Friday Goofy

When the bartender first set that salad down, I thought I was falling over. I'm sure that pomegranate margarita was partially to blame.
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This next picture is for Jazz, because she wanted to know:

The Bad Wave Cycle + A Fun Road Trip

I clearly wasn't thinking clearly when I got all my hair whacked off. Which makes sense because when I become too hot, my brain does not work at peak capacity. When I met with the new physical therapist, he said I should be able to touch the top of my head soon. I was all, "Damn! If I had just waited a few more weeks, I'd still have my hair." But that's not the main issue. The main issue is I am going to go this afternoon to get a new driver's license. With this hair. A new driver's license with a new picture with this hair and not only that but I will probably have it for TEN years. The driver's license, I mean. Not the hair. And the very worst part is I am on a bad hair wave cycle.

I made a very rudimentary graph to show how curly hair grows. (I should have deleted the amplitude and displacement words but I guess I wasn't really paying attention.) The vertical green lines represent the hairline at the top of my forehead as viewed in profile. The red lines represent my hair growth cycle. My nose would be pointing out of my head in the same direction as the distance arrow.

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Line 1 represents where I am now. My hair is growing straight down my face and curling back upward. Line 2 is my good wave cycle where my hair is growing upwards and curling down. I have accepted the fact that I will have a bad driver's license photo, but I still want to whine about it.

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Fun News: On Saturday past, we did our goofy little road trip to Louisiana to buy Covington Strawberry Ale. It was a beautiful sunny 80° day. We left around 11:45. On one of My Sweetie's satellite radio stations they were playing Kasey Kasem's top 100 countdown from 1974. After about the first hour, it didn't even look like the Texas we know. East Texas is far greener and lusher and has pine trees, very similar to North Carolina.

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We went straight to the liquor store in Shreveport and when we walked in, there was a little dolly with three cases with my name on them. Literally. Just a mile or so down that same road on the way back we stopped at another liquor store that the distributor had mentioned and got another case. I hadn't even called those people so it was a nice surprise that they had a whole case.

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The whole trip took exactly 7 hours. We didn't even have to stop for lunch because I had packed roast beef sliders and strawberries and pretzels. It was a fun trip. Good company, nice scenery, good music and best of all, it was a unique experience. Oh, and now I have lots of strawberry ale. I'm drinking one right now and it is delicious.

Physical Therapy News

I wish I had run my hands through my hair before that picture was taken. I'm not crazy about the super short hair but I've been able to make it look decent. I was in a good mood, though.
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I haven't posted about my physical therapy because I hated it. There were many aspects that irked me to bits. It's a long grouchy story and I was full of salt and vinegar (and all the grouchy stories) when I went to my doctor today (Tuesday). But he nipped it in the bud. I told him one little thing and he said, "You should go to a different physical therapist, perhaps one closer to your home." I told him I already had an appointment for an hour later and he said, "Just cancel it."
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So that was it. I was all fired up with all my contained ire just dying to burst out and just like that, it was over. I felt oddly unfinished and yet quite relieved. I'm hoping I can get into one particular one. It would be ideal. I'll find out soon. That one is right by where I eat lunch on Fridays after Meals on Wheels and it would be nice to do all of that in one day.
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If I can't get into the Friday one, there's another one closer to my house that I can try. I'm looking forward to going to a new physical therapist. I just dread filling out new paperwork. I hate paperwork. I mean I really hate paperwork. That right there should tell you just how much I did not care for the physical therapist I had. To him I say, "...Oh wait. I don't want to say that here. It was a bit crude.

Aww, Hair No!

I mentioned before that I can't put my hair up. And neither can my husband:
Well, the weather has gotten warmer and warmer and so I had to forsake vanity for comfort and have most of my hair whacked off:

It had gotten pretty bad. I usually do quite a bit of trimming of my bangs and the hair around my face between haircuts and I had not been able to do that. I remember about a week or so ago thinking the top of my head looked like it had been possessed by Donald Trump. I was all "Aww, Hell No!" So I did what I had to do.

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I will try to get someone to take a pic of me soon. I have been bad about pictures lately. But at least I am not so hot anymore and thank god I don't look like Donald Trump in drag anymore.

Friday Puzzle: OGA

I do puzzle books all the time. I love word puzzles and cryptograms and other various ones. Today I had a really hard puzzle. I'm usually very competitive and never give up, but this one was too hard for me.
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The challenge was to form as many words as possible with OGA in them. The letters had to be in that order and together as shown, but anywhere in the word, i.e. beginning, middle, end. The puzzle writers had come up with 10. I was able to only come up with 4 before I gave up and looked up their answers. I felt pretty bad having only managed 4 words until I looked up their answers. I had written down a word that they had not! Go me! It made me feel a little better.
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Give it a try. (No plurals, foreign words or proper nouns.)

Pretty Food & Family Pictures

I really love it when food turns out pretty. My Home Ec teacher was Mrs. Tippett and she stressed color and color variety on a dinner plate. To this day when I make a bland plate where most of the food is the same color, I'll say, "Mrs. Tippett would not approve of this meal." I think she would have loved my tamales and avocado salad.
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Speaking of Mrs. Tippett, when I was a junior in high school, my friends got word of a big New Year's eve party at a house in town. I'm sure it was one of those parties that got out of hand and I'm sure the girl didn't mean for everyone in the world to show up. None of us knew her. The streets were jammed with cars and we had to park a few blocks away. I think there were seven or eight of us in our car. The house was jam packed and I remember finding an uncrowded room to escape to. It was one of those formal front living rooms that no one uses and I guess all the southern people there had been raised that way, because no one was in this room. Since my family never had the unused formal front room, I didn't have that ingrained aversion of such rooms. I was happy to be out of the throng.
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One wall had a batch of large family photos. I saw the girl whose party it was, because I recognized her from seeing her earlier in the kitchen. And then there she was in another picture with Mrs. Tippett! I realized she was Mrs. Tippett's little sister and for some reason it freaked me out. I was in Mrs. Tippett's parents' house partying like I was in the Delta Tau Chi house from Animal House! Suddenly I felt like I was committing some gross violation like I was robbing a bank or something. I spent the rest of my time there trying to round up my friends to GET OUT of THAT HOUSE.
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On the road very close to my house was a "slippery when wet" sign - it's a picture showing a car swerving - and in my foolish drunken state, I said, "Hey Tim! Didn't you see that sign? You're supposed to swerve." Well he did, we all laughed, he turned into my street and then we saw the blue lights. He pulled over and said, "You get out and say you were driving, since it's your fault I swerved." I was in the middle of the backseat! How would that be believable? Instead, I got out, walked back to the cop car and told the cops the stupid sign story, told them who my father was, dropped about five names of cops we knew, and told them where I lived and said that we were all going there to sleep for the rest of the night. Since we were now on what was basically a dead end road with my apartments at the end, the cops let us go. If they had known I had been partying at Mrs. Tippett's parents house I'm sure I would have gone to prison for six years. Just for that. But I try to make colorful meals, and maybe that's because I'm trying to make it up to Mrs. Tippett.

30 Days

As I write this very, very late on Sunday night (although many would call this Monday morning), it has been 30 days since my surgery. I have often bemoaned the ridiculously quick passage of time that happens after one reaches a certain age, but when it comes to post-surgery, I'm all for it.
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There are stages that you go through in post-surgery and that worst one was horrible but, it too, passed after a decent night's sleep. That very worst stage is a feeling of deep depression, but because my whole system is anti-THAT, it lasted just a few hours before I fell asleep. Plus I think I had some mild insanity from stopping the heavy pain killers, which I did pretty early. I remember one night, mashed into my pillow, on my back, of course, and feeling like my hair was attacking my head and was going to swallow my face. It was so overwhelming I was thinking I should get a buzz cut.
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Last Tuesday, I tied my shoes and was so proud like a four-year-old and was telling everyone, "I tied my shoes today!" Speaking of Tuesdays, that's when I do my physical therapy. The girl was working on turning my arm out and I told her my arm didn't do that much turning out to begin with and that I was far more interested in turning my arm in. I will never be fully independent again until I can hook my bra. My neighbor hooks my bra for me on Tuesdays (Thanks Carole!). And My Sweetie does it on the weekend when we go out.
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And we have gone out the last two weekends and it was nice to get out. I even got new shoes. It felt good to do normal stuff. I still have a long way to go to get full function in my left arm, but I can aways do a little bit more every day and I like that. Life is good and time passes and right now, time passing is not a bad thing.

I Made A Time Lapse Movie

I have a lot of time on my hands (or "hand" in my case) and was looking for something fun to do. It's hard to be very creative with only one working arm, but I came up with something:

Thought Points for This Day

Things I am thinking:

• When things take two to three times longer to do, time passes quickly.
  



• I do not think it is possible to put a pillowcase on a pillow with one arm.
  



• The site coordinator where I pick up my food on Fridays sent me a get well card. How can someone with whom I chat 10 to 15 minutes once a week, pick out a card so perfect for me that you would have thought it came from my Mom, daughter, or best friend?
  



• I was given 5 more exercises to do by the physical therapists and I like one of them so much I will probably do it for the rest of my life.
  



• I can drive just fine with one arm.
  



• Although My Sweetie can barely crack an egg or make a ponytail, he has been extraordinarily helpful.
  



• I no longer sleep wearing my sling and I can't begin to say how much I enjoy sleeping without that strap on my neck.
  



• I feel I am progressing very well and for that I am grateful.

first physical therapy today

my thumb has been achy so i'm not going to stretch my hand out doing shifting for caps. I just realized I can hit "caps lock" each time. Anyway, I discovered that i do not care for typing with one hand. my first physical therapy will be at 3:00 this afternoon. i have stopped taking all the pain meds excepy for my regular anti-inflammatory i was already taking for my thumb.
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i wanted my hair up on sunday so my sweetie did it for me and it was hilarious. i can't wait to show a picture. we laughed so hard our ribs hurt. also he has been doing most the of cooking with my instructions/supervision and that has been fun.
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i'm looking forward to finding out what the PT has to say. i hope i'm in good shape. i should be out of this sling on March 2nd. yay! more later.

A Fantastic Day!

Tuesday was a really great day and I can tell you: I certainly needed one. I got up and got as ready as I could and then My Sweetie came home and helped me finished getting dressed. There are a lot of things you can't do with one hand such as: hook your bra, tie your shoes, button your jeans. Also he brought me beautiful flowers because it also happened to be Valentine's Day. It felt good just to have on real clothes.

After we got in to see the doctor, a nurse pulled off the remaining bandages from my shoulder and snipped out the stitches. The doctor was pleased with my arm and told me I could remove the cushion part of my sling. That was great! The cushion part is the big bulky thing that also has the horrid waist strap. Taking that part off made me feel like a crazy FreeBird. I was so happy.

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We left the doctor's office and went for lunch at one of our favorite TexMex places. We had a terrific lunch and of course I had a Dos Equis. As we walked out, the gloom had broken and the sun was shining and it was mild and pleasant and I was so overjoyed, I looked up at the sky and beamed a "Thank you God for lifting my spirit!"

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I should back up a bit here and tell you that the weather has been HORRIBLE since my surgery. My mother has the weather data of everyone she knows on her home page and she told me that one of the last few days it was colder here than in Alaska (my niece lives there.) And cold is way worse when it's always dark and gloomy.

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Speaking of Mom, when My Sweetie brought me home, he went back to work, and after talking to my neighbor for a while, I called Mom. We had a long pleasant chat and I helped her with her crossword puzzle. I really enjoy things like that. It's tough seeing Mom only once or twice a year.

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My Sweetie came home and we had a nice simple dinner and watched our Detroit Red Wings make NHL history. After My Sweetie had gone to bed, and just before midnight, I had one last great thing: The Cranberries performed a new song from their first album in 10 years. I will have to get that CD when it comes out.

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So anyway, after 11 days of pain, gloom, irritation and sometimes exasperation, I had a really great day. And I will savor it for quite some time.

another post surgery update

I love that illustration that came on the sheet regarding my exercises. It looks like a Leaning Demon from "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" or something. I mean, I'm not bald and do my exercises topless while wearing white jazz shoes. Nor is my left arm as long as my legs. I don't know why, but I'm sort of fascinated by that picture.

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I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before how I do not like being "bound" in any way: How I remove my bra and shoes once I enter my house. And my jeans. I wear T-shirts and loose cotton house pants or shorts at home. So try to imagine my extreme discomfort of having this sling on for 223 and 1/2 hours. Not only is the thing on my neck and back, there is also a waist belt. And I still have 2 weeks and 2 and 1/2 days to go.

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And I'm tired of sleeping propped up. So, basically, I'm going through a phase of just trying to be cool about the little things that are starting to drive me insane. Other than that and the creepy black bruises, everything is good. I have my post-op appointment Tuesday morning. Yes, that is Valentine's Day. We are going to go out for lunch afterwards and that will be my first day out since the surgery. I'll let you know how all of that works out. Meanwhile, I will work on trying to ignore all these straps.

Post Surgery

I was in a pain/drug fog until Tuesday. That was the first day I felt like myself again. The surgery went well. They did three things: reattaching the one muscle that's the main rotator cuff thing, the distal clavicle excision and moving and reattaching my bicep.
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I have adapted pretty well. I have these little exercises that I have to do three times a day. I appreciate those because I understand the importance of them. I am able to take a careful shower. My Sweetie, as well as my daughter, has been very very helpful.
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For the last two days the shoulder blade behind the surgery has been very sore. I get
My Sweetie to massage it and I moan so much it is making our cat uncomfortable. I don't know why, but that amuses me a lot. And sleeping has not been an issue. So that's good.
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Anyway, I'm chugging along. Everything's okay.

Today They Cut Me

I guess we'll be leaving in about 30 minutes to go to the hospital.
How odd, but I can't think of anything at all to say.

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.