President Obama and Our Christmas Tree

We had the pleasure of a brief visit from President Obama here in Columbus, Ohio, this morning.

NBC4 of Columbus reported..."Residents expected some traffic issues near the Aladdin Shrine Temple Friday, before and after the ceremony, which started at about 10:30 a.m...Obama and Air Force One arrived at Port Columbus International Airport at about 10:35 a.m."

I drove by the Aladdin Shrine this morning about 8 a.m., and it could have been a proper funeral service with heavy traffic, police cars, police on horses, various types of official vehicles zooming around, and well dressed people crossing the roadway and entering the building. The only difference was the white-shirted officers greeting a line of guests along the sidewalk. (The 25 graduates. Earlier, it was 26. I wonder what happened to one of them?)

And, an electric highway sign beside the road flashing the message, "Private Event. By Invitation Only."

From what I saw later on TV, everybody must have been in place several hours before the president arrived. I watched his short speech as I was taking down our Christmas tree and changing our living room around so we could open the patio door and allow the warm spring air sniff out the winter chill.

Sheba got nervous and upset at the new sounds, so I had to sit on the floor and rub her tummy awhile. Soon she gave me that quick little wag of her tail that means, "Everything is okay now." (It also means, "I understood what you said, but I still wish I could go with you."

I feel like the day is just flying by! The hour-long clothes dryer cycle seems to be taking about 7 minutes today! I still need to go to the bank and close a photography account that they started charging an inactive fee to in January. It gobbled up my $20 and will be asking for more soon if I don't take care of that little nuisance!

For the record (and I'm not complaining about it), at my RN clinicals yesterday, I took blood pressures and prepared paperwork for a patient who was to be discharged today. They say I shouldn't take life so seriously and that I should 'think about the cup being half full and not half empty', when I complain that I'm not getting the proper training as a RN student, So again, I'm not complaining about all the blood pressure experience I got yesterday.

As a reflection, I still remember the excitement of being a student LPN and going on my first blood pressure clinic and taking blood pressures at a Dayton, Ohio, mall back in 1970. I was so proud to meet the public and explain the normal range of blood pressure as I took over 100 blood pressures that day. I was still on a 'high' when I got back to the Flood home, and I wrote about the wonderful event in my little blue diary.

By comparison, yesterday my back went into spasms every time I leaned over to take a blood pressure and when the patient didn't agree with the reading, they complained and asked me to take it over again. (I think I took one man's blood pressure five times!) (Maybe it was the nice attention he was getting?) When I got home, I reached for the ice pack and had to lie down while!

But, I'm not complaining...

Perhaps you already asked yourself why I was taking down our Christmas tree on March 6. It's real simple. Hubby and I enjoyed the sparkling lights in the corner of the living room during the long cold winter. We agreed to leave the tree up until we decided it had been up long enough. Today being the first day to reach almost 70 degrees, we agreed it was time to take it down.

It's also time to get the clothes out of the dryer again and head out for errands before I pick up Jim at the bus stop.

See the local TWITTER here that occurred while President Obama was in town this morning.

Take Care on the Journey,
~Linda

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