The tale of the blood-smeared oar

In other words, the mark of a good row!

The grossness of this was too great for me to pass up sharing, so here goes....

I have a scab on my right middle finger from left oar handle bumpage, so naturally every time I row, I open the scab up, dig a little deeper in. Pretty, right? So today, at the end of the row (gorgeous water, no wind, hallelujah! I can actually somewhat row when the conditions all cooperate!), I notice my knuckle looks pretty well bloodied. That's cool, nothing out of the ordinary for a rower, right? Well, until the rower figures out how to get her left hand away a wee bit faster.

So I put Pepper away, wipe her down, cover her up (matching Barney royal-purple cover, yep), put my oars away, and as I do so, I look up and see something on one of the handles. I squint up at it, it's long and brown, so I figure it's a leaf squashed against the handle. Slightly weird, but so be it. Then the thought flickers, Wouldn't it be cool if that were blood? (Note: I'm being entirely honest with you, dear readers, I admit it's a slightly ridiculous thought to have, but that's the one I had.) I'm about to walk away when the urge to check becomes irresistible, mostly because it's unbelievable.

So I grab the oar out of the rack, tilt it down so I can see the handle and realize ... it's blood. It was simultaneously so gross and cool ... trust me, it was. So then I had to share it, of course. I mean, wouldn't you? So I wander around the boat bays until I find Ed, talking to another rower, and I'm like, "You've got to see this," and I show them my bloody knuckle then show them the oar handle, but Ed, admittedly mid-conversation, doesn't get the connection, so he frowns and rubs the handle and says, "What IS it?" and I, already feeling bad he's touching it, say "blood," at which point, he yanks his hand back and goes, "ewwwww."

That's the story of the blood-smeared oar.

Most remarkable, naturally, is how I can make a reasonably long story out of much of nothing. You're quite welcome.

And, a weather note, how can I resist? This weekend, I got some park sitting time! Love the park sitting. Some reading in the sunlight, ahhh. Well, partial sunlight, clothed body parts in sun, head in shade. It was lovely. And, with the nice weather, OK, rainy and chillier today, true, but with the coming nice weather, I'm going to do some camping! Have a trusty camping sidekick, so it'll be all kinds of fun. Unless we get eaten by bears. But we won't.

Oh yeah, a mousing update, for you following that enthralling story ... the whole one of you! There were definitely sounds of possible Sucio hunting last night, which woke me up, and I felt bad all over again, but come on, Poor Dumb Little Mouse! I keep giving you chances, but you gotta be able to get yourself out! So I surrendered, wasn't about to round up and lock the cats in jail again. No body parts or entrails this morning, so I dunno. And, to prove I have small degrees of classiness, I'm not going to tell you my debatable theory of well-did-he-eat-the-mouse? Really, I'm not. I guarantee you're grateful, even if you don't know it.