Some day, I’ll do a blog post with more than fifteen minutes to squeeze in the writing of it. This is not that day. This is a day where I had things scheduled, things got canceled, and then I spun my wheels for a while before buckling down to it. And it’s a day where mistakes were made! I did not sleep well last night, or nearly as long as I would have liked, so I grabbed one of my dwindling stash of energy drinks (more vitamin B than caffeine, for the concerned, actually not as much of that latter as the double-fisted mug of Death Wish I downed on stumbling out of bed this morning). It’s sort-of orange flavored. All energy drinks taste to me like liquid pixie sticks, because they are designed for the younger set. Anyway, I was tossing that back, set it down, and went to brush my teeth.
You see where this is going, don’t you? Anyway, I’m awake now. And I could kill fifteen minutes unloading the dishwasher, but the Kid said he would do it. Yesterday. Ah, well. I’ll give him a little more rope, and instead of the kitchen, I’m here at my desk typing up nothing much to amuse and entertain y’all. Also, I had to put on socks. It’s getting hot in Texas, which was not a surprise to anyone except the Texas energy grid, who seem to have been caught with their pants around their ankles by summer. Now, I’m from the North. I mean, there’s not much norther I could have gotten, growing up. Some, but not a lot on a geographical scale. And I have no intention of moving any further south, although the last time I quipped about that to a young man who was helping me at a store, he laughed and shot back in Spanish that El Salvador is beautiful. He’s probably right. I’m still done moving Southward.
The upshot of the grid being under strain, because someone doesn’t know how to count to June, is that I’ve got the AC set at 78, which is cooler than outside, but warmer than I prefer in socks and full lab-appropriate clothing. Fortunately the lab is a near constant 72, so there’s that. If we start having rolling blackouts, though, it’s going to get really interesting, and I don’t mean that in any other way than ‘learn things you didn’t want to know.’ It’s education, the hard way, through experience. And I should buy more water, and eye water storage. Good thing about an apartment with two full bathrooms is two tubs I can fill if I have enough notice of a power outage. We shall see.
The one good thing (ok, there are more, I’ll post about that another time) about my oddball shift is that when I get out to my car after midnight to get home, it’s cooled off. I have a dark grey vehicle, which is not ideal in this area. And at the apartment, I’ve splurged on renting a covered parking spot, although when I sprang for it, I was more concerned with hail than burning my hands on the steering wheel. Bonus?
Oh, and I need to revamp my first aid kit for hiking in this area. Although I’m not sure snakebite kits are actually that useful. Anyone know?
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7 responses to “Education, the Hard Way”
Although I’m not sure snakebite kits are actually that useful.
Well, I suppose that it’s better to have one and not need one than needing one and not having it. [Crazy Grin]
Decades ago, when I did 10-day backpacking trips in the Sierras and Borrego desert, I had a snake-bite kit. I understood at the time that the better bit in the kit was the suction cup. The idea was cut an ‘X’ over the bite and use the suction cup to pull the poison out. I’ve since seen that suctioning out the poison doesn’t really work. But you still need to keep the bite part below your heart. And get medical attention ASAP.
Short answer, wash it, cover the bite loosely with a dry dressing, keep it lower than your heart, try not to exert yourself so try to get driven or carried to the ER. Get a pic of the snake or know what bit you for the purposes of anti venom. Do NOT try to draw the venom out, it doesn’t work and you’ll hurt yourself.
Thanks, Jolie! I haven’t lived in an area with venomous snakes since I was a small child.
Jolie, do those suction cup things work for drawing the venom out? That’s what we were taught to do (way back in the ’70s).
I added a tourniquet to the hiking kit, and we both attended tourniquet school hosted by Stop the Bleed.
Interesting comments about snakes, the recommended first aid treatment in Australia is quite different, but so are Australian snakes so what we are taught in Australian First Aid training only works for the types of snake venom here that mainly affects the lymphatic system. Different requirements for North American snakes.