kmkat and her kneedles

And then we went to the North Shore.

The view from the tiny deck of our cabin. That's Lake Superior, if you cannot tell.

 

Our cabin.

 

The fire pit.
 

Why am I showing you a photo of the fire pit in the front yard of the cabin? Because it was the scene of Smokey's latest near-death experience.

One morning he took the dogs out for their beginning-of-the-day pee. Since the benches of the picnic table were damp from dew, he sat on the seat of his walker, which, in addition to a nice padded seat, is on wheels.

Can you see how the ground slopes to the left toward The Lake? Yes, the walker started to roll downhill.

 

Because he had a dog leash on each wrist, his hands were not as free as they might have been. And, although the walker has brakes, the wheels were damp from the dew and the brakes just slipped. He rolled backward, the wheels hit the cast iron edge of the fire pit, and he tipped backwards at precisely the right angle to strike the back of his head on the downhill edge.

Did he suffer a concussion? Did he fracture his skull? Did his sever his spinal column? Any of those were possible.

He did not even get a lump on his head. And he said that after the initial impact it did not even hurt.

I find it hard to imagine those last two, but I felt for a lump and there was none.

 

The hard-headed Swede detailing his walker.
 

 

A cautionary Thursday.

This is what happens when the cleaning lady puts a bag of trash in the can 
2 days before the garbage truck comes. I left home @9:45 am the next day;
this is what I found when I came home @ 2pm.
The bears are getting bolder -- they usually only mess with the trash overnight. 

 

 

Caution: this is what happens when you get dressed without turning on the light
so as not to wake your spouse.

 

In the words of the immortal Red Green, "Safety first!"

 

 

 

And this is Smokey dismantling my vintage-1994 Gateway computer
in order to recycle the recyclable bits.
Farewell, old friend; you were my first Windows box.
 

 

 

 

 

The second annual Smokey-toys-with-death event*.

Let me preface this by saying that it is an accepted fact that the thing we dislike about someone is the opposite face of the thing we love about them. Case in point:  Smokey is tender-hearted about animals and has unshakeable faith in his own ability to handle things, amen.

It all started when he was replacing the rear-view mirror on his car on Sunday. It was a lovely day, sunny and 60˚ F (16˚ C), so he decided to let the dogs go for a runaround. They were having a wonderful time, racing up and down the driveway and around the house...

... and down to the lake. Where the ice is in the process of going out. Lucy The Incredibly Intrepid But Not Terribly Smart Dog  decided to dive into the lake to chase the Canada geese.

And then all this happened.

 

I took all the above photos because I just knew I could get a blog post out of it. Then...

...things got hairy. You can see in the last photo above that the kayak is almost completely off the ice and in the water. As Smokey wrestled with Lucy to get her into the boat, the kayak flipped and he went in, too.

As is nearly always the case when a person -- or a dog -- goes through the ice, he couldn't pull himself out. He couldn't get a handhold, the ice edge kept breaking, and he just wasn't strong enough.

I ran into the house to get a rope. (Why had he not taken one end of a rope with him? Duh.) Happily, we had just bought two 100-foot ropes, still in the wrapping. Tragically, I am not a good enough pitcher to throw one end to him from shore. (Why did I not call 911 when I ran past the telephone in the house? Duh #2.)

Thinking back on it later, I remembered that when he was going out on the ice I had said, "Don't fall in because I am NOT coming out there after you."

Lesson: never say never.

There was the hull of a Sunfish-type sailboat on the bank, which had been given to us years ago and that the boys used to sail around the lake. I was able to drag that shallow hull down to the ice, heaving and grunting and panting, and push it out to where Smokey was hanging on to the kayak.

I had the rope along and he wrapped it around his wrists so at least he wouldn't sink. (Why had I not tied one end to a tree? Duh #3.) He still was not able to pull himself high enough to get into the boat, even with me pulling as well. In the process we managed to slide the sailboat hull into the water and ship several gallons of ice water into it. I quickly scrambled to the other end of the hull to keep it from flipping, too.

Now, this is reminiscent of a situation I heard about on NPR a number of years ago. A Norwegian sport fisherman was fishing from the shore ice when a large piece, on which he was standing, broke loose and floated out to sea. No worries, though; he just pulled out his cell phone and dialed the Norwegian equivalent of 911.

I had my own cell phone in my pocket because I had been taking the photos above. It fell into the water in the bottom of the sailboat when we were attempting to get Smokey in, but I quickly grabbed it and put it back into my shirt pocket. When I took it out to call 911 (Why did I not call 911 when I ran into the house to get the rope? Never thought of it until just this second.) The phone still worked, but I had no service. Rats! I can generally get one bar of service at home; not good enough to reliably make a call, but still. 

I sat there and contemplated in how many ways we were screwed. Smokey hung in the 32˚ water and contemplated the same. There are almost no other year-round residents on the lake, and none of them would have had a very clear view of us even if they were looking. No help there. No way to get either boat back onto the ice. No way to get Smokey out of the water. No way for me to get back to shore.

I tried my phone again, and hallelujah! One bar of service! I got through to 911, and the operator was able to hear me well enough even though the call was breaking up to understand our predicament. A minute later we could hear the fire siren in town, four miles away, summoning the volunteer fire fighters.

The fireman on the scene was a guy who lives on the paved road a half mile away. The second one lives about a mile farther away in the other direction.

Because I am nothing if not nuts, I recorded the rescue for posterity. My photography sucks, but oh, well. At least we are both still alive and so is Lucy.

Hover for the play-by-play.

 

Thus endeth the saga. It took a couple hours under the covers and with help from a hair dryer for Smokey and Lucy to warm up completely. All's well that ends well, but let's not do it again.

Addendum: On Tuesday night I got together with some friends for our occasional monthly book group. As I told them about our adventure, suddenly one of my friends gasped and said, I heard about this! I heard about how someone had gone through the ice on Antler Lake! Such is small town life. Everyone knows about your follies.

 

 * It was on March 3 last year that Smokey coded in the OR and was dead for eight minutes.

Email from the old folks' home.

From Smokey:

Lately I've gained a new appreciation for a '70s band called the Doobie Brothers, so I was delighted to read that they were coming to Minnesota for 4-day rock festival called Moondance Jam, near Park Rapids. 

I went to their site and saw that Peter Frampton and Huey Lewis would also be there, plus many other bands I have never heard of. I was initially excited to go.

 

That initial enthusiasm was tempered by several things:

• One day ticket prices of $100 each;
• Shaded campsites for $300, 3-day minimum;
• Lawn chair passes (required) for $25 each;
• Lots of walking from the campsites to the stages that caused my knees to ache just thinking about it;
• The realization that the concert was in mid-July and it will probably be too hot for our tastes;
• The realization that the crowd will probably be on their feet most of the time and I can't stand up for long periods because of back pain so I wouldn't see much.

So I decided instead to buy several used CDs on eBay for $5 each that feature the Doobies and Mr. Lewis, and later this month we will attend a free show just 30 miles away at Turtle Lake Casino that features my favorite comic, Emo Philips.

 

Perhaps, as Huey Lewis claims. "It's hip to be square", but it's hell to get old.

Happy Halloween!

    

It was 20 40 years ago today!

(Listen to it twice. PRESTO! 40 years.)

 

So we celebrated. I got out our wedding album, and we and Younger Son looked at the pictures of the day. Then we listened to Billy Idol singing White Wedding while we ate our pancakes and bacon.

In the 20 seconds it took me to get the wedding album, Ser Percy found my yarn.

That's most of two skeins of Shibui Silk Cloud; 60/40 mohair/silk. 
 Have you ever untangled Kid Silk Haze? This is the same, only silkier.

I am making a Multigrain scarf* as a Christmas present for Elder Son's next-door neighbor, who has been such a good friend and helper and welcomer to him in Sioux Falls. (I almost said "elderly neighbor", but then I remembered that she is only a couple years older than I. Oops.)

 

We cover the entire spectrum of music.

 

 

* I just rechecked the pattern. I think I may have only gotten 2 skeins of Pebble instead of 4 as required. Another order going in. Damn. 

Sunday, Sunday!

1. Fish:: eyes.
2. Dreaming :: love.
3. Living :: dying.
4. Expectations :: unmet.
5. Mug :: china.
6. Jacket :: denim.
7. Bowl :: pipe.
8. Confession :: true.
9. Socks :: hand-knit. Duh.
10. Tank :: top.

* * * * *

Things are a-changin' in our living room. First there was the new TV.

Old.

New.

Yes, there is a lot of crappe in our living room. Smokey's knees are so bad he walks as little as possible, so all the paraphernalia required by whatever project he is working on are scattered around his chair. And the rest of the living room. Such is life.

Next, new (to us) chairs.

When I drove a carful of books and stuff to Sioux Falls to help Elder Son move, I stayed for a couple days. One thing we accomplished was to get him some furniture from the St Vincent de Paul thrift store. Said store is a block from his house and was having a 50% off sale on furniture. He was adamant that we needed to check it out. For $47 he became the proud owner of a couch (later exchanged for a smaller love seat because we couldn't get the couch through his 30" front door), a glider rocker and matching glider ottoman, and an end table. That glider rocker and ottoman were wonderfully comfortable, and it was I who insisted he buy them. 

When Smokey and I visited a couple weeks ago I spent almost every minute in that chair, rocking/gliding and knitting. On the way home I announced that I had liked it so much I was going to get one for myself. Being the wise husband he is, Smokey agreed that that was a fabulous idea.

We checked out some furniture stores and looked online, but didn't find anything properly comfortable. But yesterday while I was serving my turn at the Dems tent at the county fair, he searched Craigslist and found a pair of glider rockers with matching ottomans. Which are now nestling in the back of his Trooper (oh, yeah, he bought another car a couple weeks ago) waiting to be carried up to the living room.

His beat-up leather chair, purchased new in ::counts on fingers:: 1983 will be offered to each son and donated if neither wants it. My powered recliner will go to the basement family room for the next time one of us needs it. It was invaluable when my hip was bad and after his back surgery.

 
Old. Note the delightful cat-scratching-post nature of my recliner.
The other side of the leather chair looks the same way.

New(ish). X2.

If you need me any time in the next ten years, I will be gliding/rocking in the living room with my knitting and watching Netflix on the big screen. 

Remember when I used to do Sunday posts?

Younger Son drove up yesterday afternoon. 

This is how he drove that last 20 miles.

Let's do bullets, shall we?

• My Mac Mini had been slowing down unmercifully over that last few months. Adding an external hard drive for docs, spreadsheets, photos, and music helped a lot,
• In an effort to make it better yet YS and I wiped the internal hard drive and we he reinstalled the OS.
• Did it help? Yes, but I have spent a lot of time over the past month trying to recover stuff that seems to have gone missing -- my calendar, my address book, all my iTunes playlists, a huge chunk of photos in iPhoto.
• Happily, my calendar, address book, and playlists are intact on my iPhone.
• Tragically, my computer is being extremely stubborn about synching with those apps.
• I may need to resort to hand grenades. Or nuclear weapons.
• What are the chances that will work?
• [/whine]

 

Elder Son:

• Finished his coursework at UMich in Ann Arbor, went back to Big Nasty Med School in Manhattan to finish his last credit there.
• Last credit had been left unfinished to prevent four years of med school loans from coming due while he was in grad school.
• On March 17 he found out he had *matched* for his residency.
• (The Match is a complicated nationwide thing that matches fourth-year med students with residency programs in their selected specialty.)
• His mood, which has ranged from frustrated to sullen to depressed to righteously angry during his med school years, improved dramatically.
• Four days later -- a brief period during which those students who didn't match and those residency programs that didn't fill scramble frantically to interview each other via Skype in hopes of falling in love -- he found out his match was with a hospital in Sioux Falls SD.
• While he would have preferred to be in Duluth, he thinks the program in SF is actually a bit better.
• His mood improved even more.
• He has been bombarding us with links to 1, houses for sale in SF, and b, pictures of Newfoundlands.
• He has wanted a Newfie for years.
• We think buying a house is just so he can be sure he will have a place to have a Newfie.
• Priorities, people, priorities!

 

Smokey:

• Had a cardiologist appointment last week.
• All good.
• He returned to work a couple days, er, nights ago.
• He has found that the stents in his coronary arteries seem to have improved the circulation to his legs, which used to cramp at night and/or be restless.
• This equals better sleep.
• He has also found that he no longer needs to sit down to put on his pants. His balance is improved so much he can do it standing up.
• I am jealous of that.
• He bought a zombie mask to wear when he went back to work (since he had risen from the dead).
• Black/weird humor is our specialty. Also popular among psych personnel.

 

Me:

• I am rolling along on my Fairfield cardigan. Back is done to the armholes, sleeves are about 6" long.
• This is a delightful knit -- just enough cabling/lace to make it interesting, but lots of stockinette so it doesn't take forever.
• I just hope I have enough yarn. 
• I made the back 2" shorter than the pattern called for, but the pattern length seemed to be for someone taller than I. The shorter length is the same as most of my sweaters.
• I have been working way harder than I necessarily wanted to on my campaign for my fourth term on our county board -- lit drops, knocking on doors, making phone calls, putting up signs.
• It didn't help that I had lost MS Word from my computer (see above) or that my computer was not talking to my printer (ditto) during the time when I was making flyers and drafting my answers to survery questions from a local newspaper.
• Smokey's coal-fired computer running MS Word 97 and his printer (that used to be mine and is at least ten years old) came to the rescue.
• I spent a couple weeks running back and forth between his office and mine, dodging piles of crappe in both places.
• My entire campaign is contained on a thumb drive.
• When Big Money rolls into the county to back a slate of candidates, it makes the rest of the candidates work harder than has ever been done before.
• But I have met a lot of people I didn't necessarily know before, and I have had a lot of help from others who believe in me.
• Tuesday is Election Day. 
• Keep your fingers crossed, m'kay? Thanks.

The tool chest.

Smokey got a new tool.

Now THAT is twelve inches* ;-)

 

* Yeah, I know it is really 11-3/4, but I had to make the joke.

I won Christmas!

Every single gift I got was something I wanted. Srsly.

Smokey gave me got a pristine copy of cookbook I had coveted: Eat It by Dana Crumb, wife of R. Crumb, famed illustrator and inventor of the iconic Mr. Natural and Keep On Truckin' images. Why, yes, I AM a child of That Era.

Smokey assures me that he paid nowhere near what it was priced at Amazon used books.

Back story: when we first met and for the first five years we were married, we lived in a very large house (eight bedrooms, three baths) with six other people. Jim, one of our housemates, had this cookbook, which is the source for my fabled enchilada recipe. The last time I made them I decided to see if I could find the cookbook on eBay. I did, and told Smokey that a, it was out of print, no surprise there, and 2, that copies were going for as much as $50 or more. We chuckled at how valuable it had become, and I thought no more about it. 

Now I have my very own copy! Try to imagine how happy this makes me; just try.

I remember the recipes as being very, very tasty. Smokey said the reviews confirmed that. One reviewer said she had worn out two copies of the book and was now on her third. I think I probably made a few recipes back in the day, but I don't remember any more. Will definitely try them now. A blast of fond memories and the prospect of noms -- priceless!

 

Elder Son got me a set of Knitter's Price interchangeable bamboo circs -- w00t! When I opened it, I was flabbergasted and asked how he knew I wanted them. Both sons replied that I had told them. (Yeah, the memory is the first to go.) Eventually I remembered that I had emailed them both sometime this fall and said that if anyone were interested in a gift for me, I would really like these.

I need to knit some silk. Stat. If I had some.

 

Younger Son had told me a couple months ago that he was thinking of getting me an iPhone for Christmas. He had recently switched his existing phone to a different carrier but had not taken advantage of the new carrier's deal on a new phone; thus, he was able to get me a fabulous phone for far less than MSRP and add it/me to his contract quite cheaply. We are a family that loves us a deal.

Suh-weet!

Here are some photos I took with it at Younger Son's apartment last night in dim room light, no flash.

I may never have to carry a separate camera again. 

To those many of you who already have an iPhone or some other magical telephonic device, this may seem mundane. But to me, who has carried a dumb TracFone for years and years, this is a quantum leap. Now I can do things like find a map when we are driving or look up a restaurant when we are somewhere unfamililar or tweet photos or... many, many other things I cannot imagine right now*.

An unexpected plus was when last night on a whim, after noting with surprise that I had one bar of service, I tried to call Younger Son (in Minneapolis) on my new phone from my bedroom (in our house in Wisconsin, where NO ONE has cell service). And it worked!  Since the house is by the lake, it  -- and every other cabin and house here -- is down in a hole. No one has cell service the last time I asked, about a year ago. Cellular coverage keeps improving, but I was still very impressed. We chatted for a few minutes, then the call dropped. He later emailed me that he has found the reception here to be good, not great. Texting should be fine, but voice may be somewhat iffy.

Color me one Happy Kat^TM.

 

* Just remembered a big advantage. Now I have a phone that will sync with my computer. Every Tracfone I have had has required me to re-enter my entire phone book from the previous phone. I got a new phone every year or two, and the last one? I only entered Smokey and the boys because it was such a pain to re-enter everything. Happily, I never needed any other numbers because I could look them up on my iPod**, which is always in my left pocket.  

** That iPod will be going to Elder Son as soon as I get everything synced up on the iPhone. The headphone jack on his iPod is bad so he hasn't been using it. Even though mine is a couple years old it works fine (except when I take it outside and the temp is below zero)(and even though one corner of the screen is shattered from when it fell out of my pocket onto a tile floor).

 

 

Le tuque du voyageur!

When the weather turned cold a couple weeks ago, Smokey went on a quest to find the hat I knit him last winter -- the one that somehow never got chronicled here. He found it, no problem, in a box of hats at the top of the stairs. 

And there was great rejoicing.

The hat in all its extended glory. You can just barely see the fold line slightly to the left of center.

 

Voyageur style, with the hat sagging down the back. Somehow this one
isn't quite long enough to do that effectively.

 

With folded brim.

 

Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool 4-ply, fingering weight. Several skeins. Color was originally the creatively named 450. I overdyed it with Rit Denim and achieved the look of a well-broken-in pair of blue jeans. Hat is knit with two strands held together. I knit two swatches for him to decide between: single strand on US#2 and double strand on US#6. Surprising me, he chose the second. But it meant the hat went a lot faster so I was pleased by his choice.
Needles: Addi Turbo US#6/4.0mm.
Pattern: an authentic voyageur hat pattern shared with me by Dale-Harriet.

Since this is a double-layer hat with four layers of knitted woolen fabric over the ears, it is W.A.R.M. Perfect for a Wisconsin winter.

 

My week. Let me tell you it.

1. Taxes :: Death.
2. Deter :: Avoid
3. Regret :: Nothing.
4. Consume :: Everything.
5. 1600 :: Calories/day.
6. Retire :: Yay!
7. Console :: TV.
8. Property :: taxes.
9. Return :: Of The Vampire. Where did that come from?
10. Laughter :: Best Medicine.

* * * * *

One night we had enchiladas. I always make these when Elder Son is home. It is his favorite meal (except for possibly a humungous steak). We even had them for Thanksgiving for a year or two. They also make great leftovers, easily nuked. Our leftovers were gone the next day.

My homemade sauce, from this cookbook.

 

Assembling the enchiladas: refried beans, shredded cojack cheese, some leftover sauteed peppers and onions
from last Sunday night's fajitas at Taco Loca.

 

Blackberry pie for dessert; there is a store-bought pumpkin pie hiding underneath.
The latter wasn't bad, but it was no competition for the former.

 

Younger Son got a new toy. Here it is --  what is it?

 

It is a remote control so he can play video games on his phone.
The frosted plastic case doubles as a stand.

 

The lion lays down with the lamb: Hannibal (The Fluffball Of Doom) with his dog (Lucy The Intrepid).

 

We took our cats to the vet for their annual shots and checkups. This kitten
was available for adoption but did NOT come home with us.

Both sons were here, Elder from late Saturday until Saturday afternoon, Younger from Thursday 'til today. What fun to have all four of us around the table again! No photos of that, as I was struck by camnesia and too busy talking and laughing (and drinking wine, spoh-dee-oh-dee). Tomorrow is Elder's birthday; his gift was new tires and speakers for his car, plus their installation (and extensive repairs to the radio so that now he can listen to his iPod shuffle through it). And Younger Son (= mechanically inclined) checked and topped up all the fluid levels for him (ES = almost completely incompetent with physical objects).

* * * * *

Edited to add:

 

It's Sunday!

Mutterings.

1. Untraceable :: Witness Protection Program.
2. Senator :: Humphrey.
3. Humongous :: gigunda.
4. Drinks :: Mai tais.
5. Ringing :: in the ears.
6. Overloaded :: potato.
7. Annoyed :: buzzing.
8. Blondie :: Sunday funnies.
9. Suits :: FBI.
10. Deadly :: serious.

* * * * *

Ser Percival The Energetic is ready for Halloween.

Dah dah, dah dah, dah dah!

* * * * *

We all know that good tools can make any job go more smoothly. Tools can also be toys. Let me show you a couple of Smokey's toy--, er, tools.

This mahogony case (mahogony! for a set of screwdrivers!) lives in a cabinet next to his chair in the living room. Although I probably laughed myself silly when he got this, I cannot tell you how handy it is to always have the right size screwdriver to hand*.

 

 

Here we have the latest toy: a butane-powered soldering iron**. See the flame glowing at the left end? This is the camping soldering iron, for times when there is no electrical hookup. (He often putzes on the car when we are on vacation while I spend my time knitting.)

  * Kinda makes my three (3!) sets of interchangeable needles look reasonable, doesn't it?

** Those of you with Significant Others who are similarly inclined to DIY, do tell them about this little wonder. I predict they will be intrigued.

 

Edited to add: speaking of toys, check out this 2008 photo of ipods.

Some dead, some in use.

 

Listen to your wife. Or not.

As I knat upon the deck on Sunday, I gazed at the 50+ foot white pine in our front yard.

That tree is testimony to not listening to your wife, also to Smokey's incredible and persistent optimism.

When we bought this place, the area between the house and the lake was clear except for one rather spindly maple and a multi-trunk birch near the water. Original owner had cut down everything except the birch when he built the house. Maple was probably planted later. While we had a good view of the lake, everyone else also had a good view of us. We immediately started thinking about planting a few trees to screen the house a bit.

Fast forward a couple few years. One spring. Smokey asked me multiple times whether I -- the designated gardener in the family -- thought that we could successfully transplant some small white pines from our woods into the front yard. Every time, I told him that the way to do it was to drive a shovel into the ground in a circle around each tree we chose for transplant, about two feet out from the trunk. That would sever the farthest roots and force the trees to develop new roots within that circle. Then, the next year we could transplant them and their newly developed and dense root balls.

Like I said, he asked me that question multiple times and every time I gave him the same answer.

Lo and behold, one weekend in May when I was putzing around in the front yard, he came out of the woods trundling a wheelbarrow with a little pine tree in it. Little = a couple feet tall. After I chastised him slightly for not listening to me, I helped him plant it -- and about a half-a-dozen others -- in the front yard. The biggest one was 23 feet tall. 

More than one person subsequently told him, "You cannot bare-root a 23-foot pine tree!"

We watered and fertilized the trees fairly regularly and most of them survived. A couple didn't, and we replaced them with others from the woods on our property.

What you see pictured above is the 23-foot white pine my optimistic husband bare-rooted in the front yard. Which just goes to show that sometimes, not listening to your wife is the right thing to do.

Prepare for a whine.

But first, the weekly muttering.

1. Games :: video.
2. Fame :: Irene Cara.
3. Construct :: -ioneer.
4. Pants :: jeans.
5. Outlier :: Gladwell.
6. Column :: numbers.
7. Circus :: circus.
8. Remedy :: healing.
9. Other :: The Other.
10. Outlet :: mall.

* * * * *

So. What did you do on your birthday, Kat?

[digression] Thank you for all your good wishes! If you happen to be my friend on Facebook, you may have noticed that I just turned 108. Yes, I am amazingly well-preserved -- enough wine will do that. [/digression]

You remember Smokey was having a kidney stone -- which had not been giving him any pain or problems -- removed on Friday at the VA in Minneapolis. Day surgery, no biggie. I left him there around 10am and went off to buy buttons for my Tappan Zee (which I plan to finish forthwith). I returned to the hospital, ate lunch in their cafeteria (fish creole and green beans, very good, thanks for asking), and settled in the surgery lounge to knit and wait for the surgeon. 

Surgeon came out about 2:30, told me everything had gone well, and that I would be beeped to come get my Bear in a couple hours. (They have exactly the same beepers as Outback Steakhouse, in case you are interested.)

I knit, I read, I read some more, I knit some more, I knit while I watched Jeopardy! on the humungous flat screen TV. They finally beeped me a little after 5 to come back to the outpatient clinic.

Long story short (too late!), his oxygen saturation was lower than they wanted, and he was admitted to the hospital overnight. He was extremely annoyed at this -- ever heard the phrase "madder than a wet hen"? -- but submitted to the doc's wishes.

I drove back to Wisconsin, let the poor doggies out -- they were walking around with their little legs crossed -- and went to bed.

Saturday/birthday I drove back to the VA to pick him up and bring him home.

Sunday: after telephone consultation with the VA urologist on call, he woke me from a nap to say he needed to go to the ER at the VA. He could not pass urine at all and was becoming extremely uncomfortable. I drove him back to Minneapolis, where he saw the ER doc, was re-catheterized, and (sound of trumpets! cheering!) allowed to come home with the cath. 

Recounting: that is three round trips from the lake to the Minneapolis VA in three days.

Not exactly the way I would have chosen to spend my birthday. But really, it is only fair that my birthday should pass unnoted; his passed uncelebrated in June because I was recovering from the hip surgery at the time. 

Keep your fingers crossed for no more complications, m'kay?

 

 

Friday.

photo credit: Molly Des Jardin via photopin cc

Off to Minneapolis for the day. Smokey is having day surgery at the VA to remove a kidney stone. Unlike the one he had in 1989 when we were camping in the Florida Keys*, he has had no pain from it, and getting rid of it will ensure that continues. Depending on how he feels when I pick him up, I may drop him off at the Mpls house to sleep, and I'll pop over to Knit Night Orphans. I haven't been there since before April 15.

 

* He woke me at 1am to say I had to take him to the ER in Marathon. At the hospital they kept giving him morphine for the pain, and he kept asking for more because it wasn't working. He ended up in the hospital overnight. He was there for 18 hours while they sort-of removed the stone. Sort-of, because he still had to have lithotrypsy when we got home to pass the rest of the stone. The Marathon hospital bill -- fully covered by insurance, thank FSM -- was over $12,000. We figured they must have had every doc in the hospital walk into his room to say Hi, plus wheel through every expensive piece of equipment, all so they could charge for it.

August is for fun days.

Kym posted recently about August fun days. I thought that sounded like great idea -- some fun every day.

But the more I thought about what constituted my idea of fun, the more I realized that I already do that every day. The proof is that every one of these -- except the last one -- already had a category and photographs on the blog.

My idea of fun:

Reading.

 

 

 

Knitting.

 

Hanging out with Smokey.

 

 

Eating something yummy.

 

   

 

 

Hanging out with friends, either virtually or analog-ly.

     

   

 

Hanging out with one or both of my boys.

 

Watching something good on TV or Netflix.

 

Taking a nap.

photo credit: Kerri Lee Smith via photopin cc

Yup. Life is good. And I am spoiled.

Sunday random (as usual).

First, the weekly mutterings.

1. Weird :: Al (Jankovich).
2. Balance :: ballet.
3. Personal :: best.
4. Reproduction :: copying.
5. Distraction :: ADD.
6. Articulate :: artichoke.
7. Shovel :: grave.
8. Column :: numbers. Hey, I am an accountant, remember?
9. Drastic :: action.
10. Bombastic :: Winston Churchill.

* * * * *

Smokey brought me flowers on Thursday, which I chose to put on my messy desk right by my side.

::sigh::

* * * * *

The patio tomato is thriving. It has some tiny tomatoes that are stubbornly green. We have no idea what kind of tomato it is except that it is growing like a vine tomato rather than a bush type. It had no tag and the person at the greenhouse when we bought it (plants grown by the adult sheltered workshop and cash register staffed by volunteers) knew nothing about it. It was also the only tomato plant to be found.

Mystery tomato plant:

The spearmint makes the deck tremble with its vigor. The cilantro, not so much.

 

En Esch likes it when I am on the deck because then he is protected from the feline-feasting forest monsters that lurk just off screen.

* * * * *

Remember the photo of the many-reds scarf? In case you don't, here is another view:

The amazing thing is that neither this nor the previously blogged photo was tweaked except for cropping. Color is exactly how it came out of the camers. You all know how hard it is to photograph red objets d'knit. Apparently the secret is to have MANY reds.

* * * * *

 How about some Percy pictures? Now with Instagram-type effects!

Stuff On My Dog.

 

"Come in Bravo, this is Dogfort."

 

"Is it time for my ride in the convertible, Papa?"

 

 

 

Tool identification.

Smokey has tools like we all have yarn; in other words, a lot. They tend to get scattered all over the house and the garage(s) and the pole barn and wherever he happens to be working. When it comes time to put them away he finds himself scratching his head, trying to remember which tools go where.

Color-coding to the rescue!

For the past several months he has been gradually color-coding all the hand tools. Red ones live in the red rolling tool chest, yellow ones go in the yellow bucket, green ones stay in the house, blue ones go in the blue tool box. (Smokey: I know that is not your actual color scheme; I just made it up for blog purposes.)  When he watches TV he has a small pile of wrenches, etc., next to him and is wrapping a short length of colored electrical tape around the handles. This is a long-term project -- he has a lot of tools.

This morning he showed me his latest masterpiece; not only are these wrenches color-coded, they also have their sizes clearly marked:

Even better, he bought me a small set of tools for my very own. Which of course we color coded in my own  particular idiom.