Oh Geez!

Well, I have finally had to get stitches. I was up watching a professor's house & kids from Sunday till Tuesday. Everything was going well, they're great kids & in high school so all I really had to was show up & stay overnight to prevent parties. They even cooked for me.

Tuesday morning I went outside to smoke, and after I was done, I crouched down to put the cigarette out on the wet ground before I brought the butt in to throw it out. But I reached over too far, and fell off the 4 inch deck. Onto the slate stones. Onto my face. I did get my arm out a little bit, but not enough.

I had my glasses on, so I was immediately worried that I had broken them. I rolled onto my back, and put them back on, and was glad to see that they were intact. Then I felt something running down my face. Blood, naturally, so I got up & went inside to clean off the wound & see what the damage was.

Now, maybe the glasses protected me in a way, because my eyeball is not damaged at all, and my vision is fine. But the frame of them got pushed up into the orbital bones, & I got a big gash around the outer corner of my eye. Which needed three stitches when I went to the ER. I do have to say that UPMC Presbyterian is great, I was seen right away (it was 9:30 am, so that may be part of it), and the people were nice & did a good job stitching me up. The tetanus booster I got was a little rough though (Nursing student, and I firmly believe that they have to practice on somebody.)

So now I look like I got beat up. But it should heal quickly (they said five days). It's just hard to walk around in public. And I'm worried that I left blood somewhere outside at my prof's house. And about explaining what happened when I see this person tomorrow.

In other news:

I voted for a Republican for mayor. The race was between Luke Ravenstahl, the incumbent 27-year old Democrat who got the job because Bob O'Connor, the guy people voted in last time, got a brain tumor and died like 6 months after taking office. In the past year & a half, Luke has been caught: 1) flying to New York on a private jet of a corporation that had upcoming decisions concerning advertising permits with the city; 2) using a Homeland Security vehicle to go to a Toby Keith concert; 3) playing in a golf tournament, with the $27,000 entrance fee paid by the same company in #1; 4) skipping a meeting with local women's groups after allowing three police officers with recent and/or multiple domestic assault charges filed to be promoted; 5) skipping a community development meeting with a North side residents group concerning how the casino that will be built in their neighborhood will impact the area (i.e. working out some rules so that the community will actually derive some benefit from its presence, not just the crime). And the worst part is, that when he's confronted with this, he says that people are just blowing it out of proportion!

Needless to say, I don't like the guy. He's too immature to realize that accepting bribes is actually kind of serious?? The other guy isn't great, but at least he has some sense of reality, and the actual problems facing this city! So I voted for Mark DeSantis. And predictably, he lost. By like 60%. So we're stuck with Opie, as the local paper calls him. The only comfort is that this was a special election, so it's only for a 2-yr term. But I'd be really surprised if we don't end up with Mayor Luke for the next four too.