plenty of fluids

My week began with the dumping of about two feet of snow on my car and everywhere else within a day's drive of my cozy little abode in Ashford.

Air's not a liquid, I guess, but on the scale of tragedies in my life, my other big news includes the fact that my inflatable lounger/couch, where I sit to do the majority of my never-ending homework in my living room, has sprung a leak.

On Tuesday I spent two hours donating blood for the first time in years, on the UConn campus. All went well except for the part where my finger where they pricked me to check my hemoglobin first is now infected.

I just noticed on a two-liter plastic bottle of diet A&W Rootbeer in my fridge there is printed the disappointing phrase: "No Refill."

And on Tuesday while I was taking a nap (following my medical procedure), the big grizzly man who lives in my apartment building and is known for being helpful, knocked on my door to tell me not to use very much water in my apartment for a day because everything that went down my drains was coming up in the apartment below (not the grizzly man's), so they were waiting on a plumber.

Thursday night when I arrived home from an extra trip to Massachusetts at 10:30 p.m., I could see lots of firetrucks and ambulance lights as I came over the hill and around the corner to my building. As I pulled into my lot and saw the whole main entrance area where I live was covered with emergency vehicles and personnel, my first thought was, "I need to get my cats out." I thought I saw a spray of water coming from one of the trucks and smoke coming out from the opposite side of the building from where I live, but as I pulled into a parking space I realized it was just fog and there appeared to be no fire (or fluids). I walked hesitatingly toward the building and asked a police officer in the parking lot, "What's going on?" He said, cryptically, "Oh, someone just wasn't feeling so good." I stared blankly at him and then said, "Okay, thanks," and went inside. The first two floors around the central stairs were almost crawling with paramedics and other uniformed representatives of Ashford. I stood to the side on the landing and let several pass, then kept climbing, and out came several more. They all looked a little bored and slightly confused. I went on up to the third floor, turned right (away from the flow of emergency personnel) and returned to my apartment and my fine felines, and that's the end of the story for all I know.

Friday it rained, and for the first Friday night of this February, I didn't go to a social gathering of fellow grad students held in someone's spacious home to drink wine and talk small talk. Happily, I had no invitations, so I stayed home and worked and slept.