Updatey-poo

I’ve been on FaceBook a lot, instead of blogging. Here’s a round-up of news.

1) My cut finger has healed up really well. I had Angel Joe take the stitches out at six days. They were burning like fire. Turns out some people have a reaction to certain types of sutures. Did you know some suture materials include chromium and salt? I know! It’s like finding out Campbell’s Soup has MSG — another comforting thing shot to hell. In my case, the suture areas were so irritated that they are now peeling, which means I will probably avoid the zipper/railroad tracks scar. Woot!

2) Nasal Irrigation is da bomb. Yes, I said it. Squirting an isotonic salt solution up my nose has turned out to be great for my sinus/allergy probs, and might even let me avoid sinus surgery. HOWEVER, I still have problems smelling things more often than not, and am now thinking that if I got the surgery (general anesthetic = scary!) and had a clean slate, nasally speaking, the irrigation might keep me from regrowing polyps, etc.

3) Angel Joe and I have drunk the Dr. Horrible Kool-Aid. Also the Kool-Aid of The IT Crowd and The Big Bang Theory. Geeks rule! (Albeit geekily.) All available on Netflix.

4) As of TODAY, I’m lusting after a new computer. An HP dv3-2155mx. It is one screamin’ fast machine, with a built-in webcam and mic (don’t currently have those). Pus, the scrolling dragon design across the case and silver touch pad makes me drool.

Friday Night in the Emergency Room

So, we were making dinner tonight. Angel Joe had pork and chicken on the grill, I had broccoli on the stove, and a pan full of onions and tarragon as the base for a bean side dish. Drained the can of navy beans, put ’em on the counter, gave the onions a stir preparatory to dumping the beans in, reached back to do something and…whoops!

Yup, sliced myself open on the vertical can lid.

So first we had a little argument over how I should hold a clean dish towel over my hand. Angel Joe won. Then we turned off all the burners (and closed the can, which still had the beans in it), and got in the car. Took three minutes to drive to the emergency room. And then, time…slowed…down.

Turns out Friday night is a popular night for injuries. They should really have a board that lists all the injuries ahead of you, so you feel better about waiting. Later, I found out I was behind two face lacerations (mountain bikers), another cut hand, and a guy who shot himself in the foot.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a set of dice, so we had to play I Spy.

“I spy, with my little eye, something that starts with C.” (cut)

“…something that starts with B.” (blood)

“…something that starts with D.” (dishtowel)

Periodically someone would come in and either talk to me or prep me in some way. My blood pressure, which is usually around 90 over 70, was 139 over 73. (It had gone down 20 points when they measured it again, right before I left.)

They were all very nice. Finally, after I’d been measured, numbed, irrigated, but had failed to guess that Joe spied cupboard, a guy came in to stitch me up. First he wanted to make sure my tendon wasn’t nicked. Don’t read the blue text if you don’t have a strong stomach.

So, yeah, he took some tweezers, spread open my big ol’ cut, and watched the lil’ white tendon while I bent my finger back and forth, to make sure it worked okay and didn’t have any injuries. Luckily tendons are tough, and mine was unhurt.

After that, watching him stitch it up was trivial. Then they got a trainee kid in to bandage it.

(cocoon of gauze slides freely on my finger) “Um, that’s a little loose.”

(tip of finger turns dark red) “Um, that’s a little tight.”

Finally he got it all bandaged up. Apparently it had been a long day for trainee guy, because these were his instructions: “Make sure you keep it wet…” (Looks at ceiling.) “I mean, make sure you don’t get it wet. Keep it dry.”

Those are my emergency-room bracelets. One to tell who I am and where I live (in case I get lost?), a red one to say I have an allergy, and a teal one to say what it is (latex).

Trainee guy’s boss told me to return in ten days to get the stitches out.

“Can I take them out myself?” I asked.

(Him, nodding vigorously.) “No, you should absolutely come back here. It’s free.”

So, an hour an a half after I first came in, bleeding copiously, we left. It was almost eight, and we were STARVING. We returned to the scene of the crime.

Angel Joe went out and found that he had left the middle burner of the grill on low, so the chicken was a brick. We ate the skin, and he threw some bratwursts on. I dumped the can of beans into the pot and cooked them without looking to see if there was any blood. They were delicious.

And yes, I did wind up rebandaging my hand. Somehow, it was both too loose and too tight at the same time.

No one looks good after coming back from the Emergency Room. I am no exception.

Musette, skiing, giveaway

Yesterday I heard Musette crashing around the living room. I ran in to see that, despite her Cat Bib, she had brought a bird in and had cornered it in the bay window, knocking over a plant in the process. The living room carpet had a light covering of feathers. I rushed over and held Musette by her collar while I caught the bird. Musette didn’t struggle. She knows she’s not supposed to catch birds, so even though she can’t help herself, she will often stop chasing just because I yell at her. It’s doesn’t help the bird calm down any when I yell, though, so I try to avoid it.

The bird’s little sides heaved against my hand as I took it outside, but when I let go, it had enough oomph to fly into the neighbor’s tree. I went back inside, only to realize Musette was out there. It took only a moment to open the door, but she was already halfway up the tree, where the exhausted bird still sat. “Musette!” I yelled.

She jumped down and came running over, squalling as she ran. (“But, Mom……!”) I’m amazed she came. She’s a killer, but docile in her way. Anyway, I shut her inside for the rest of the day. She spent the next half hour clawing at the door and meowing. I went over and petted her, which meant she squalled, clawed and purred, simultaneously. Eventually the bird recovered its strength enough to fly away. It didn’t have a lot of tail left, poor thing.

We took advantage of last week’s monster snow to go skiing. Hadn’t been in probably ten years, and I’m a spud to boot. Fell about three times (once because my rental boot disengaged from the ski). I was so tired, it was a chore just to get down the hill, and I kind of blew my knees out. But it was good exercise and I do love the snow. I had an old pair of lined nylon pants that I wore, but Joe wore his old, tight-fitting ski pants. When he took them off, the foam had broken down enough to leave streaks of black powder on his long johns. So we went out the next day to see if we could find him a new pair for cheap. Didn’t, but did find me a whole set at a deep discount. I wasn’t set on having them. “I’m willing to try more skiing,” I said bravely. “Do you want me to be a ski bunny?” Apparently he did, because we left with the matching pants and coat. I can always use them snowshoeing if regular skiing turns out to be beyond me.

I’m working like crazy on the big giveaway, to start May 5. Having a lot of tetchy setbacks, like trying to get a battery for the camcorder we got at dying Circuit City. Samsung has quite the proprietary technology, let me tell you. Put in an aftermarket battery and the screen says, “Check the authenticity of your battery” before shutting itself off. I’d think twice about getting a Samsung product again, for that reason. Tried to get a battery through them, and it was on back order for up to a month. I don’t have the time before I need to shoot promotional vids for the giveaway. Likewise I have a keyboard that is a little freaky. And my editor at Kensington has left to become an agent (this is very common), and my new assigned editor is on vacation until April 13th, which means it’s difficult to get things like cover-art files for advertising purposes. Artwork for the bus ads isn’t due until April 25, so I’m doing my best not to freak out. Let’s just hope she’s quick to respond when she gets back.

Big snow!

I can’t put it any better than Laura’s Danny did:

Mother Nature. It is not that I am questioning your methods. But it’s just that it looks a lot like someone overslept, woke up and realized she had only a couple days to get her job done for the month!

Snow is bucketing down right now. There’s a blizzard warning, and we’re supposed to get something like a foot of accumulation over the course of the day, which isn’t that much, but I think it’s going to be more, frankly.

My smugness, let me count the reasons:

1) We have a whole bunch of wood under the carport. I don’t even have to put shoes on to get it (although I would).

2) Because of my allergy rotation diet, we have vast amounts of food in the house. That’s new for us.

3) My parents, hearing that it was due to be cold this week, moved their visit to May, so we don’t have to worry about them being on the road here. Smart cookies.

4) We have two tickets to Eldora ski resort that we bought at a charity auction for cheap and still haven’t used.

We haven’t skiied in years, which means I no longer have ski clothes. If I can get out, I’ll have to go to the thrift shops and see if I can find something to protect me as I fall down repeatedly. I didn’t grow up in Colorado, and we go so rarely that it’s like the first time every time for me. Contrast this to Angel Joe, whose family took him skiing regularly since he was a tiny tot. I like to stand there on my skiis and watch him swivel-hip his way down the slope. I’d happily stand all day, except that I have to get downhill at some point.

Slacking, not slacking, food, meowing

Our Christmas tree is still up. I’m so ashamed. At least it’s fake, and not dropping deadness all over the floor.

First there were the holidays, then a vacation after the holidays (hey, that’s when the cheap cruise was), then Joe got his electric car running — wait, not running, running again — you get the picture. Then I broke through the dreaded plot block I usually get around page 50. That’s where I suddenly decide the book is slowing down, and I come up with eight different ways to energize it, only to write them and then discard them all. It’s better now. Oh, and Joe gave me a Wii Fit for Christmas, which at first did not work at all with our very non-standard video system, but which now works TOTALLY AWESOMELY, so we spend all kinds of time slalom skiing, or pretending to be a ball on a tilting board, or flinging virtual hula hoops around. Watching Angel Joe try to rack up points before the hula-hoop timer runs out is HYSTERICALS. (I’m sure I’m just as funny.) The circular motion becomes a sort of twisting, thrashing… I really can’t describe it and no, I’m not going to share a vid of it with you. Leave us our dignity. Oh, and yesterday my virtual Wii yoga trainer bent over and I discovered he has a tiny ponytail on the back of his head. Hahahahahaha!

In other news, I decided I was tired of not having the use of my SINUSES, which have been plugged up with allergies for the last 4-6 months, to the extent that my allergist suggested a CAT scan to see if I had benign polyps that could be hacked out. I woke up on Jan 23 and thought, “This is bad. I need to do something.” So I put myself on this diet where basically I eat only a few things that I’m pretty sure I’m not allergic to, and rotate them on a four-day schedule. So a day’s menu might be the following:

• Apples
• Millet
• Cashews
• Kale
• Avocado oil (yes, I rotate the oils, too)
• Yams
• Salt

My nose is already WAY better, and of course I feel great and have lost some weight. I’m pretty sure my virtual Wii trainer thinks I’m FINE. The only side effect seems to be a tendency to use ALL CAPS.

In other news, Musette kitty and I did a duet this morning, where I sang Shipoopi entirely in meows, pausing after each phrase so she could meow. She did admirably, although she wasn’t on the beat. I lubs her anyway.

And it’s cold and snowy, so the Christmas tree looks entirely appropriate. Maybe I should dust it.

Happy New Year!

I am so sleepy. We usually don’t do anything special for New Year’s, but the Hotel Boulderado, a fave hangout of ours, opened on New Year’s day 100 years ago, so we went to one of their shindigs. Not the really pricey one, thanks very much, but the more reasonable salsa dance party, featuring Quemando, which turned out to be an exceptionally good Latin band with a strong Cuban flavor. Angel Joe and I have taken one or two Latin dance classes, and we managed to remember not only salsa, but rumba,  meringue, and the cha-cha.

When we got home, we thought Musette should be part of the celebration.

The things I put up with.

Let me just adjust the size to "unwearable."

You want a tiara on a cat? Try Sooty. He's easy, what with being stuffed and all.

Feeling Festive.

I have very few holiday gifts bought. Luckily my Dad asked for charitable donations to be made to HeiferInternational. Joe looked a little surprised when I told him we’d bought a flock of geese and a share in a water buffalo. I need to make some holiday-themed, melt-and-pour soaps and some baked goods. The ‘rents asked us to take it easy on gifts, what with the nation being poor. Seems like that’ll make it poorer, but we’re cheap, so are happy to oblige.

I turned my snow off because it made it hard to look at the cat-track house, but it’s back on so you can enjoy the following pix.

Members of the Boulder Chorale sing during the Historic Homes of Boulder tour. Photo courtesy of Maria Forlenza, in front. She conducted us SO WELL.

I bought this tree last year, after Christmas. Ordered it online for $60. It came with all green lights, which Joe figured he would replace with white LED lights. But when we unwrapped it, we found that the light cords were sparkly and green and were in fact an integral part of the tree. Unfortunately, the all-green lights glowed like a neon beer sign and would have leached all color out of the ornaments, so we dug out our old tree lights and replaced every other bulb with a white one. Took a while, but the result is really gorgeous. Happiness ensued.

This is from a previous year. Angel Joe is looking at you through pointy glass ornaments. You look funny that way.

Elf Fashion Doll, and MWSnap

Dress me up!

Searching for Elf Fashion led me to this site by Doll Divine, where you can dress a virtual Elf, Pirate, Fairy, Warrior or Mermaid. (It only does females.) Here’s their Ideas section for the Elf.

Design a girlfriend for Legolas from Lord of the Rings, make the perfect elf doll for each background, or design your own sexy elf Halloween costume.

If you’ve read my book, Bound to Love Her, you’ll know that the first thing I had to do was to see if I could come up with Kutara, the benign yet despotic leader of the Boulder elves.

Thanksgiving blowout

Since Angel Joe’s family all have their own nuclear Thanksgivings and my folks live out of state, we have been fortunate to be invited to Red Leather Heather’s Mom’s (Thanksgiving Sheila) for the past several years, and oh, do we have fun.

Step 1: Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which Sheila has thoughtfully prerecorded. Say, “I have no idea who that is,” repeatedly as we watch country-western singers and Disney proto-stars. Give love to the Rockettes. Diss all boy bands.

Step 2: Eat ourselves sick. The menu is always the same: TURKEY! Two kinds of stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce (Angel Joe made it with honey this year – yum), mashed taters with gravy, green-bean casserole with those crunchy onions on top, and this killer green Jello™ salad that has pineapple, celery, and cottage cheese in it and is topped with a mayo/cream cheese/sugar pile o’ goo, and which Heather refuses to eat, because she has texture issues. Boo hoo. Sheila and I shovel it in.

Step 3: Sit around and groan

Step 4: Usually this involves watching a Christmas movie, but this year we played games instead. At Heather’s request, Angel Joe and I brough Munchkin, which so far has a 100% success rate at frustrating parents.

Them: “This is so complicated, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Us: “Isn’t it great? Don’t try to understand it, just laugh at the cards. It’ll soak in.”

Either they don’t believe us, or parents don’t do Zen. Anyway, we didn’t play a second game of that but switched over to a language game which we played for like, four hours, the name of which I can’t for the life of me remember. It was a ton of fun. Best joke of the evening belongs to Angel Joe. When told that the category was, “Careers that begin with ‘P’,” he said, “Urologist.” This led to urologist being used as an answer many times.

Category: Things that rhyme with vote.
Hint: You might find this under a woman’s skirt.
Shouted answer: Urologist!
Real answer: petticoat

Step 5: The eating of dessert, the almighty Crack in a Pan (also known as Pumpkin Dump Cake) served with vanilla ice-cream.

Step 6: Play more games, then suddenly realize it’s late and reluctantly go home. (Extra-special thanks to Sheila for loading me down with free books!)

Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Roller Derby!

“Lots and lots of fishnets,” is how Red Leather Heather summed up last night’s activity.  We’ve been meaning to go to a roller derby for a while now. Luckily, Tracy (she of the Pin-Up-Girl Halloween costume) is a go-go boot wearin’ member of the cheerleading team for the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls.

With someone we actually knew involved, we found ourselves in Littleton last night, being warmed up by Wolfie the mascot before the Red Ridin’ Hoods and the Sugar Kill Gang came on deck for their expo derby.

$14.32 buys you a ticket online. Pom pons are a buck apiece, and a cup of Pabst Blue Ribbon is $2. Altogether, a cheap evening out. The rules are simple. Whistle #1 starts the pack. Waiting for Whistle #2 are the two jammers, one for each team. Their job is to make their way through the pack to the front, where they become lead jammer and start to score points for each skater passed.

Below, Whippety Pow magics her way through the pack. She’s wearing pink shorts.

Whippety Pow is wearing skates, I'm not. Not a big gal.

Whippety Pow was my favorite player on the Sugar Kill Gang. She Who Cannot Be Named was my favorite Red Ridin’ Hood. (I had my pic taken with She Who, as well, but the camera turned out to be set on video.) They’re both strategic skaters, reading the pack and calculating upcoming openings. Whippety Pow kept low and hard to spot. A very fast skater, she shoots through openings like a damn rabbit. She Who Cannot Be Named is no slouch on speed, but takes up more space on the rink. She’s a head taller, for one thing, and also has more arm motion. She was a great one for the element of surprise, making blockers think she was headed one way, then shooting around the outside when they weren’t looking, only to reappear in front of them. Both great skaters, plenty aggressive, but also fairly cerebral. For sheer aggro, you couldn’t beat Annia LateHer. She punched through the pack like a bull, clearly uncaring of personal injury.

I’ve heard the fans are sometimes as much fun to watch as the skaters. The star of last night’s audience was Jennifer, a first-timer just like us.

If I’m not mistaken, Jennifer’s canines were filed to points. On her, this was adorable. She also had some great pirate shoes.

Two other stand-outs in the crowd were familial supports of the Red Ridin’ Hoods’ Boudica.

Proud supporters.

Please note that Boudica‘s jersey number actually is 60 AD. Love it!

Post-derby, Boudica was no slouch in the pirate-shoe department, either.

Argh! These beauties don't have wheels!

What else can I tell you? The refs had nicknames. Shake and Derby Harry were two that I saw.  The only derby moniker I could come up with was Block and Claw, but that’s so-so. I have to say that the best name of the night was probably Vixen T’Killya, of the Sugar Kill Gang.

Oh, I almost forgot! During half-time, the cheerleaders asked for five audience volunteers and got all little boys, since no one was sure exactly what was going to happen. They played a game where five cheerleaders each held a balloon to their chest while the contestant hugged one after another so as to pop the balloons. Quickest balloon popper won a prize. Since the boys were short, the cheerleaders had to kneel. I was so riveted by the sight, I forgot to take video. As Angel Joe watched the first kid wrap his arms around a kneeling cheerleader and give her a good hump to break the balloon, he moaned, “If only I had known…” Next time, honey.

If you have roller derby near you, go. It’s a blast.

(more video probably still to come)