Tätig

*Note: The title really doesn't have anything to do w/the post, I just happen to have been writing a German paper and wanted to use that word but couldn't, so now it's stuck in my head. In order to un-stick it, I have given it a station of importance, and hope it will be content.

What this post is REALLY about, however, is my finger. Yes, that's right. The tip of my right-hand ring finger, to be precise. You see, I have been maltreating it, and it is getting back at me. I shall tell you the story. You can read it or not, as you like.
The other night, I was decorating cupcakes with some friends, for Valentine's day. We were having a blast, using sprinkles, and chocolate, and jelly ranchers and starbursts... A. made a 3-story cupcake for one girl whose birthday was the next day. It was great fun. So about an hour into his decorating frenzy, I get the creative idea to turn a starburst into a heart-shape and put it on one of the cupcakes. But the candy was too hard to cut with our lovely little plastic knives, so I did the best thing I could think of (which doesn't really speak for my brains, but hey, we'll just chalk it up to lack of sleep, like just about every other mistake in this world) and put it in the microwave for 10 seconds. Bright, I know.
So I pull the thing out of the microwave and of course, the sugar on one side is boiling, and the poor tip-of-my-ring-finger bore the brunt of all that unloaded energy. The long and the short of the dancing around, blowing, shrieking, and laughing and lots of cold water is that I now have a blister.
Now you might think that's the end of the story, but you'd be wrong. The every-day story never ends! Aha! And I have chosen to reveal just a bit more of this one...
So things have calmed down, I am sitting there in pain, making dashes to the sink for cold water at 5-minute intervals, when G. decides to ask me to write the inside of her valentine's day card for her (as I'm supposedly good with words- huh.) I told her, if she cured my finger, I'd do it, thinking she'd never rise to the challenge. (Lord, teach me never to assume...) Two minutes later she came back with a tube of toothpaste and a slightly crazed look on her face, like she gets when very intent on something (usually studying). She proceeded to smear toothpaste all over my finger and my blister...
Oddly enough, it did help a bit. The pain subsided, and here the story pauses for an interlude.

...interlude...

A day later, my blister has changed shapes. Yes, that's right. A little bit that was blister-y before is now perfectly healthy, whereas a part that wasn't even burnt now looks like it's dead. I can't understand it. What physical/chemical process would cause such a wonder??
And with this wonderment, I shall drop the curtain on this every-day story.

For those of you who quit reading after "finger" in the first paragraph (and miraculously came back), and are wondering what the heck could be so fascinating about a burnt finger that it calls for whole paragraphs, let me summarize:
I have two papers to write and a project to work on, all for tomorrow, and I had to get away. Plus, I find incidents relating to my own pain to be infinitely fascinating. Don't you yours?

over 'n out
E.O.