I have to pee. All the other times I wake up because some part of my body is in pain and needs to get moved to a different position. These days it's mostly my shoulder that wakes me but on occasion it is the knees and back demanding attention. But last night I slept straight through and only that I had to pee I would probably still be asleep. I made a quick trip to the bathroom at 7 and decided I would just lie back down for a bit until I had to get up for my doctor appointment. Two and a half hours later I opened my eyes and couldn't believe I had slept so soundly. Because I had to leave for the doctor in an hour I crawled out of bed and started to pull myself together. The following hour was only interrupted by two phone calls from the hospital where I will have my surgery and one visit from D who was kind enough to check on me to make sure I was alive and moving. Both phone calls took up a maximum of 3 minutes total. D's visit took considerably longer. Once he saw I was up he wanted to discus "our" plans for the day. At this point of the day MY only plan was to get to the doctor on time so after a minute or two I politely excused myself from the conversation by telling him I REALLY needed to get moving and we could continue discussing the agenda for the day after I returned. As I stepped out of the front door to go to my car I was greeted by our house guests well meaning inquiries regarding my health and well being. I tried to respond with the pat answer of "I'm fine" as I kept moving out the gate but noted that they were still talking to me as I rounded the corner of the house on my way to the parking lot. I may have appeared a bit rude but I REALLY had to get going if I was to make the five mile drive in time for my 11:00 appointment.
THANK GOODNESS I left when I did because it was at this point that the Gods chose to play with me. At the first intersection I stopped at the red light waiting to make a left turn. The car on the opposite side of the intersection had their left turn blinker on so I foolishly assumed they were in fact TURNING LEFT. Green light and they came directly across the intersection with me barely missing hitting them broadside. Deep Breath Cath . . . At the next corner I made a right turn on red, (after coming to a full stop) and the guy in the car on my left took off driving straight across the 3 lane road while the light was still red. OMG . . . two intersections and I have already encountered 2 idiots. Three lights further on I decided to take a "short cut" and turn left again. This particular cross road has a left turn lane with a left turn arrow. I just missed the green arrow so had to wait till the cross traffic had their turn to go and then the light had to go through another cycle. When it was my turn and my red arrow should have turned green it did nothing of the sort and just remained RED until the traffic light started it's next cycle. By this time I was sure I was the victim of a cruel joke. After waiting 2 cycles of red lights that never turned green I swung back out into traffic and continued along to an alternate street in which to turn left. Once again I was in the left turn lane with about 8 cars ahead of me. The left turn arrow turned green and exactly TWO cars made it through the light before it went to red. OK, it happens, what's one more light . . . (By now I am barely going to get to the doctor on time.) The light went through its cycle and once again the red left turn arrow should turn to green but at just that moment the gates on the railroad tracks to my left came down so the red light remained red. Now I know for sure I must have really pissed off some cosmic power to be having this sort of luck. The good thing was there was no train coming just a pick-up truck driving along the tracks checking what ever pickups on train tracks do. Sadly it took two cycles of lights for the gates to go back up and the light to turn green. As soon as the light changed the first car in the line did NOTHING !!! We had sat at this intersection for over five minutes and apparently the driver in the first car had either fallen asleep or died. (More likely they were on their phone.) Suddenly there was a series of horns blasting because apparently the other forty cars waiting to turn were just as pissed off as I was. I managed to make it through the light and arrive at my doctors office with about 3 minutes to spare.
It had taken me 25 minutes to travel 5 miles. I think that has got to be some sort of a record even for Florida.
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