Cast Iron

I played MAGIC: The Gathering for the first time ever! I've heard all about it for 15 years or so, but never knew how it worked until my boyfriend taught it to me last week with some Ravnica starter packs. Apparently, a single game is supposed to take 20 minutes, but ours were running around 2 hours each. (Poor him!) I'm happy to report that I, the neophyte, won both games against the seasoned veteran... although to be fair, I think he let me win on Game 2. Game 1 was played open-handed and I got lucky by drawing my favourite card in my deck, Spectral Searchlight, early on, so I trounced him good. Hey, the Searchlights cost only 50 cents each! Imagine what I could do with 10 of these. Hmm....

+++

A few days ago, I got a physical checkup. I now have a name for the shooting pain I get in my knees sometimes, when it feels like my legs are going to buckle under me: Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome. I'm not sure what causes it, but at least I now know what it's called. I hadn't realized how much the Health Care system in Canada has declined. Since I tend to get sick whenever I visit the doctor (waiting room contagions), I've been trying to avoid doctors' offices in Canada for the past 5 years or so. Opthamologist's Eye exams are no longer covered. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, but it seems to me that it's pretty important to EVERYONE for EVERYONE ELSE to know when their seeing is going. Maybe we don't have enough Canadians dying in traffic accidents, so the government figures it's best to stop checking our eyesight. Apparently, if I had better health insurance, my doctor could order x-rays and see if I need physiotherapy for the knee thing, but since it's not covered, I went home with some photocopies. Good ones, though!

I don't like needles, especially the kind that takes more than it gives, so I haven't done any bloodwork for over a decade. The doctor who gave me my last physical just handed me a form for the bloodwork to bring to the lab and said I didn't have to do it when I asked about it. So I didn't. Stuffed it in my bag and let it go. My new family doctor, though, is sure keen on all that health and medicine bunk, so she convinced me it was critical to check the blood. Wouldn't take No for an answer. So I went with the consensus... down to the laboratory in the basement and let them jam a needle into my arm. The doctor's office called me the next day. Apparently, I have an iron deficiency and need to make another appointment with her for that. I'm not sure where this goes next... I could go to the doctor again, and either need to take vitamins or eat better, and then what? They take more blood to see if it worked? When will the bloodshed stop?