SOCMOB

There I was, standing on the corner minding my own business when I was mugged by a story.

The characters in Industrial Fiction kicked me in the slats, held a knife to my throat and told me to keep writing.

Consequently, there will be more installments. I don't know how many more, yet.

In other news

Day-by-day I am getting stronger and want to do more. I had a conversation with my nephew who is a Physical Therapist. He gave me a pep-talk and pretty much told me to cool it. I am chomping at the bit to do a little more and he told me to sit tight. My next doctor's appt is Wednesday and as an adult I should be able to wait that long.

So little traffic that somebody decided to store there boat there.

I already picked out where I will practice walking. It is a school that was closed due to declining enrollment. The parking lot is about an acre in extent and there is almost zero traffic. The surface is flat and smooth and still in good shape. This is the same place I took my kids to teach them to ride "two-wheelers".

Six Degrees of Separation

Lansing really is a small town.

There is a gentleman who lives across the street from Mom's house. I used to cut the lawn of the woman who lived there. She was a spinster who had been a high school English teacher and who lived in retirement longer than she had worked.

When she passed on, her nephew inherited it. He had been maintaining the house while the spinster aunt lived in it. That was a real chore because he lived in a city sixty miles away and his job put a lot of unusual time demands on him.

He and his wife moved into the house after he transferred to Lansing. He is a gregarious guy and quickly picked up jobs mowing the lawns of the widows and spinsters on his block. He does fine, meticulous work even if he does look like he would be perfectly at home on a beach sipping margaritas with Jimmy Buffet.

I happened to see him walking his dogs after work and I asked him "Do you know Doctor Swords?" It seemed like there was a pretty good chance he would. He is an Emergency Room Doctor at Sparrow which is the hospital Swords is affiliated with.

"Which one? The younger or the older?" he asked from the sidewalk.

"The younger" I replied.

"Sure do. I send him work all the time" he replied.

"Let him know he has another happy customer" I said pointing at the cast on my leg.

"Will do" he replied as his dogs reminded him that he was supposed to be walking them.

Ticks

Belladonna and Sprite informed Mrs ERJ that the ticks back home are ferocious.

I guess that is what happens when there is nobody around to mow the grass.

Sprite told us she was going to give it a lick-and-a-promise today.

I need to get back home. I am not big on spraying insecticides but this might be the one year I make an exception.

Referrals

Efforts to get an appointment with the hand doctor for my left-hand have come to naught. It is still the one thing that hurts enough to wake me up and keep me awake in the night.

I think it is probably a staffing issue. EVERYBODY is on their ass for workers and doctor's offices might be hit worse than other areas. The software is specialized so the pool of workers who can flow in seamlessly is small. Doctor's fees are set by insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid so they cannot just increase fees to keep up with inflation. Consequently, they cannot raise wages to maintain the relative difference between what a medical-office worker makes and what a factory worker makes. The offices bleed workers and struggle to get new ones trained.