Iron Music and Diamond Needles

"Olive Oil", a non-family member who now follows my blog, made a comment about the music in my playlist, that she thought it was "great". I was somewhat flattered at first, but then I realized that while I had been choosing my shuffled music for myself, I now had an independent audience to somehow please. Several of my children have been driven crazy by some of the pieces (Burger-Dance" for example). Others have been partially scandalized by my selection of anything by Britney Spears (all part of a first-timer's joke). Other have been so taken with the music that they had to turn it off in order to be able to read what I had written (At least that what they have said.).

Trillium has wonderful music on her blog, mostly classical with a few delightfully orchestrated modern pieces thrown in. Davola really surprised me with his selection. Once, when we were headed north for some sort of activity in New Mexico, he regaled me with a concert of heavy metal music that undoubtedly got my blood and other iron-overloaded organs feeling envious. Nothing in his blog now even comes close. I'm impressed. All of the other family bloggers have music unique to themselves and it gives me great pleasure to visit and listen to their choices.

Each of the pieces I have selected are in order of their selection (even though they do not play in order) and fit with each of the entries I have made. I realized this afternoon that I had not selected one for the "Iron Horse" blog; it was about the same time I was contemplating saying something about the visit that I had with the blood factory today. I searched in vain for a good one. There was a sappy song about an "Iron Horse" by some plaintive crooner who clearly didn't have a handle on his subject matter. By the time you read this I will have deleted it and replaced it with another, less appropriate song by America (if I can find it). (Actually, on second thought, I have left the sappy one in.)

This morning I went into the University of Utah medical center to have blood drawn for another ferritin test. Friday I will meet with "Doc Holliday" again to see how the phlebotomy from two weeks ago has improved my frame of mind and body. Just as an aside, doesn't "phlebotomy" sound like some sort medical procedure gone bad; you know like "flub-otomy". I thought of that after I came home from the "Infusion Center" this last time. The first experience there went well, considering my condition. Two weeks ago, however, the withdrawal went somewhat amiss. That evening I noticed that I had a little red spot on the inside of my left elbow where the needle had been inserted. I didn't think much of it until a day or so later when that whole area was one gigantic bruise. It didn't hurt, but it looked terrible. I asked Trillium about it and she said, "Well, you will be okay, but that is an example of bad needle technique". Of course, that was just what I wanted to hear, "Bad Needle Technique", hereafter "BNT". I think that I must have been the victim of BNT (pronounced "bent") when I was a child. It was all of those BNT needles that gave me the willies. When your doctor uses a needle that looks like it has been designed for hooking a tuna, you know that you are in for a bad time.

Anyhow, I went in for my ferritin check and while I was waiting I thought about how I might wring a blog entry out of the experience. The appointment lasted only five minutes and that included the walk in and back, to and from the car. The only thing I could think of, however, was the First Edition's first hit, "I Just Dropped in to See What Kind of Condition My Condition was In". I considered that if this entry were going to be another "Looking for Space" experience then at least I could bring in a decent song. I finally located it this afternoon and before I loaded it up, I listened to it. I had not remembered it being so "edgy". It was like being with Davola all over again. It could have been a Queen hit for all I could tell. I finally selected a bluesy version by Sharon Jones in hopes that nobody listening could actually understand the lyrics. Kenny Rogers articulates his words; Sharon does not. However, it is possible to hear the tag, and that was all I was after anyway. Enjoy!

I read today about a new technology, a replacement for the CD. It is an "SD", a chip that you can insert into your iPod, if you have one. What a world! I grew up listening to Vaughn Monroe recordings by playing ten-inch ceramic disks on an old Victrola. They were played at 78 rmps (revolutions per minute) and eventually would be called "78s". I have a bunch of these left to me by my mother. The first recording I ever bought, however, was a "45", a vinyl recording that had one song on each side, playing at 45 rpms. I think it was a Richie Valens piece, "La Bamba" or something. I have a hundred or so of these, representing the most popular music of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Between the "78s" and the "45s" were the LPs (Long-Playing) albums, sometimes now called "33 and 1/3s". I have a couple a hundred of these, with folk music and classical music making up most of the titles.

Why have I ruminated about all of these old records? Because the way they are played is by using a "turn-table" with an arm equipped with... (you guessed it!)... a "NEEDLE". The first record player I bought had a sapphire needle; when I really came into my own financially, I bought one with a diamond needle. When the needle sets down on the grooves of the record, the record player then sucks out all of the music. Enough of those "note-otomies" and the record just withers away, unable to provide any more.

I have wondered if my blood is musical, if when they are carting away the trash at the Infusion Center, the custodians can hear my dulcet tones making their way through a rendition of one of James Taylor's songs. When the technicians are analyzing my ferritin count up at the University of Utah can they faintly hear my version of a really good Nanci Griffith or Joni Mitchell melody? I would like to think so. I do not fear for withering, though; the music is in my bones and there is more where that last pint came from.