Saturday, August 30, 2008
Breaking News
Well, this morning my pain is down and I have more movement in my arms. Heck, typing is practically easy. However, the fingers on my right hand are swollen like little sausages and flexing them is difficult. The angry purple bruising on the palm of my hand is almost vanished but I still have this cheetah-spot pattern from the asphalt that will likely linger for a while.
Friday, August 29, 2008
You win again gravity!
This is a little embarrassing. Yesterday, at the car wash, whilst carrying the empty soda cans out of my car, I tripped and fell. Hard. On my wrist. There was that half second that seemed to hand on forever when I could feel myself about to fall over. And then I fell onto the asphalt. My knee and my my right hand stung immediately and then I realized that I could not actually get up. I just could not put any pressure on my hand.
By the time I got home I wa unable to use my hand for anything. I could move the fingers but not rotate my wrist of arm, or apply pressure. I took a tylenol and applied an ice pack. Two hours later with no improvement, Andy took the me to the hospital.
Taking x-rays was very difficult. I simply could not extend my arm to lay it flat. The technitian got frustrated, I think, and forced my arm in place, which caused me to scream and swear like a sailor. Not cool.
The good news is that I did not fracture my wrist. Hooray! I have a wrist sprain. The bad news is that it hurts like hell and there's nothing to do except take aspirin and rest. I was not thrilled to be told this. My arm hurt way too much to be a "sprain." The nurse wrapped my arm up in the bandage and put my arm in the sling. If I had a camera I'd share a sad picture of me with my arm in a sling, still in my pj's because I can not manage to raise my arm enough to get dress.
Today I feel better but I'm still in pain. I can move my fingers without pain (yes!) and can apply enough force to do simple things like open a can of soda. Last night I could not and then discovered that I was too tired to figure out how to open the can with my left hand. I can lift my arm but not extend it straight. I can not scratch my nose with my right hand, for example. Or brush my hair.
I also realized that while I am a Lefty, almost every daily task is down with my right hand. Which is frustrating.
My knee, however, is a festive shade of purple but does not hurt. Odd. Then again I have not been up and down a dozen staircases today. Given the chance, I'm sure it will smart.
All in all, I'm sore but fine. And I do look silly in the sling. Andy says I should get an eye patch. Not because I need it, just so I can pretend to be a pirate, which would make me feel better. :) I think he's right. Argh!
By the time I got home I wa unable to use my hand for anything. I could move the fingers but not rotate my wrist of arm, or apply pressure. I took a tylenol and applied an ice pack. Two hours later with no improvement, Andy took the me to the hospital.
Taking x-rays was very difficult. I simply could not extend my arm to lay it flat. The technitian got frustrated, I think, and forced my arm in place, which caused me to scream and swear like a sailor. Not cool.
The good news is that I did not fracture my wrist. Hooray! I have a wrist sprain. The bad news is that it hurts like hell and there's nothing to do except take aspirin and rest. I was not thrilled to be told this. My arm hurt way too much to be a "sprain." The nurse wrapped my arm up in the bandage and put my arm in the sling. If I had a camera I'd share a sad picture of me with my arm in a sling, still in my pj's because I can not manage to raise my arm enough to get dress.
Today I feel better but I'm still in pain. I can move my fingers without pain (yes!) and can apply enough force to do simple things like open a can of soda. Last night I could not and then discovered that I was too tired to figure out how to open the can with my left hand. I can lift my arm but not extend it straight. I can not scratch my nose with my right hand, for example. Or brush my hair.
I also realized that while I am a Lefty, almost every daily task is down with my right hand. Which is frustrating.
My knee, however, is a festive shade of purple but does not hurt. Odd. Then again I have not been up and down a dozen staircases today. Given the chance, I'm sure it will smart.
All in all, I'm sore but fine. And I do look silly in the sling. Andy says I should get an eye patch. Not because I need it, just so I can pretend to be a pirate, which would make me feel better. :) I think he's right. Argh!
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Wonder Who He Is
I've been scanning old photos from Center in the Park for a 40th anniversary project. Yesterday I found a treasure trove in the file room. My favorite photo so far is mysteriously labeled: Joe Brown, First Driver.
I assume Mr. Brown was the first bus driver for Center in the Park. Still, the photo is funky. People just do not wear leisure suits enough nowadays.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Home!
Home at last!
The best part of a long trip is coming home. Tuesday night in London I was way cranky and fed up with, "this tiny little island and its tiny little furniture and tiny little showers." Yeah, it was time to go home. Mostly I was tired to rank smelling clothes, damp towels and wearing the same funky smelling shoes for two weeks.
The plane landed 9 p.m. last night, two hours late. I didn't stress it. Although I did start to loose it when the parking garage at the Philly airport proved impossible to exit. All the exits were blocked. Amazingly. Signs would deceptively point to "exit" only to have giant orange barricades blocking the path. I'm glad Andy was driving. If it was me trying to get home after being up for 20 hours, I would probably start to cry with frustration. I was just a little too tired to have to solve a puzzle. (And I will add this to my "Philly is Unnecessarily Hostile" list.)
OK. Shower time. Then laundry. Maybe some grocery shopping. Maybe.
Jenny is updating her blog with the journal she kept during the trip. There you can read how witty and amusing I am. I'm planning on uploading photos and adding my commentary. I'll also share the wonders of the tiniest hotel room in London, with picture proving how small it was, sharing a hostel room with Jesus (or a reasonable facsimile of Jesus), how my camera broke, and getting blisters UNDER my calluses. It was an awesome trip! Oh, and Clare and Reuben's wedding, etc.
The best part of a long trip is coming home. Tuesday night in London I was way cranky and fed up with, "this tiny little island and its tiny little furniture and tiny little showers." Yeah, it was time to go home. Mostly I was tired to rank smelling clothes, damp towels and wearing the same funky smelling shoes for two weeks.
The plane landed 9 p.m. last night, two hours late. I didn't stress it. Although I did start to loose it when the parking garage at the Philly airport proved impossible to exit. All the exits were blocked. Amazingly. Signs would deceptively point to "exit" only to have giant orange barricades blocking the path. I'm glad Andy was driving. If it was me trying to get home after being up for 20 hours, I would probably start to cry with frustration. I was just a little too tired to have to solve a puzzle. (And I will add this to my "Philly is Unnecessarily Hostile" list.)
OK. Shower time. Then laundry. Maybe some grocery shopping. Maybe.
Jenny is updating her blog with the journal she kept during the trip. There you can read how witty and amusing I am. I'm planning on uploading photos and adding my commentary. I'll also share the wonders of the tiniest hotel room in London, with picture proving how small it was, sharing a hostel room with Jesus (or a reasonable facsimile of Jesus), how my camera broke, and getting blisters UNDER my calluses. It was an awesome trip! Oh, and Clare and Reuben's wedding, etc.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Birthday Girl
Today's my birthday and oddly, turning 32 is OK.
30 was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I just could not wrap my mind about being "that old". WHen anyone would mention my age, I quickly responded in a cry, "Shut up!"
31 was not any better. I'd watch the news and listen to reports about some creepy middle aged dude and then realize with horror that he was my age. (Shut up!)
32 is OK. Maybe it's because the numbers add up to be a prime or I've had two years of being in my thirties, but I've made peace with the idea.
I asked my mom if she had such a hard time turning thirty and she didn't not, but is having a rough patch with turning fifty this year. Grandma said that turning seventy was difficult for her.
My brother turns 30 next year. Soon I will not be the only one in the family adrift in this miserable decade.
30 was horrible. Absolutely horrible. I just could not wrap my mind about being "that old". WHen anyone would mention my age, I quickly responded in a cry, "Shut up!"
31 was not any better. I'd watch the news and listen to reports about some creepy middle aged dude and then realize with horror that he was my age. (Shut up!)
32 is OK. Maybe it's because the numbers add up to be a prime or I've had two years of being in my thirties, but I've made peace with the idea.
I asked my mom if she had such a hard time turning thirty and she didn't not, but is having a rough patch with turning fifty this year. Grandma said that turning seventy was difficult for her.
My brother turns 30 next year. Soon I will not be the only one in the family adrift in this miserable decade.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Book review time
I've always had a secret desire to do pithy reviews of books I hate and dissect the reasons those books failed. Alas, Liarbyrd's Pithy Book Reviews (as I referred to it in my head) has never gotten off the ground. I would like, however, to write a quick word about a book I truly enjoyed.
As my semester is over, I have free time on my hands. And my laptop went into the shop (bad mother board) I had no video games to fill my time. I decided to read a book. Shocking. So I went to the bookstore.
Knee deep in the sci-fi section, I was really disappointed with the lack of science fiction and the staggering amount of stupid vampire books. I hate, hate, hate vampire books. Especially this series. Ick. And this, which is mainly just the main character having lots of sex with a menagerie of mythical beings. It's not far from porn, actually.
I don't want to read about vampires or witches or quests in magical lands. I just want a nice, solid space opera. It was slim pickings for the space opera, alas.
So I strayed into main stream literature and found the Book of Air and Shadows, which was about a lost Shakespeare manuscript. Awesome. Except the author was obviously a man. Does is matter? Well, the novel was populated with an alarming number of beautiful women who all did the nasty with the main character about 20 pages after being introduced. Way too much boinking going on and not enough lost Shakespeare manuscript!
Orphans of Chaos, a sci-fi find, was enjoyable. But it skeeved me out how nearly every male character tried to rape the 16 year old main character (the grounds keeper, the headmaster, a fellow student). Dude, seriously. Enough! It was weird. No sex actually took place but not for a lack of trying. Creepy.
Finally, I read The Name of the Wind. Not only was this book really good, no parts were creepy, the main character was not boinking everything because the author was living out a fantasy, and I couldn't wait to pick it up again to continue reading. It's a bit like Harry Potter (orphan at school), Oliver (orphan living on the streets) and just really, really well written and interesting. All the characters are compelling. Yes, it is technically a fantasy novel but the exotic setting and magic (called Sympathy, which is more a mystical understanding of Newtonian physics than actually magic) take a back seat to the story. I devoured the 720 page monster in days days.
Did I love it? Hmm...no, but close. I think the last book I truly loved was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and that lasted me through the end of the decade. (Future post will have to be "books I love". It's a short list.)
The thing that kept me from loving the novel is the first 50 pages are set up and delay the actually beginning of the story. It's a bit like the very first scene in Taming of the Shrew, with all the pretensions of making a story for the drunk to trick him. Yeah, the first 50 pages set-up the main character telling his life story to a chronicler. We don't need this and it almost stopped me from continuing to read. Kvothe can just start telling his story. No need for the story within a story format. It's just lazy writing, in my opinion.
I can't wait to read the second volume.
As my semester is over, I have free time on my hands. And my laptop went into the shop (bad mother board) I had no video games to fill my time. I decided to read a book. Shocking. So I went to the bookstore.
Knee deep in the sci-fi section, I was really disappointed with the lack of science fiction and the staggering amount of stupid vampire books. I hate, hate, hate vampire books. Especially this series. Ick. And this, which is mainly just the main character having lots of sex with a menagerie of mythical beings. It's not far from porn, actually.
I don't want to read about vampires or witches or quests in magical lands. I just want a nice, solid space opera. It was slim pickings for the space opera, alas.
So I strayed into main stream literature and found the Book of Air and Shadows, which was about a lost Shakespeare manuscript. Awesome. Except the author was obviously a man. Does is matter? Well, the novel was populated with an alarming number of beautiful women who all did the nasty with the main character about 20 pages after being introduced. Way too much boinking going on and not enough lost Shakespeare manuscript!
Orphans of Chaos, a sci-fi find, was enjoyable. But it skeeved me out how nearly every male character tried to rape the 16 year old main character (the grounds keeper, the headmaster, a fellow student). Dude, seriously. Enough! It was weird. No sex actually took place but not for a lack of trying. Creepy.
Finally, I read The Name of the Wind. Not only was this book really good, no parts were creepy, the main character was not boinking everything because the author was living out a fantasy, and I couldn't wait to pick it up again to continue reading. It's a bit like Harry Potter (orphan at school), Oliver (orphan living on the streets) and just really, really well written and interesting. All the characters are compelling. Yes, it is technically a fantasy novel but the exotic setting and magic (called Sympathy, which is more a mystical understanding of Newtonian physics than actually magic) take a back seat to the story. I devoured the 720 page monster in days days.
Did I love it? Hmm...no, but close. I think the last book I truly loved was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and that lasted me through the end of the decade. (Future post will have to be "books I love". It's a short list.)
The thing that kept me from loving the novel is the first 50 pages are set up and delay the actually beginning of the story. It's a bit like the very first scene in Taming of the Shrew, with all the pretensions of making a story for the drunk to trick him. Yeah, the first 50 pages set-up the main character telling his life story to a chronicler. We don't need this and it almost stopped me from continuing to read. Kvothe can just start telling his story. No need for the story within a story format. It's just lazy writing, in my opinion.
I can't wait to read the second volume.
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