A link or two more and a brief narrative

Here's the link for the authorized fundraiser for Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's bookstores:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/let-us-help-save-uncle-hugo039s

Here is Naomi Kritzer being smart as usual, musing upon and trying to sort out the frankly weird mixture of legitimate and really not elements that went into recent events:

https://naomikritzer.com/2020/06/03/minneapolis-outside-agitators/#more-14587

And here I am, attempting a simple account of a trip to the clinic for bloodwork. My doctor had opined that it made no great never-mind whether I came to see her in person or not, but she very much wanted the bloodwork done, and the sooner the better. The clinic was presently, she said, a ghost town, with a lot of appointments available and very few people around. She also said that, although she was not an epidemiologist, she was concerned that there would be a surge in COVID cases after the protests and riots, so I should slip in well before ten to fourteen days had passed. I couldn't help thinking that the protesters had been attacked enough without also coming down with the virus.

I had been supposed to fast, on account of the lipid panel, but woke with a migraine and firmly ditched that requirement in favor of taking the required medication with some food.

Raphael gave me a ride. The bus system has just started up again after the riots, but I'm in multiple high-risk groups for COVID19 and would rather not.

It was a glorious early summer day, green as could be, brilliant pink peonies blooming lustily on people's boulevard gardens, chimney swifts chittering overhead.

I had been out in a car twice since March 14, once to Wood Lake, a Richfield city park, and once to William O'Brien, a Minnesota state park. But that was before all the upending. We drove north on Lyndale. All the businesses were boarded up. Neatly painted on the convenient plywood were notations of whether the business was open, open for takeout, closed. Also painted on the wood, sometimes neatly, sometimes not, were numerous iterations of NO JUSTICE NO PEACE, JUSTICE FOR GEORGE, BLACK LIVES MATTER, [HEART SYMBOL] FOR MPLS. Also, most heartbreakingly, PEOPLE LIVE HERE DON'T BURN.

I put on a mask in the car and, leaving Raphael in a nice shady spot in the parking lot, went into the clinic. On the bench outside sat two women, masks down around their chins, talking. Each sat at the far end of the bench from the other. I waved at them and let the sliding doors admit me. I was inordinately fascinated by the fact that even with the plywood, they still moved. Inside, where there's ordinarily a bench, was a table surrounded by a plastic enclosure about six feet high. Inside it sat a nice lady in a mask, who greeted me brightly, asked if I had an appointment, and then asked me some standard questions about fever, cough, sudden loss of taste or smell, and recent exposure to a known case of COVID19. I answered in the negative, except about having the appointment, and went down to the basement where the lab lurks, bonking the elevator buttons with my elbow.

There was a strip of yellow and black striped tape on the carpet six feet from the receptionist's desk. I stood there and stated my name, my quest, and my favorite color, and affirmed that I'd answered No to all the COVID questions upstairs. Then she asked about fasting, and I said I had failed at it, because migraine. She said that unless my doctor had specifically told me to fast, she'd just have them run the test anyway. The person I'd made the appointment with had told me to fast, possibly because my doctor had ordered it and possibly for some other reason. I figured my doctor could sort it out.

Ordinarily the receptionist would ask for ID and insurance card, but she didn't. She was masked already, and got up and transformed herself into the phlebotomist by taking me into a room and putting on some gloves. The blood draw was very fast and then she gave me a cup to pee in.

I went into the bathroom and washed my hands; also my arms and elbows while I was at it. Then I read the instructions on the wall and looked around for the towelettes. There was a basket that had probably once contained them, but it was empty. I went back out with my cup and hailed the phlebotomist and explained the problem. "That's because I'm too short to reach the shelf where they keep them," she said. I expressed sympathy, saying that for me half the stuff in the kitchen might as well not exist and I hated having to get out the step-stool. After trying to chivvy the towelettes off the shelf with a pen, she resignedly fetched her own step-stool, got them down, and restocked the basket. Except when she was actually taking the blood out of me, we both almost instinctively kept six to eight feet apart. It is weird how quickly that habit can develop.

I washed my hands again, leaving the elbows alone this time.

I am really bad at peeing in a cup; a failure of proprioception, native clumsiness, who knows. I reached a new low by peeing on my hand. However, with an adjustment, some ended up in the cup; and there was an abundance of methods for cleaning up; so I did, left the cup in the cunning niche provided, washed my hands for what was by then the fourth time, and went out gratefully. At the nice lady's plastic castle, a man in a strange blue paper mask stood next to a little boy. A woman in a mask and scrubs knelt in front of the boy, adjusting another strange blue mask over his face and saying cheerfully, "This'll be a little big for you, but we can adjust it."

I put on hand sanitizer in the parking lot and got back into the car. Raphael mentioned that just before I came out, a man and a child with no masks had gone into the clinic, so I told her about the little scene I'd witnessed.

The test results are coming in to MyChart. The one I'm most concerned about, the HGB A1c, is always the last to come in. Most of the others look very good.

I am loving all your posts and comments so much.

Pamela