Just Days Away...

Later this afternoon is my pre-op at the hospital. The surgery is Friday morning. I spend most of my time doing preparedness things for my four weeks with one working arm. I did get a wonderful early Valentine's gift from My Sweetie. It's the gift basket pictured above featuring Covington Strawberry Ale. Yum. I am having my second one as I type.
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My daughter is coming over Thursday to help me do all my last minute things for the surgery. I really can't wait to get this fixed. I just hope nothing weird happens like I get a flesh eating bacteria or something. Hospitals are creepy places. But my procedure is being done in an outpatient part of the hospital so hopefully everything will go fine. The surgery is supposed to last two hours and then after I wake from the anesthesia, I can come home. I expect to be home by eleven or noon on Friday. I'll probably not post for several days after that, but I expect I will be reading and commenting (with one hand). Wish me luck!

Farewell to the Chief

The guy on the left, "Chief" died last Thursday morning. That's my dad on the right. I knew Chief before he was called that. I don't want to use his real name here. We first got to know each other in 9th grade.
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In 9th grade my junior high school started an experimental science program with Duke University called Q.P.S. That stands for Quantative Physical Science. The room had the two-seater desks in three rows. I ended up front and center with Chief as my partner. It was a strange class. I've often wondered if there were not more to it than trying to teach us science. First of all, the teacher never smiled and owned 5 outfits. Yes, 5 outfits: one for each day of the week. Second, Chief and I were very smart and the whole rest of the class were dumber than rocks.
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Chief's and my test grades were typically 98 to 106 while the rest of the class averaged about 62. It was very strange. Chief and I made a great team because he did the math stuff and I did the word stuff. We moved onto high school after that, so I don't know if they kept up the Q.P.S. experiment or not, but I'm sure our classroom confused whoever was keeping the data.
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In the middle of 10th grade I collected a high school boyfriend. He had a best friend and the three of us hung out and I guess word got out that our apartment was a cool place to hang out. (Dad smoked pot and we always had booze. Also there was a basketball court just steps away from my front door.) So by the time we all graduated, there was a pretty solid twelve of us. They were all guys except me.
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I'm not sure when Chief joined the group, but I think it was pretty early on. There was a running argument about how Chief got his nickname. My high school boyfriend claimed that Chief walked in the door one day and he said, "CHEEEEEEEEEE." And I think he meant it as an insult as in "Cheap." But with everybody being stoned or whatever, people heard "Chief" and then called him that all night. And then pretty much the rest of his life.
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Back when we were 18 or 19 we were joking around about who would be the first one to die and everyone simultaneously yelled, "Chieeeeeeef!" Of course at the time we all imagined it would be just a few years away in a car wrapped around a tree. Well, he was the first one to die, but he lived to be 50 and quite frankly we were not really as surprised by his death so much as that he lived this long.
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I've mentioned Chief before on a post way back in 2005, before I really even had any readers. It's my jail story. I have another goofy story with Chief about a stupid road trip, and then another Chief story about another road trip and a few more but they are stories more suitable for bars. He really was a character. I last saw him when Dad died. I imagine they are having a beer and some laughs together in the great beyond. If I could say something to him I would say, "May your spirit soar and be peaceful and for God's sake, stop saying 'Like I said' before every sentence!!"

My Apologies

First I want to apologize to VioletSky because I was going to post some New Orleans cemetery picures for her. What happened was, I think my three favorite pics are the ones I have in a three picture frame hanging in my my hallway and it overwhelms me to think about taking them out of the frame and scanning them and all that because of my shoulder. However I googled "New Orleans cemetery" and clicked "images" and a bunch of the pictures looked just like my pictures.
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Second, it may seem like I may use my shoulder for an excuse for everything but it hurts like a bitch. Except for little things, I am pretty much a one-armed bandit over here.
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Third, having an extreme injury makes your body produce some sort of natural opiate and it has made me really stupid. For instance, I will read a blog and formulate a comment in my head and think I posted it and when I check back it's not there. Or maybe it was wanky and they deleted it. I have no idea. On the opposite end of that, I've read a post and got all excited and went to comment to find I had already commented the day before. I'm glad I do not have to take any sort of I.Q. test right now.
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I am spending a lot of time getting ready for my post-surgery existence. I have finally figured out how to get my washcloth good and soapy in the shower with one hand. And how to towel off with one hand. I haven't gotten that perfected yet, but have figured out that I can use my blow-dryer to finish off the spots I couldn't reach. I'm really ready to get this surgery over with and get my arm back. And typing hurts. And only being able to sleep in just two different positions is exceptionally tiresome. But now I am good and sleepy so I will go try position #1 (right side).

10 Things I'll Never Understand

1. Why people cover themselves with tattoos
2. Why women do that 70's frosting to their hair thinking it looks more natural that way

3. Why people order spaghetti at Italian restaurants
4. Why women think Johnny Depp is attractive
5. Why poor Americans vote Republican
6. Why network TV executives are so clueless

7. Why some women dress like cheap tricks for Halloween
8. Why any man would wear a tank top
9. Why any overweight woman would wear a tank top
10. The popularity of country music

80/20

Well I found out today what that 80/20 on my insurance card means. It means we pay 20% of the surgeon's fee. 20% of the anesthesiologist's fee. 20% of the fee for the surgical facility, ad nauseum. Oh well. At least I'm getting my arm fixed. My surgery will be on February 3rd. After we get all the bills in the coming months I will add them up and call my arm "The Two Thousand Dollar Arm" or whatever the total figure turns out to be. In the meantime I have a lot of pre-planning to do. I have some good ideas.

New Orleans Jan 2012

When we planned our trip to New Orleans we had no idea it was going to be during the BIG Football Weekend. By Saturday, all the football hoopla was starting to get on my nerves, but I must admit, I did like this balcony.:

The "girl" is a mannequin and we thought it was pretty clever. I took that picture from our balcony. Our hotel room was my very favorite so far. I stay at a different hotel every visit and I think I will certainly have to break that rule. This next pic was taken in our hotel courtyard.:

On our first night, Thursday, the 5th, we found a place to have dinner. It was a special place. We sat on a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. It was the first place that Loretta and I had a meal in New Orleans way back when. Except that was lunch and there were no leftover Christmas decorations that time.:

I thought this van was funny.:

We went to Harrah's to gamble and I had a killer day on that Friday. I was winning at everything.:

This was our balcony.:

I love this last picture, because when I posed for it I was just thinking I was posing with a stuffed bear. I had not read the sign.:

We had a really good time. We had bad luck with the cemetery, but I will pull out my old pics and post them later for VioletSky. My Sweetie had a pedometer and we walked from 12,000 to 14,000 steps a day. He told me later that we had walked 21 miles over the course of our stay.

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One of my favorite moments was sitting on the wooden steps that go right down into the Mississippi River and thinking, "There's the river that inspired Mark Twain." And at the same time a man was playing some sort of horn nearby. Maybe a saxophone. It was very Zen and I was wishing I had a hammock.
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There's not a whole lot to tell because mainly we just walked around and stopped in bars for beers. 21 miles of that apparently. I loved it.

Tired, Sore and In Love

While I was in New Orleans I fell madly in love with this ale:
It's not very sweet and I love that. I don't know why most brewers think that a fruited ale has to be ridiculously sweet. Real fruit isn't. That ale actually tastes like strawberries. I could not get enough of it. And now I want more. I've been too tired and lazy though to look for it here.
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I just downloaded my pictures but am too tired and lazy to go through them, crop and/or resize them. Why am I so tired and lazy, you may ask? Well part of it is genetics. The other part is my freaking sore shoulder. I finally get to see the real actual shoulder surgeon on Tuesday. Apparently being in constant pain keeps me in a sort of state of uhm, what's the word for feeling tired and lazy? Is it languor? Torpor? I'm too tired and lazy to google it.
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The good news is tired and lazy works just fine in New Orleans and I had a great time. I'll post more about that after I get my pictures organized. I wish I had a Covington Strawberry Ale. Man, those things are good.

Ready to Party in New Orleans

There is no one thing I love about New Orleans. I love everything about New Orleans. I love the sights, the sounds, the food, the local accents, the attitude. And one of my favorite things about going to New Orleans is that I always stay at a different hotel. Hopefully I will run out of French Quarter hotels eventually, but I haven't gotten there yet.

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Tomorrow, we will be staying at the Hotel St. Marie. I have booked us a room with a streetside balcony, and that is what you can see in the above picture. I plan to have my morning drink and smoke on one of the tables up there. I love the location of this hotel and I may just break my rule and stay there again this Halloween.

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My Sweetie has not been to the grand old cemeteries in New Orleans so taking him there is something I am really looking forward to - as well as the music and the food. It's been years since we've gone together. I've been there with two or three other people since our last time. And the weather looks excellent. Highs around 69° and lows around 55°.

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I'm almost ready to go. It seems like a great way to start this New Year. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Missing The Sparkly

I usually wait until My Sweetie has gone back to work to deChristmas the house, but because of my bad shoulder, I needed help, so we did it on Sunday, New Year's Day. He did all the up in the air stuff as well as the heavy lifting and it went by very quickly. Now my living room seems rather dull.
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The one bright spot, and I mean that literally, is my friend sent me a glass block full of white Christmas lights and it has Duke stickers on it. So now I have my shiny Duke light to go with my Duke tiffany style lamp from last year. I do miss the colored lights and all the red, green and gold, but it's nice to have it all done. And now it's time to see what 2012 will bring. I'm looking forward to that.