Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures...

...and let the birds fly above the earth, God said on the fifth day. Carl said, "I better get the door done, since I've made such a big deal out of it!" I got up early and completed the door. No problem. Then I had to go to the store to stock up on non-carbonated beverages - another limitation during the hermitage - no belching - same category as coughing and sneezing I suppose. I got into a check-out line where the cashier wanted to talk. I smiled and didn't say a word. I don't think she ever caught on. She probably figured I was the quiet type, which indeeed I am right now!Then I sat down to do some serious knitting. I have a baby wrap that I've been knitting forever. I am determined to finish it and get it out of my house - and I will never again use baby-sized skinny needles and baby yarn. It simply takes too long. I've had enough. I want to see results if I am going to expend time and efforts. I can't sustain interest even though I really don't have anything else I must do. I was going to work in the garden when the rains hit. Rain is always an excuse not to work in the garden. Perhaps the weather will cool a bit and make working outside more palatable. Painting the door was close enough for me. Good to have surgery and recuperation during the hottest weeks of summer. And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day.

New look on an old door

Let there be lights...

...in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, God said on the fourth day. Carl said "I really don't feel like getting up today." So I read a bit, then knitted a bit, then decided there had been enough leisure for the day. The big project was to paint the door, since I had already set that up prior to surgery. I actually have plenty of little projects, but I thought I should tackle the one thing I actually thought ahead to do! Well, I cleaned the glass on the storm door which means removing the glass panels then returning them by manipulating their little screw holds, then began painting the door. I bought the new primer and paint in one. I can report from experience that it doesn't work to cover in one coat. I expected it wouldn't going from white to dark green. So tomorrow means a second coat on the door. Muscle pain is largely gone. A curious thought hit me today. How does one decide to retire linens, i.e. sheets and towels? I have some towels that belonged to my grandmother and she's been gone almost 20 years. I also have a set of towels that I bought with a shower curtain back when ducks were quite the rage during the preppy style surge. One set of grandma's towels is a bit stiff when first removed from the linen closet, but otherwise they are OK. When I was growing up, we only replaced things when they were worn out, i.e. starting to fall apart, ripped shredded and generally unusable. But, I have lots of sets of towels - spring/summer and fall/winter choices - and I have no idea when they might begin to become worn. I'll happily accept insight and advice on the subject via e-mail. Gosh here's a real chance for "Carl, you ignorant slut..." And the only thing that started this query is that I have one set of Granny's towels that I put in the bathroom on Monday and they don't match anything I have for any season. I thought I should recycle them to Goodwill or something, but there is nothing wrong with them other than they don't match any decor in my house. No problem because I am not opening my door to anyone who would even see what color towels are in the bathroom. Obviously I have too much time on my hands because these thoughts never encumbered my brain before. I'm off pain meds too, so I can't blame it on codeine - just normal regular brain malfunction. Don't laugh! I'm not supposed to be laughing during my hermitage! And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day.

Let the dry land appear...

...God said on the third day. Carl said, "I think I'll take a nap." I have slept 10 hours the past two nights following surgery, but today it all caught up with me. I have been taking naps all day. I've had muscle aches all over too. I don't know what muscle aches have to do with vocal cord surgery, but they are dissipating now. But sleep, is a wonderful place to be. And who noticed that I have been using the spellings of cord and chord interchangeably? Of course, I know the difference, especially since one is a musical term. I am blaming it on codeine. No door painting yet. Apparently I have not yet felt the urge. Tylenol 3 doesn't do what Percoset once did. I had to text Christopher because the city did not pick up my trash. He called for me since I can't talk. That's the plan for anything I need - text Christopher and he can make a phone call and talk for me. I've been e-mailing in between naps. Silence is golden - though it can be inconvenient. I could get used to this, if I could talk just a little bit and if I could always take a nap any time I feel like it! And there was evening and and there was morning the third day.

Let there be a dome...

...God said on the second day. Carl says, "I hope these muscle aches are temporary." Today, my muscles feel as if I've done some hard work - and it's everywhere - arms legs, torso and neck. Well, the neck I rather expected. I hope it is all related to the trauma of surgery. The throat is feeling better, though still mildly sore. I feel very old today. I saw a woman some days before surgery walking from Shoppers with a knapsack on her back - a boomer like myself who apparently lives in the neighborhood and decided that walking to the market is a good idea, and a knapsack makes a good conveyance for the purchased supplies. Still, not to lose the advantage of a day away from work, I got a head start on autumn and changed my bedroom curtains to the fall set, which I would do in about a month anyway, as I usually do that on Labor Day week-end. I love Swiffer dusters. Good for getting around the window frames when you take down the curtains. Good for dusting in general, I find. Hopefully, with catching more dust and especially allergens than traditional dusters, those Swiffers help reduce allergic reaction, no matter how mild. I wonder if all the cat allergens are out of my house yet? You know, I think I will be able to do loads of laundry every day I am home. There is always something to run through the washer! Tonight's dinner: bean and kale soup - yes, here I am making soup in the hottest days of summer! It's comfort food and easy to microwave. And only one dish to clean when you eat it. The initial cooking is the most effort. Naps are part of the routine too - codeine - always knocks me out - an hour or so - though I am not sleeping as much as post-prostatectomy. Have not yet tackled the front door. There will be days, yet. And there is evening and morning the second day.

All's well,

...so far. The day ended up being a 13 hour day - lots more than Chris or I bargained for. I figured the worst case scenario would be that she could be home by 2 p.m. NOT. Hahnemann is a nice hospital and they are very efficient about getting you in for outpatient surgery, but the hard part was getting out! And it was all due to the demands of work for a medical excuse. Some of you may remember that my shining personnel stars rejected three doctor's notes following my foot surgery adventure. In an effort to avoid this pratfall, I was certain to explain to eveyone pre-surgery what I needed when I left the hospital. That ended up costing me 90 minutes after the fact, probably closer to two hours. I don't know why doctors have such a difficult time doing excuses for work. The doc had told me months ago that he would write an excuse for 6 weeks, but that would be a worst case scenario. He will determine the most likely path on 8/4. So the excuse I got was written to cover until 8/3. No big deal. I just need to make sure he writes the correct thing on 8/4. We arrived in perfect time this morning. I didn't have to wait very long until they took me to prep. And the next thingI knew I walked into an operating room that was peopled by a Cecil B. DeMille cast. My doc, naturally has thousands of interns, students and colleagues intersted in his every move. I, apparently, was a model case that everyone wanted to see. And it was a micro-laser technique that I suppose is really quite interesting to the medical types. There were computers and screens and microscope-type instruments populating every corner of the room and I wondered how all the people were going to NOT interfere with my surgeon. And it was a really "short" procedure. The doc announced the success in short order to Chris. I somehow got a nosebleed during the procedure and they stuffed my nostril with something that when they pulled it out appeared about the size of a tampon - which made me wonder, except that it was not shaped correctly. It took them forever to get that packing out my nostril too - another delay, before waiting for the precious work excuse. I will get a chance to evaluate and I will complain about the post-op delays. Chris took me to deliver my hard-won excuse to work and then to the pharmacy to fill the pain med prescription - NOT Percost, thankfully - Tylenol 3 - a new experience on which I will probably report shortly. So I'm off to LaLa Land.,,and golden silentce for the next 7 days. Keep checking back. This has potential for more conundrums than I have previously dreamed.

There's just a few more hours...

...that's all the time I've got...a few more hours... before Chris picks me up to whisk me off to Hanneman Hospital in Philadelphia. I should be sleeping, but I knew I wouldn't. They'll knock me out and then won't be able to get me awake because I"ll be sleep deprived. Imagine a two hour ride home and I can't talk! It's incomprehensible. Not sleeping provides a chance to catch up on a few loads of laundry. Being home for a few weeks provides endless possibilities. But fear pervades it all. The only reason to do this is so I can continue singing. Otherwise, it wouldn't matter a hill of beans. OH, I discovered another new food stuff - cicerchia - Italian chick peas. Cook them in the crock pot with a slab of pork and lots of garlic and add canned tomatoes. Good eatin! I had them for lunch then fixed myself a nice shrimp teriyaki dinner for my last meal. Now I have to starve until after surgery. No food, no water, what's with the prison routine before surgery? I am trying to decide whether to shower now or do it a 3 a.m. to help keep myself awake. In circumstances like these, just getting from one day to the next is a conundrum! After it's all over, there'll be new conundrums. Did they bury Michael Jackson yet? Probably during my confinement, while I can't laugh, I'll hear more about that than I care to. What do you mean it's not still news? There's just a few more hours...

Color choice

As I finished up a work week from hell, I turned my attention to preparing for my impending hermitage. In honor of my memorable experience with percoset, and sure that I will be on some sort of pain reliever for a few days, I took my walk this evening to Home Depot, to buy a quart of paint for my front door. How did I decide on a color. Well, if you read the entry from a few days ago, I was thinking I should be guided by the grey/green shingles on the roof. So I took a picture of my roof on my cell phone and carried it to Home Depot to match up the color. I should do less visual matching and go by the color names on the chart. I picked Southampton Green - a dark grey/green. Southampton is probably a good colonial color choice. We'll see how I like it once it is on the door. My neighbor will probably hate it as she hates all change. SHe also doesn't like dark colors. I'll have to see how it looks with the roofing and the jungle in the front yard. One good thing about paint, you can always change it. And now that I have the paint, the painkillers will probably make me sleep and I won't get around to painting the door. This is the way life goes! Somethinga bout best laid plans...

Sounds of Silence

In 3 days I will be silent for 8 days. It seems impossible. I had my last singing therapy on Monday of last week and my last speech therapy today. It seemed so final. I have not been nervous until today when the speech therapist gave me a list of specific instructions for the days following surgery and what to do when the doctor tells me I can talk again. My last speech therapy session was about stretches and massages and she says I can continue those three days after surgery, but I should do nothing but rest for two days immediately following the surgery. Yet another reason for silence following surgery - laughing is one of the worst things I can do. I laugh all the time. I'm going to have to do some serious reading or something to avoid laughter. What a problem to have! And what a complication to life - not only do I have to be silent but I cannot laugh - for 8 days!!! I could play Simon and Garfunkle, but I would want to sing along. I don't think I can play any music I have and not want to sing along. No Comedy Central for 8 days?!?!? I'll have to watch the Health channel and worry about all the terrible things that happen to people. Maybe that way, I'll just count myself lucky! Hello darkness, my old friend...

8 days to hermitage

The countdown has started and I am getting nervous. I was not the least bit nervous about bone spur removal nor prostate removal. But I am very upset about an operation on my vocal chords. I have no idea how I am going to weather the days until the big day. Work is driving me mad. If I could just lose myself in work, it would help greatly. But alas, work is stressful too. I am trying to think about my impending hermitage - 8 days post-surgery of silence and hiding from the world. I think it would be a hoot just for the sake of old times and remembrances of percoset with dental problems to paint my door during my forced confinement. I would like to paint it the right color, but I cannot decide what the right color is. My house is neo-colonial brick with white trim. Most of the doors in the neighborhood are white. The second most popular is a natural wood tone. The orignal door is stylistically the most authentic, unlike so many that have been replaced with Victorian and other abominations. I would like my door to be different. White seems most correct, but I want color. There are a couple of federal blue doors sprinkled through the neighborhood. Also, I have a unique storm door - black iron in a square pattern - called Maryland - quite colonial. My roofing is green and I am thinking that a grey green to match the roofing might be acceptable, especially with my front yard jungle. I don't know if I can spend enough time worrying about the door color to stave off worrying about being able to sing in another month. Everyone is so concerned about how I will remain silent for 8 days post surgery. I don't see that as much of a problem. I don't see the entire recuperation as much of a problem. But the actual deed scares me. I planned one thing correctly. I sing next Sunday with Sarah and Rebecca - three anthems of early music, the latest of which is Handel. Counldn't ask for anything better. Three pieces that have never been performed at Christ Church before that we know of. This will make my final appearance before surgery memorable. I really wanted that! I suppose I should look forward to getting my real singing voice back. It is difficuly to do that when one of the possibilities is to lose it entirely. But this is why I have one of the foremost surgeons to fix this problem. He is a singer. This means he will surely be as carefulas he can be. He is also a morning person. Any surgeon who wants to begin early in the morning has got to be top drawer! Meanwhile, I have to spend much time thinking about a door color in order to avoid thinking about vocal chord surgery..

Happy birthday USA

Today, while driving home from church I heard a wonderful sentiment about July 4. It went something like, "You have got to love a country where its founding is not celebrated with displays of military might, but with parades and peaceful public gatherings and picnics where the biggest worry is whether or not the potato salad sat out too long." I cleaned up the last of the leftovers from Mama's visit a week ago - barbecued pork and beans done in the crock pot. There is no better way to do beans than in the crock pot. Even if you don't particularly like beans, then you haven't tried doing them in the crock pot!. And who said soup is not a summer dish? I made my diabetic version of Italian wedding soup to boost my iron for my blood re-test tomorrow. Beans are also a good source of iron. Anyway, I agree with what I heard. I think the best way to enjoy time with anyone is with food. My body would attest to that! I enjoy my food too much. I am still having fun experimenting with foods, using cookbook recipes for diabetics. After three years, I am amazed at what I can do with precious few ingredients. And the most important thing for me to do is to keep carrots, onions and celery in the house. Beyond that, grocery shopping is a breeze. Holidays and birthdays were meant for good food. Actually, I think every day we have on this earth is meant for good food. We just have to be careful to make wise choices. And this is birthday #233 for the USA! Gosh, wasn't the bicentennial just a few years ago? Incredible, I might live to see a sesquicentennial? I hope I know what it is if I live to see it!!!

Depression lessons learned

Ah, a holiday week-end MUSt mean household chores. AND I have leftovers from Mama's visit on Sunday. I have become the vegetable man for family gatherings. Broccoli salad was requested for Mom's visit, among other things. I don't usually do broccoli salad for myself as it contains bacon, but for the family, I bend my own dietary guidelines. The problem with broccoli salad is that you cut off the florets from the top of the broccoli stalks and then you have to fry bacon which gives you leftover fat. I cannot throw these things away because I know they can be re-used, broccoli stalks for broccoli soup and bacon fat has many uses. But today, for the first time I used them both to make the same soup. I made a roux with the bacon fat to support cream of broccoli soup. I cut the broccoli stalks for the same purpose. Ever had cream of broccoli with a bacon taste? It's quite acceptable. AND it does not bother the diabetic diet because the fat gets diluted and I use fat free soy and rice milk to enhance the creaminess. The soup is chunkier and thinner than the typical favorite, but it tates good and it fits the diet, which makes it fit a holiday week-end. The only thing is I have to beef up my iron over the week-end because my intermittent anemia showed up for my pre-op exam. I got cherries and blackberries to help that along. I'll throw in some apricots too that I'll pick off my trees. They are ripening just in time! However, I couldn't help but remember the grandparents as I used up foot items I could not let myself throw away!