This appears to be a simple yard shed doesn't it. Note the tools hanging all over it. Try not to notice the lack of an eve that contributes to the rain causing splashing on the lower twenty-four or so inches. But we will all agree that it must be some sort of garden, lawn or tool shed.

Nope it is all that AND Dirt's bike garage. It is incredible what that man can squeeze into a small space. Sunday my heart was all a flutter because I thought surely the Dirt was dialed into future weather and clearly it was to be clear. Why else Dear Reader would he back his bike out. It wouldn't be to get to a tool or anything like that would it?

Well if the weather continues to produce things like this (not the hair balls the hail balls) then Dirt may as well shove that bike right back into the shed forever.

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Its lookin' like I must have heavy metal issues. How do I know? Deduction. You know what that is don't you Dear Reader? It is a form of logic. I learned it from my momma but it got a name in Logic class at college.

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I departed my neurologist office with a long sheet of stuff including what, thirteen, fourteen, different blood tests. One of them being a loading/fasting glucose tolerance test so I had to wait and load carbs until Thursday. Friday tests began to roll in. B vitamins look fine not to high not to low, some unmentionable tests (I'm shy and it is a topic for later) came back negative, all the things on a CBC very mid range for most of the counts and everything landed in normal.

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The glucose regime even came back normal, ridiculously normal for a fat, fifty-year old woman who loves to cook and bake and loves to make sure that the things she makes taste good and because she rarely just follows the recipe this of course means lots of eating. Did I mention I'm fat?

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The only things that came back "flagged" so far is the lupus indicating, (an indicating mind you not diagnosing,) test and even that one is sketchy.

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The only thing I can remember that was on the list of test that has not come back is the heavy metal tests. So that is what is my problem.

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Hold the phone you say Dear Reader? How do I know?

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Well, pull up a stool, wooden or plastic, and I'll tell you.

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Group Health has begun in the last few years to push this whole web site that you can communicate with your doc on, schedule an appointment, remind yourself what the doc said to do when you left the office, and a bunch more stuff including check in on what your tests results are.

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Okay your still puzzled aren't you Dear Reader? Why would I think something is wrong with my heavy metal test, maybe it isn't done yet, you say, after all the test kind of trickled in. Well yes, I can see you drawing that conclusion. However each time a test is completed and the results are in I have a message in my message box. Every individual result gets it own separate message. Yah, okay what's my point you ask.

I received a message saying I had a new lab result, clicked on the lab result page and wa-la no new results posted. Huh, I call up the doc office, so what's the deal I got a message that I have a result but there are no new results.

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Get this, Read it real slow if you must, I lived it today and I needed to repeat it slowly several times in my head. If the results are positive for a disease or problem, the doc does not release the information to the web site for me to see. But I will receive the message that the lab is in. What is that, to protect me from jumping to conclusions before she talks to me? If I had saved my paper or I could remember where I put it I could check exactly what has come in and what has not. For now I am going on my incredible memory.

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Does anyone else see the myriad of things wrong with this system of dispensing information and non-information? Trust me, I 'm not going to quietly sit and wait, when I am done with you here I will be going on line to read about the whole heavy metal issue. I won't know which one (I suspect that it is mercury poisoning and I would just like to point out that, yes indeed, dentist are like the Chinese, out to kill us by slow poisoning) but I will be armed with information and my options as outlined on the web. Including freaky supplements and herbal whatevers to rid my body of heavy metals. I am heavy enough with pastries I don't need metal in me heavy or not.

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I really hope you liked my story Letters From The Trunk: The First Letter over at my story blog. If you haven't read it yet I will promise to mail you a cookie if you do. And you can have two cookies if you tell me all the things that could improve it. And three cookies if you tell me I am a great fiction writer. That last one was a cheap trick. I am excited to be writing fiction again, tried it for the first time since the classroom this fall and I think I love it. I am learning a lot about the people I am writing about, the country that they are from and the thing that the challenge that inspired me is all about - The Orient Express.

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By the way if you have read my story already and left a comment just because, and you did it with out the enticement of a cookie, leave me your address on my e-mail and I will mail you a whole box of assorted cookies from the world or some other lovely spring creations.

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Dear Reader, I pray that you are running hard in the "race." And if your not in the race, oh please, get in it. God is not a big kill joy out to serve up disillusionment, disappointment and hardship. He is there for us, to put us over the hurdles that are in the path of the race as only he can. Tonight I am praying for young people who seem determined to struggle and I am praying for those who are starting to feel the repercussions of the current economic climate.