Dear Cheryl,

You mentioned in a comment to me that you wanted to see the bee-sting. The action! Well, we didn't catch the drama on camera, but here is a picture of my hand. It was taken 2 days after the bee-sting. You really can't even see it anymore. If you click on the picture you may see a teeny-tiny pin-prick that is actually the site of the sting. But there is also a brighter red mark on my finger (also probably hard to see). That's where I burnt myself 2 days later on the autoclave at work. It was freezing in there and I thought I would warm my hand up by placing it on the autoclave that I was running my instruments through. I didn't realize it would burn it. Those things are hot! Like 250* F hot. It's times like these I have to ask myself, "what was I thinking?" And I wonder if maybe I should start drinking coffee in the morning before I go to work. Or take my vitamins more than twice a week. You know, keep those brain cells working...

I brought a lab jacket with me today which helped me keep warmer. Good thing too cause my doctor forgot to turn the air conditioning up and it was only 62* F in the office this morning!

I got the idea for touching the autoclave because many many years ago (back in 2005) when I was working at Daily Grind (coffee shop) I would get to work at 6:30 AM every morning when my dad would drop me off on his way to work. I wasn't supposed to be there till 7 AM, but when you can't drive you just get there when someone can drop you off. Anyway, the guy I worked with on Mondays refused to turn the heat on in the winter. He just refused. He said people would buy more coffee if it was cold. I think he just liked being cold. I hate being cold! When he wasn't looking I would go turn the heater on and run and stand in one of the bathrooms until I warmed up because it got hot in there really fast. Once he figured out that I'd turned on the heat he'd go switch it off. So I would go turn on the convection oven and heat it up and then, periodically, I'd open the oven door and stand in front of it while it was blowing out hot air until I warmed up. It was that cold.

So on Monday I was remembering this while I was freezing at this new job. I couldn't open the autoclave while it was running, so I just touched the door. And now I know better.

Sorry the picture wasn't more exciting. :)

How are things in Texas?

Love,
Gracie