glory day

THAT was deeply unpleasant

You will be surprised to hear that surgery was NO FUN.  They were running about two hours late, then the anethetist spent the best part of 20 minutes trying to find vein in my hand - to no avail. 

By that time I was just so over it I started crying, and the darling receptionist held my hand while the doctor mined my forearm for a better vein.  I swear I gripped her hand so tightly that something broke (so I'd best bring some peace-offering muffins next time I go).

After that things got done fairly quickly and with the help of my trusty Panadeine Forte I've had a fairly drift-y time ever since.

My face is all puffed up like a wee chipmunk, and - worst of all - my speech is pretty unintelligible.  Why does virtually every word I need to say have an 's' in it?  And I have a huge bruise on my forearm.  I have to say I'm not at all thrilled with how things look at the moment, although I know! I know! I have to wait til all the swelling goes down.  Just, you know, not so happy right now.

A Tale of Blue and Gold

Here is a picture of the lovely irises De bought me when I got home:

and look!  My Dianella longifolia flowered:

I feel so proud.

~~~~~

David has been a complete star throughout this whole process, from letting me rabbit on about the process to picking me up to making sure I have chocolate Sustagen on hand at all times.  I'm not quite sure what I can do to show him how grateful I am - is this maybe a situation for a hand-made shirt?

Maybe I'll go shoe shopping on my way to surgery

~ 2½ hours to go ~

Some things, briefly, to stop me dwelling on my impending surgery:

I helped to co-ordinate our op-shop's involvement in the Under the Blue Moon festival last week.  I'd been bringing bags of clothes and things home for the past few months, and here is everything washed, ironed and packed ready to go:

I must admit to feeling a tiny bit daunted at that point.

We had two days of really hard work - Friday setting up, Saturday working the shop - and while there were some stresses [we work for the same organization, quit your bitching] everything went really well.  We got a good crowd, the shop looked great and the lucky dip thingie totally went off (who knew?).

Obviously the best part is that we raised nearly $1600, which is a) the first time in well over a year we've hit the 1K mark and b) believed to be an all-time record for one day's takings.  So yay.

~ 2¼ hours to go ~

A whole heap of the work done for the festival wouldn't have happened without De, who was just a phenomenal helper.  Everyone at the shop loved her, and really I couldn't have done it without her.

And you know what else I couldn't do without her?  Listen to my new iPod Touch!  In a moment which rendered me speechless De and J gifted me the iPod Touch J had won at an event - isn't that just an amazing thing?  And I was actually speechless, and you know that doesn't happen very often.

OK, 2 hours to go.  I'm going to go get it over with.

And full of woe

I have tried twelve gazillion times to write this, but I can't seem to do it right.  So here is what is.

The [very few] teeth I still have in/on my top jawbone are coming out.  One has been falling out for the past year; the other one came out (with all roots attached, no blood and no pain) when the dentist was making an impression for my denture.

Yes, my denture.  After 12 years of worrying about the worst that could happen, the worst has happened.  All the teeth from my top jaw are coming out.  Full denture.

And I know it's a first-world problem and all, but for me it's dreadfully, dreadfully sad.  No top teeth.  No pretending the problem will get better any time soon.  Gone, done, over.

Next Friday they all come out, then the next part of my life starts.

There has been much crying (the ugly. snotty crying) and railing against the world.  I know that losing all your teeth is not really that bad in the scheme of things, but for me it's really, really sad.

I am really, really sad right now. 

I always seem to get sick in August

I've had the most brutal head-cold for the best part of a fortnight and I would be seriously quite thrilled if it stopped right about now.

De gave me 'get well soon' daffodils:

which not only look gorgeous but make our downstairs rooms smell amazing.

It's funny, I could swear I do pretty much fuck all most of the time but I seem to have missed a whole pile of deadlines/obligations/meetings/whatever.  And I'm still not 100% well so even doing fairly little things leave me wiped out and kittenish.

Mutton shaved as lamb

Look at what my hairdresser did to me:

I am unaccountably delighted!  I had never pictured myself as the sort of woman who would shave designs into the back of her head, but I think it's marvellous - I feel like an All Black!

Just one of those days

NOT LOVING:

The PMS that kept me away from the op-shop today GRR.

LOVING:

This photo of David's parents garden:

They live on the edge of a National Park and the scenary is really quite spectacular.

MENDING:

~ boots ~ belt ~ frock ~ socks ~ bag ~ picture ~ watch.  It's been just one of those days.

Now I must rush and watch 'Merlin'

SEWING:

A quartet of shiny knit skirts.

I have one more knit skirt to sew but I'm going to put that off for a bit.  Next up some banded tops (ie, plain tops with patterned bands around the neck to wear under other tops) before moving on to something completely different.

LOVING:

The weather.  It's been perfectly Goldilocks this week - not too hot, not too cold, but just right.  If only Sydney could always have this weather I would be very happy (and my whinging level would go right down).

Ah, and as I type this I see it has started to rain.

ADMIRING:

A thread-holder-thingie that a fellow volunteer put aside for me:

I love how all the spools of thread look like funky wee coloured test-tubes.

Illicit Thursday

Today I am not where I should be.  I should be at the op-shop raising money through retail, but I'm so very PMS-y and stabby, and the idea of trying to have a conversation with anyone makes me want to chew off my own face.  I'm at the place where, if anything slightly stressful happened, I would lose all sense of proportion and go totally postal.  Much better idea just to stay at home, I thought.

Also there will be potato chips.

The celebrations are still in full swing here, as for the first time since November we now have hot water in the downstairs bathroom.  I KNOW!  It's so exciting!  Also the leak under the sink has been fixed; really it's all too much at once. 

We went to see Terminator: Salvation last night, really just because we wanted to go to the pictures.  I wasn't expecting to enjoy it overly, but I thought it was great, certainly much better than T3.  Then we went to Asakura for dinner which is always good.

All my projects are continuing apace - De's house is becoming uncluttered at a rate of knots, and I've finally finished cutting out my surprise! blanket.  I could wish to be in slightly less pain but what can you do.

Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't look at all comfortable.

In which I LOSE at LIFE

Last night De came over for a glass of wine and a chat, and while she was pouring the wine I went to put away the dishes.  I picked up a wine glass and BAM! SMASH! the glass shattered all over the floor.

I swept and swept and kept finding glass in the most far-flung of locations - how can bits of glass be under the telly, on the armchair and in the cat's bowl?  I mean, I dropped the wine glass, I didn't dash it to the floor from the top of the stairs.  After 20 minutes I decided that the glass was all swept away, and decided to soak the cat's bowl just in case.  I added some baking soda and BAM! SMASH! the jar of baking soda shattered all over the floor.

At that point I about wanted to give up and go to bed, because seriously.  I haven't broken a glass all year let alone two in the space of half an hour.

Luckily Mr Puss was upstairs begging for laptime, as usually when glass smashes he is all over it and the idea of him dancing through shards of broken glass was not a good one.

So I finally, finally got all the glass swept up, then declared I wasn't to touch anything breakable for the rest of the night.

And lucky De!  She came over for a glass of wine and a chat and instead watched me sweep the floor.  She learned a few new swear words though, so she's probably ok with it.

I love how Mr Puss looks like he's in some sort of wooden prison:

because sometimes that would solve some problems.

Some variety at last!

Sometimes it seems like I write the same damned thing over and over again (generally about the losing ways of my beloved Highlanders, the poor befuddled dears).  But then some times it seems the same things happen over and over - the Highlanders lose, I make a frock or maybe some jewellery.

But this week so far has been quite unusual compared to the weeks we generally have.  Yesterday David bought a new toaster, which is definitely a once-off in his life as our former toaster had been in his family since 1971:

Goodbye, devout and faithful toaster!  You delivered us all our bread-related treats and tried to teach me that all orange kitchen accessories aren't the work of the devil!

Sadly it was time for Old Reliable to be retired as it was shorting out the power supply.  In it's stead we have a lovely chrome curvy toaster with an "integrated bun warming rack", which sounds ... fascinating.

Last night we went to Blackbird for dinner - Blackbird is one of my favourite places on Cockle Bay and while I still have reservations about their service I love the food there.  Caesar salad with king prawns, oh my, oh yes.

Then we went to see Red Cliff which was showing at the State Theatre as part of the film festival.  We arrived to find the queue wrapped around the block, and after waiting for about 10 minutes we were told that the starting time would be delayed by about half an hour.  Did I mention it was absolutely bloody freezing in that queue?  With the wind screaming down the CBD wind-tunnel?

Very grumpily David and I went to a dodgy pub to get out of the wind.  We talked about maybe not going back - there was no way they were going to fit that amount of people into the theatre quickly, it was late, we were cold, we could see it at the Dendy later.  But we went back and although the queue was even longer it started moving quite quickly.  In a few minutes we were inside the lovely old theatre, we were toasty-warm, the seats were comfortable, all was right with the world. 

Then a woman came on stage to introduce the movie, and instead introduced John Woo!!  I tell you what, I was squeee-ing like a teenaged fangirl.  I didn't actually know he was going to be at the screening (probably because I don't listen, concentrate or pay attention) so that was a very cool surprise.

Red Cliff was amazingly awesome and fantastic, by the way - well worth a look.

Oh, and another thing that happened this week which doesn't usually happen: I got assaulted.  While riding home on the bus the other night some teenaged girl punched me in the face.  Twice.  It all seems to be a case of girls acting badly (as opposed to someone wanting to punch me, specifically, in the face); the police came round and took a statement and my face is pretty much fine.

While I'm always open to a bit of variety in my week I draw the line at physical violence.  Although our cat bit the policeman, so that was a tiny bit funny.

And here's something else that hardly ever happens: Mr Puss, slayer of policemen, naps on the black sofa:

I guess if you really want a cat to sleep on a sofa you need to cover it with fabric scraps.