Translation for 140 languages by ALS
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowline.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail.
Explore. Dream. Discover
.
---Mark Twain

3/22/13

A bee's stinger in my throat




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After stair-climbing this morning - on actual stone steps leading way up from the beach, not the electronic machine with the revolving platform - I was stung in the throat by a bee as I was walking home.

At first it was a flicker of a thump and, instinctively, I swatted at my neck with the hand towel I was carrying. Then the mild sensation of a tiny stinging prick became noticeable. Thinking I was stung by a bee, my eyes combed the surrounding sand for----
A-ha! There it was: a bee; mostly covered (or camouflage) with the sand. I stepped on it for good measure, grinding it apart with the grains of sand.

I don't think I am allergic but, all the same, I consciously breathed in and out and drank more of my Gatorade. At a nearby car I stopped to use its tinted window as a mirror. Faintly, I noticed a light-colored speck around the area of the pinch. Was it just sand? My fingers were useless...maybe it was nothing more than a stubborn grain of sand and my imagination getting the best of me. Then I used the hand towel as a grip and realized my reflection was now free of the speck. I looked down at the towel. In it was a tiny, ever so teeny-tiny, stinger. Hot damn I got it!

I mindfully carried the towel home, washed my neck with soap and water, and then taped the stinger in my journal book with a account of the morning's event. Me? I feel fine.

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