nudity & cherry blossoms

so the doc said I have to go around topless this weekend, let the thing air dry. I have a T-shirt on now, which is wonderful. When the gel was drying I really had to let it be naked -- and I found that I don't LIKE being naked when I don't have my skin on! I am fine with nudity generally, but going around with a bare naked gaping wound....no. I especially didn't like cooking dinner like that, with the frying pan spatter.

YOu'd think I could wait til it dries to cook, but the burn gel really takes a good hour or two to dry. Feels like your whole life when it's happening. I have never been patient, and by now I have given up on the idea of gaining patience when I grow up..... though I really did used to think it was gonna happen! Comes from growing up with a non-genetic parent I think. You think you will somehow inherit some of their traits when you grow up, but, um, doens't work out quite that way.....

Anyway I thought you guys might want to know my wound is nothing so bad as it seemed yesterday. In fact already this morning it looked better..... I had to change the dressing in the AM before the bike ride, because there was blood soaked through all the gauze and my T-shirt, and it occurred to me that if I was actively bleeding a bike ride might not be the best idea. It was soaked enough that the dressing came off easily -- and then lo and behold, it turned out that the stuff soaking the gauze was mostly not blood at all (I'd say 5% blood at the most.) So I patched myself up and off I went!

The other interesting observation was ALan's. He pointed out that the problem with the wound started after I started putting gel and gauze on, as per the doctor's orders. I suppose it's possible it was going to get bad anyway last week, but I think the gauze and gel made it worse in any case ..... I DID tell them that the gel made the gauze stick to me, and that it peeled my skin off when I changed the dressing.... but whatever; it's over now.

About the CHERRY BLOSSOMS..... I don't know if you guys all know about them, but the DC cherry blossoms are famous. BTW they are famous not because they're beautiful, but because the japanese gave them to us after WW2. They ARE beautiful, but if you saw spring here you would question the fuss about the cherry blossoms too. EVERYthing is beautiful! I've never lived anywhere that wakes up and comes into bloom the way it does here. The cherry blossoms are great, but about 50% of the other stuff that comes into bloom sometime in the spring is even better. Personally, if I had to choose a tree to have a festival about here it would be redbuds. They are this small tree that blooms later (another week or two maybe?) They start out with a purple outline that feels like it's in your head..... and then it gets big enough that it's clearly real. Later they are full blossoms -- and in the summer the leaves are heart shaped. We planted one out in front of the house last summer (a present from the Birchells when they moved away) and it looks like it wintered over okay -- so I expect a purple outline any day now..... The magnolias are beautiful, too.

Anyway the cherry blossom festival starts tomorrow -- and we went on a blossom ride today. I thought the trees would be in bloom because I'd seen one in the next neighborhod over, on a dog walk. However I found out an interesting thing. Weeping cherries are in bloom now. They are LOVELY. Much lovelier than the regular kind, I personally think -- but I just love anything that grows in that droopy way. (Every seen a weeping pine? Omigod!) However, the NON weeping cherries are not in bloom yet. They were bare trees with buds, all of them. Luckily we passed a few lovely weeping cherries as well -- someone took pictures.