smoother than you think

In Washington state, one of the perks of being a pharmacist is the license to administer vaccinations. The thought of vaccinations and booster shots transports me back to a waiting room with asbestos tile floors, military green walls, and tattered Lil Golden Classic children's books. It was the county building and the place the children of our town learned to dread. With such a vivid memory of my own inoculations, I was a little trepidatious about being the person doing the sticking. Luckily, pharmacists don't do many childhood vaccines. However, when learning to perform injections, you have to start somewhere. And that somewhere is your own belly fat and the deltoid of your lab partner.

If I thought examining cadavers was surreal, its not nearly as odd as preparing yourself to stick something sharp into the arm of another person. But the needle seems to just glide right in and before you know it, the syringe is emptied and dropped with a satisfying plunk into the red sharps container.

Then it was my turn to receive a "vaccine" from my partner. Maybe it was just my imagination, but he seemed to insert the needle very slowly and I could feel the cool metal of the needle inside my muscle. It made me wonder how it had felt when I inject him just moments before.

The whole experience of giving and receiving injections once again drove home the reality of what I'm going to be doing in a few years. When I think of the huge responsibility of my future work, my knees feel a little weak. But like most things in life, the anxiety built up around an event is much more frightening than the event itself. When I'm licensed and legal I'm sure I'll feel more ready to take on such a role.

vegetable soup

Life has been a rollicking string of exams lately, tied loosely together by bike rides, movies, and spurts of knitting. The latest scarf in my collection, done in a slubbed, varigated wool by Berocco purchased by my mom as a birthday gift, has been completed just in time for some dastardly cold weather. Although here in the Pacific Northwest we can't hold a candle to the sub zero temps of the Northeast, nightime lows in the teens are enough to keep everyone bundled up.

This weekend began with an impromptu exodus to Portland. I returned home from classes on Friday to find the streets of unincorporated Pierce county littered with tree branches and downed powerlines. The high winds had even been strong enough to uproot a mature pine tree that had careened into a nearby house. Power had been out at my house all day which meant no heat and the inevitable onset of total darkness at 5:30 pm. After deliberating a few minutes, I packed up my knitting and my kitty and hit the highway south to a warm meal and lots of reading light.

So I finally finished up this scarf, named Vegetable Soup thanks to Deborah, while the cold winds blew outside. Hopefully as winter finishes up, it will keep me as warm as its namesake as I fantasize about summer and warm air.