Happy birthday to knee!

Happy birthday to knee, happy birthday to knee, happy birthday dear knee...! No, really. It's been five years to the day since I had my ACL reconstruction. And in just a few more days, it will have been five years since my ferret cake. (It's already been five years since the ferret dream.) And how are we doing five years post-op? Um, well, the knee is okay and the ACL is doing well (still robbing banks in my sleep, I'm sure, which is why I wake up tired sometimes!), but I don't think my body and mind really ever recovered. Part of my lateral shin under my knee is still numb. Nerves probably gone for good. And I just don't trust it sometimes. And, periodically, my knee still hurts. For no real reason. And now Vioxx is off the market!!

In other news of damaged people, I found out today that I didn't actually break Nathalia's finger (when she blocked my perfectly good front kick WITHOUT MAKING A FIST!!), but it just was jammed and then, evidently, swelled up and turned funny colors. Sigh. And all you white/green/brown belts out there - take note. Don't block kicks with open hands. Even black belts' fingers break when they meet legs at high speed.

Why would you want this?!

As someone who has now been officially and totally drunk on way too much red wine, I can legitimately ask, "Why would you want this?!"

Anatomy of a doorknob

Things I've accomplished recently:

1. Made absolutely awesome chocolate cookies with peanut butter and chocolate chips. I don't know why, but cookies don't always come out well. These came out amazingly so.

2. Downloaded and customized Winamp such that I can actually get streaming media onto my MP3 player for later listening pleasure. (It's like being in Seattle while driving through Boston!)

3. Laundry. I think we need to get Glen more boxers. He's always out long before I am.

4. Heard about the best bumper sticker: "Frodo failed. Bush has the ring."

This is not for me

If you want to see me happily dive into traffic at any busy intersection, just walk up next to me wearing this coat.

Weekend successes

So this weekend, even though it flew by like the usual weekends, I actually accomplished some stuff! Glen and I had a very productive shopping excusion followed by a highly successful nap on Saturday, and between Saturday and Sunday, I actually managed to get all but ten pages or so of my 150+ pages read for my class. So it looks like I'll actually be PREPARED for Wednesday's discussion in class. What a concept! Of course, the workload continues. And we watched Farscape, and I watched an ER, and we watched an hour of The Name of the Rose, and we even cooked one night. I expect much of the week to fly by since I have things scheduled every day. It's amazing how quickly it filled up. On to next weekend!

And now for something completely different

Finally caught up on my web surfing that I have neglected in the past week and found two interesting things, both of which I have absolutely no use for. The first is this cow tent, apparently designed to camouflage you should you choose to camp out in the middle of a dairy farm.

The second is what you can do to waste time and cell phone minutes while in France: Project Blinkenlights.

My coffee tastes like soap, and other distractions

This week has been the first mostly good and non-absolutely-insane week in a long time. Yesterday, David B. came in and asked me to look at his computer which he claimed was completely dead, stuck on the Windows rescue screen and only allowing reboots (which got you back to the rescue screen) and none of the other options. I played with it for a few minutes and discovered he was right, so I called David L. for advice. David L. said he'd come take a look at it. After hanging up the phone, I hit the enter key an undetermined number of times and we got to a screen which allowed us to start Windows in safe mode. Although we were unable to log on, I thought maybe since it had gotten beyond that rescue screen, a reboot might allow it to start Windows normally. Nope. Back to the rescue screen. About to give up, I pushed back from the desk and hit my knee on the auxiliary keyboard which was smashed under the desk. Apparently, it had been pressing keys of which we were unaware. Once I pulled the keyboard out from under the desk, everything worked properly. I called David L. to tell him his help would be unnecessary. Laughing (and no doubt rolling his eyes), he said he'd log it as an "I-D-10-T" error.

(My coffee tasted like soap because I seem to have been lax with my rinsing rituals as of late.)

Time, space, and dehydration

How come when you think about weekends during the week, you have in your head that the weekend will be a nice, long, relaxing two days? Then, when you actually get to the weekend, it flies by before you have a chance to do anything nice, long, or relaxing. I had had a severely busy week. Grant due Tuesday, new grad class starting Wednesday, and my own class to teach on Thursday and Friday, not to mention trying desperately to get to karate on Monday night, getting up at 4:30 AM on Tuesday to be at Michael's when the baby awoke while Lydia took Michael in for his surgery (shoulder, nothing serious), then being at Michael's again on Wednesday and Thursday evenings to cover dinnertime through bedtime, providing extra hands, eyes, and a non-drugged mind. I couldn't wait to get to the weekend. And now that we're here, it's Sunday afternoon. I haven't finished the laundry; I've hardly started my homework; I didn't balance the receipts; I didn't get nearly enough sleep... And I've had a headache for three days. Tylenol takes care of it, but it always comes back. Jeremy says I'm dehydrated. So I guess that's the goal tonight: drink enough beer to rehydrate. Ha. Just kidding. Drink enough water to rehydrate, interspersed with the beer.... Party at Michael's. Last night, we were at Brandy's for a triple dinner date with her and Steve and Laura and Kevin. Fun, but long, and late. Oh, and did I mention - I'm giving an hour and a half presentation tomorrow, for which I have yet to prepare. I can't wait until next weekend...

If you have time to explore...

I found this through one of my live bookmarks. I'm not quite sure what you're supposed to do with it, although I definitely get the sense that it's cool. I'm just not quite sure how to use it properly. It has to do with photography and planning your Escape Route.

Note: This may only work in IE. It worked for me once in FF, but then not this morning. I don't get it.