Hobson's Choice
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What You Can Do
while recuperating from your blood loss and trying not to move around too vigorously for fear of breaking something loose in your nose:
You can read three novels.
Trap Door by Sarah Graves. It's the latest in the Home Repair is Homicide series. I'm loving this series more and more, beyond the coastal Maine setting and getting read the word "Passamaquoddy" every 10 pages or so (Remember Passamaquoddy from Pete's Dragon, o ye children of the 1970s?). I love that the sleuth, that she doesn't have a pristine past and that she's possibly more clumsy around ladders than I. I love its realism about alcoholism and the havoc that it wreaks on her son (although I'd like to see his love interest, Maggie, return). I love the weird ghosts and supernatural elements that are not at all scary.
(2)Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. The first Joanne Harris I've read. Completely absorbing; I read it in less than a day. But also slightly icky and disturbing, but that's the private school system in Britain for you.
(3) One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson. Maybe not quite as good as her previous book, Case Histories. But still, why are you sitting reading this blog when you could be reading One Good Turn
5:34 p.m. - 2007-01-30
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The Nose Knows
Thanks, dear readers, for all your web well wishes for my nose. I'm happy to report that the nurse practitioner put a big scope up my nose and discovered nothing alarming. Apparently, Saturday's incident was caused by a combination of the first real cold spell since my surgery and my forgetfulness in turning on the humidifier on Friday night.
I cannot say enough good things about Liberty Circle ENT and urge all the nasally afflicted in this area to choose them for their ENT services.
Early yesterday morning, I got two calls from the nurse practitioner and the receptionist who had read the weekend notes from the answering service. I will repeat: they called me. I felt like I was living in 1950. It was wonderful.
Beyond the excellent service, it's a research-based, "state of the art" practice. All this nose surgery can be iffy stuff, so it's good to get the best.
And get this? Yesterday, the break room door was open, and the surgeon was eating KFC with the staff. Have you ever seen a surgeon with that little of an ego?
5:26 p.m. - 2007-01-30
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Irony alert
I'm sitting on the couch, reading the end of the introduction to Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo when Eleanor asks me to play "London Bridge" with her and an afghan.
Because of course, there's no one else to help lock her up, and afghans are notably more cooperative than elderly gentleman cats.
6:56 p.m. - 2007-01-29
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A reminder
That life changes quickly. When my nose started spurting blood at 5:30 Saturday morning, that put paid to our plans to shop and swim. Instead I went to the ER for 3 hours.
Everything was okay; I see my surgeon for a follow-up later today. I'm taking the morning off instead of wrangling 40-lb preschoolers, just in case. But it's just a wake-up call about life and making plans.
Chris reports that the part where blood was coming out my tear duct was scary.
10:03 a.m. - 2007-01-29
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What I've Learned From Our Two Year Old Neighbor
That our house has lost all vestiges of child-proofing. There's medicine easily accessible, a seemingly endless supply of beads and small game parts, tiny little dolls to be ingested.
If the planets should align and we should have another child (and those are the words of the fertility specialist, except he said "when the planets align), we are either going to have to sweep this house from top to bottm for choke-ables or else employ a full-time Heimlich maneuver staff member for the home.
Probably if I were a good friend, I would child-proof right now for our two year old neighbor. Because every time they come over, poor Heather has to run around the whole time trying to keep her daughter from meeting her doom.
1:13 p.m. - 2007-01-26
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Knitting and Birth
Other knitters are definitely a bad influence. Since posting about my cabled-hoodie-cardigan obsession, I have received lots of encouragement to boldy go and knit the sweater. My mother-in-law, Uber Knitter of the Family, says she thinks I can do it. My mother, She Who is Knitting Socks for All of Her Dog-sledding Buddies, says that I can definitely do it since I already knit socks.
I've decided that knitting a sweater may be a lot like having a baby. Everyone tells you how wonderful it is, how you forget the pain, how you should definitely do it.
But they of course are not the ones who have to stay up all the night with the wayward sweater. Or baby.
8:57 p.m. - 2007-01-24
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The mail at age 33 and 3/4
I would like to be the kind of person who uses exact postage, who doesn't waste a penny on mailing.
In the middle of my fourth decade, I'm trying to accept that I am in fact the kind of person who lets mail gather on my front table for days until the realization hits that I am never going to get to the post office. This letter will never be mailed unless i take action now. I am the kind of person who then says "screw it," slaps on some extra postage, and puts the letter out for the mail lady.
Book Report: Rumpole and the Reign of Terror by John Mortimer
Knitting Report:I cast on some mittens today for Eleanor. It snowed. She needs wool.
6:57 p.m. - 2007-01-24
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Cheap
More lessons in false economy from Jenny: If a bra is on the clearance rack at a discount chain store, there's probably a reason. When will I learn?
Enough said.
The Knitting Report: Socks for Chris. They were for me, but they're too big.
Book Report: Dust by Martha Grimes.
2:42 p.m. - 2007-01-23
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Climate Change
My grim global warming resolutions for next year:
(1) I am not plastic sheeting the windows until it looks like winter has actually arrived. That way, we can get some fresh air in the house when it's 65 degrees in November.
(2) I am not purchasing snow boots for the child next year. I bought the boots in early December this year; winter arrived this week; the snow boots are now too small. They have never been worn. 18 bucks down the tubes. Okay, so this is partly a growth spurt issue; normally, a person doesn't outgrow shoes in six weeks. Still and all, no snow boots in 2007 until I see the whites of winter's eyes. Or the white snow.
Climate change nonetheless, winter has arrived with ice and snow finally in the Ohio River Valley. I love it.
4:31 p.m. - 2007-01-21
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What I've Learned From An Old House
I've been reading Sarah Graves' Home Repair is Homicide mystery series. The sleuth Jake Tiptree has an 1823 house on a Maine island (I've learned over the past decade that I will devour any mystery set in Maine or Cape Cod; I'm hoping this means that I will somehow be able to spend my retirement years there). As our house is almost exactly 100 years younger than hers, it's doesn't even rank as "old" by comparison. But all this reading and repairing has gotten me thinking about all the lessons I've learned from living in an old-ish house.
(1) Shims. You want lots of them. You want to keep them on hand like milk or bread, because there are no true 90 degree angles in an old house. And you really don't want all your armoire doors hanging open all the time, much less sliding across the room toward you.
(2) Your house is permeable. Recent housing has perfected the art of the air-tight and energy efficient. But your house, the old house, breathes. There are three important sub-lessons to be had here.
-- Energy efficiency in an old house means being cold in the winter and hot in the summer. The only way to conserve fuel is just to use less because you can caulk, weather-strip, and plastic sheet all you want. You're still going to see breezes around your windows and outlets.
-- Despite the fact that living in an old house means trafficking in scary vocabulary like "asbestos" and "lead," you actually get some fresh air inside your house. All those green folks say this means that your house is in fact healthier than a new one which seals in all the toxic substances emitted by
carpet, paint, and varnish.
-- You will share your house with creatures. There are so many ways for them to get in. Some are harmless, like the box elder bugs which proliferate in the thousands in our neighborhood. I have come to think of them as our insect pets. However, some pests are harmful, and you're going to have to kill them. If you have a problem with murdering other mammals, you should think about buying a new house.
(3)An unfortunately corollary to the lesson about sharing your space with other creatures: in an old house, there will be smells. Right now, I'm pretty sure that a mouse has died in our bedroom fireplace. Because this fireplace is sealed up, but not hermetically, we have to live with the smell until the little mouse decomposes some more. I'm glad it's winter.
(4) Plaster is cool and organic and makes wonderful walls. It also crumbles. Living in an old house means coming to terms with continual plaster maintenance and repair. That said, we have had a hole in the third floor ceiling, in a room where we never go, for two years now. I need to fix it.
(5) You can dust all day; you can be a dusting machine. Your house will need dusting again as soon as you're finished. My theory is that because old houses have a lot of experience and wisdom, they get bored during the day. To keep themselves occupied, they create dust. Lots of it.
(6) You get to inherit many decades of crazy repairs made by the previous owners. For instance, we know that the immediately prior owner had a propensity for over-tightening bolts, thus stripping it and making it leaky. And when the replaced the tile roof with shingles, they scrimped by not replacing the flashing; also, the neighbors inform us that they hired homeless people to re-roof the house for cash. Luckily they hired professionals to update the wiring.
I sound curmudgeonly about this old house; in fact, I love it. Here��s why:
�� The front porch. In an old neighborhood, it��s harder not to know the neighbors. Our front porches draw us out, especially in the summer.
�� The older house was designed to withstand the climate without air conditioning or central heat. In the summer, it��s all about cross-ventilation and the angle of the sun.
�� Light, light, light. There are windows everywhere in an older house.
�� Cubbies and corners. An old house doesn��t have the nice, open spaces of a new house; I think the ��great room�� is a great addition to new architecture. Who wouldn��t love a multi-purpose living space. But old houses make up for the lack with their nooks and crannies where children and sometimes their mothers can hide.
�� Old houses are meant to be repaired and to last. They were built before we discovered cheap materials and workmanship. Even though you��re inheriting all your ancestors�� crazy remodels, at least you know that it can be done and done again. The pipes have been pumping water for a long old time.
�� Most importantly, there��s comfort in knowing that people have been born and died in your house; I believe it mellows the molecules of old wood and plaster. It��s easier to put your life in perspective if you think about all the people who have done it all before you and in the very room where you��re sitting, too.
5:13 p.m. - 2007-01-19
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Baby it's cold outside
Somehow we feel so much more stalwart when you consider that almost half our house has no heating. I can get all post-war Britain and "stiff upper lip" just thinking about it.
Of course, we don't really go up to the third floor during the winter. And the bathroom is a tiny room with a space heater.
And as I work in my frigid office, I have a space heater blowing directly onto my hands.
2:49 p.m. - 2007-01-18
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Living Legend
At Casa Hobson-Green, we like to drive our appliances into the ground. We like to extract every last bit of use out of them and then push them further. Only two working burners on a stove and radically uneven heat in its oven? Not even a reason to begin considering a purchase. Clothes washer door has to be propped shut by a board and a full bucket of paint? No problem. Lawn mower barely cuts the grass? Then go over the grass with it several times until the lawn looks gnawed.
Still, I don't think we're all that remarkable. All those appliances are mechanical, after all; they can be repaired (well, actually the washer can't; it's some kind of design flaw, and everyone who has our particular model apparently also has to prop the door). The amazing thing is that our computer is almost seven years old.
Seven years old. Many of you out there in reader-land probably didn't know that a computer could live to the ripe old age of 7. But here it is, chugging away.
And driving me crazy with its slowness, it pre-millenium screen and technologies.
But it still comes on when you push the on button, so here it's going to sit.
2:35 p.m. - 2007-01-18
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Knitting Madness
Apparently, I have turned into one of those crazy knitters. Only 48 hours after surgery, I started knitting again. I absolutely had to try right then the log cabin technique from the Mason-Dixon knitters. Of course, I got so dizzy that I had to put the knitting down after about 20 rows and one color change, and it looked like crap.
The important thing I discovered from this experiment was that any time spent knitting is time NOT spent squelching the desire to pick/blow one's nose (a verboten activity for 10 days post-op). While there are 3 inch long straw stuck up inside your nose.
Consequently, I finished two socks and a pair of baby booties during my convalescence.
And now I'm obsessed with making a sweater. Not just any sweater, this one. The Celtic Icon Hoodie from Inspired Cable Knits. I take the Knit Picks catalog to bed with me to gaze upon the sweater.
Can I list all the problems with my obsession? The main one is that I HAVE NEVER KNIT A SWEATER before. And the first one I want to tackle is cardigan hoodie with a zipper and all sorts of funky cables. What am I thinking?
Well, I'm thinking about the damn sweater. So far, here's what I've done about it:
(1) Ordered the yarn and pattern from KnitPicks and then immediately called to cancel my order. Because while $50 bucks is not a lot of cash for a sweater that you plan on wearing for the rest of your life and then passing down to your grateful grandchildren, it is a lot for a first sweater that is probably not going to look all the great.
(2) Sent my mom on an errand to her yarn store to see if she could find a similar but easier pattern. She did, but alas, it's not haunting my dreams.
(3) Ordered the book from ABEbooks, because I found some poor unwitting vendor who didn't know what she had and was selling the book for $7.
My theory is that the book will arrive, I'll see how godawful hard the pattern is, and I'll relent. Or I'll order the 22 skeins of yarn needed to complete the project.
7:07 p.m. - 2007-01-14
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What I Learned From Sinus Surgery
(1) Anesthesia rocks. For people like me who have suffered from periodic insomnia, the idea of falling asleep on command raises a few jitters. But once again, I was reminded that anesthesia is not like falling asleep. You cannot help but go out; it's like taking a massive punch to the head.
(2)And on that note, anesthesia sucks. While it's great not to be awake while knives and cameras are being stuffed into your nose, recovery from anesthesia makes it almost not worth it.
(3)Yet it provides an opportunity to render praise unto: the ancient Babylonians, Theophrastus, Paracelsus, P.W. Selturner, Pierre-Jean Robiquet, Merck, and all the other great folks involved in the discovery and manufacture of codeine (Click here for more on the wonder drug)
(4) Footnote: I've been off the Lortab for a little while now, and I have not yet knocked off a convenience store. It seems that I have once again missed the bullet of prescription drug dependence. Long live the fight against Appalachian stereotypes!
(5) You might think that Lortab would give you trippy weird dreams about other planets and alternate life realities. This would be true. However, it can also ratchet up the banality factor of your dreams, leading you to meander through lengthy dreamscapes about writing the wrong date on your checks.
(6) But enough about the prescription drugs. There are just a few more key facts to mention.
-- There is nothing like having your mother to take care of you while you're sick. While my mom was bringing me fresh drinks and sleeping on the couch to make sure I didn't drown in my own snot, I kept thinking of everyone I know who have lost their mothers.
-- There is also nothing like having a completely clean basement and garage because your husband and father worked out their anxieties about your condition through the pitching of trash.
-- Additionally, my parents-in-law need praise for keeping Eleanor for the first few days post-op when the tiniest sounds made me writhe in agony.
-- Chris Green and Eleanor must win awards for saintliness in keeping our lives running while I dozed in the recliner for ten days.
-- It is possible to watch Season Two of The Office and all the extras during recuperation from sinus surgery.
--Chris has praised my skill in the discreet disposal of sputum into tissues. So if the whole preschool teaching/mapping/writing thing doesn't work out, I feel certain I will make it as an impersonator of 19th century consumptives
-- Finally, it did hurt; not the worst time I've ever had; certainly not the best. I'll be glad to describe all the details on request. For now, I think we'll leave it with my gratitude of having the three inch stents removed from my nose and now breathing better than I have in a decade.
12:01 p.m. - 2007-01-05
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