Watch Your Step

We live in a somewhat rural area of Virginia (King George), so approximately every three months or so we go in to Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania to buy the things that we cannot get locally.  Yesterday was the day for one of those trips.  We almost didn’t go as the forecast was for rain, potentially heavy at times, but in the morning the forecast indicated that the rain would be mostly done by mid-afternoon, when we would be doing most of our shopping, so we went.  We don’t get the earliest of starts, leaving the house around noon, and we had a number of stops to make (eight in all), so we knew that it would be a long afternoon, but we made our list and headed out.

The first stop was the liquor store for Bourbon (Jim Beam), then to the Long John Silver’s for lunch.   This is an indulgence for us, as we rarely eat out, and almost never eat “fast food” anymore, but we both have a weakness for Long John’s, and many pleasurable associations with them from our childhood.  A new one opened up between the liquor store and the Giant that we shop at, so we do a late lunch there on our trips to town.  Next stop was the Giant, for Boar’s Head lunch meat for my sandwiches for my work lunches when I go into the office (three times a week now), as well as a few other things our local grocery store does not carry, like the TGIF wings in the family size box that are not already flavored.  They only have the barbecue ones now, but it doesn’t matter because we can just pitch those sauce packets and use our own Buffalo Sauce (I buy the TGIF sauce online).  They cook up wonderfully well in our air fryer.  When we came out of the Giant it was raining a little, but not too much.

The next stop was Wegmans, we had our hats and our rain coats, but were only wearing our hats as it was only sprinkling.  We like Wegmans for their meats - steaks, stew meat, stir fry meat, roasts, pork chops - all vacuum sealed so they stay fresh in our freezer for longer.  When we came out of the store it was raining harder, and I got a bit wet transferring everything to the cooler that we bring to keep all of our perishables fresh till we could get home and load them into the freezer and fridge.  As we were leaving I checked the forecast on my phone, now they were calling for rain until six in the evening, potentially heavy.  Oh well, we were committed at this point.

Then to Lowe’s to buy a replacement toilet valve and some replacement rails for the front steps.  We put on our jackets as we left the car.  It was raining in earnest when we came out, and Bruce got the Element and picked me up so we could pack the rails in with at least some protection from the rain.  Then a drive through the parking lots to Total Wine to stock up on wine and beer.  They didn’t have a number of our favorites, but we were able to get enough good beer (including our case of Smithwick’s) to tide us over till the next trip into town.  We have a small fridge in the kitchen that is dedicated to beer.  We filled the back of the Element up with our purchases and headed out for our penultimate stop - a quick stop at Finnegan’s Run Yarn Store to pick up my Winter Comfort Box (more on that in a subsequent post).  Our last stop was the Murphy’s to gas up the Element as we headed out of Fredericksburg and towards home.

At this point it was almost five in the evening, and beginning to get dark.  On a normal day we have tea and podcasts at five, but today we knew that wasn’t happening.  Once home I had to deal with all of the groceries and we had to get everything stowed, and I still had to go next door to check in on Leggs, a sweet elderly cat that I am taking care of while our neighbors are away.  By the time we headed over there it was after six and dark and raining.  Bruce suggested we wear our sandals so we could slip them off before we went into the house so we didn’t leave wet footprints everywhere.  So, we grabbed umbrellas and headed out.  The front steps of the house are made of bricks, actual bricks, assembled into steps, and the side walk has settled so the first step is higher than it should be, a good deal higher, and I’ve tripped on it at least once before, and there are no handrails.  This time I stubbed my big toe on it.  It hurt, but I really didn’t think anything of it, and so we slipped off our shoes, set our umbrellas down and went inside.  I checked the downstairs food and water, and then we headed upstairs to take care of the upstairs food bowl and the litter box.  Bruce was giving Leggs some attention while I attended to the litter box.  As I finished it up I turned and saw blood, tracks of blood, all over the place.  

At first I thought it was from Leggs and told him to check her over, but then I looked down and saw the blood on the toe that I had stubbed.  Well, I was relieved that it wasn’t the cat, but I had a bit of a mess to clean up, and I couldn’t find a bandage.  I washed my foot off in the sink and wrapped a bit of Kleenex around it while I used damp paper towels to wipe the blood up off the floor (retracing my steps throughout the house), and then used the spray bottle of white vinegar and a wet washcloth on the blood spots on the rug (she uses the vinegar to clean up cat barf, it works a treat, and also worked on the blood spots).  The last thing I wanted was for them to come home to see blood tracked through their house!  Once I had done a last inspection we turned out lights, locked up, slipped our shoes back on and headed home.  As I stepped down that last step to the side walk I stepped full in to a puddle and soaked my injured foot, and there were more puddles on the way, so my feet were thoroughly wet, as were my sandals, even in the relatively short walk from their house to ours.  Once home I washed my foot again in the sink, dried it off and we put a bandage on the wound.  By this point we were done, so we skipped the tea and podcasts and went straight for beer and some chocolate and a football game that we had recorded last weekend.

Leggs, getting scratches.