Ho ho..

Little boy asks his father, a mathematician, "What's two plus two?"
Dad, "Two plus two is four, of course."

He goes to his mom, a shrink, and asks, "Mom, what's two plus two?"
Mom: "Well, that answer would be affected by perception and cultural conditioning, it could be four...or it could be twenty-two."

Dissatisfied, he goes to his uncle, an attorney, and asks, "What's two plus two?"
His uncle asks, "How much do you want it to be?"

WHOO HOOO

I just hit 40,000 pageviews!  Exactly on this counter, but I point out I have had at least 4 other counters over the years that just unexpectedly stopped, and I had to begin again with a new one.  This one belongs to Blogspot, so hopefully, it will continue to work for as long as I continue to have viewers. So if you are one of my followers, thank you!

I am feeling much better than I was on Thanksgiving day, and I hope that trend will continue.  My next PT session is on 11/26 and I hope I will be moving past the fall.  I can't afford to renege for every set back.

The dinner, by the way, was great.  A few things I would have done differently, but not enough to point anything out.  We all forgot the stuffing (can't stuff a wrapped boneless turkey roll anyway) but no real loss (I don't much care for the stuff (Ho ho)).  The wildberry pie was especially scrumptious, even though we had to have it on the 23rd, being too stuffed on Thanksgiving ourselves.  C was rightly proud of the task, the tricky part is to get it all to the table at the same time.  I reflected on past holidays when we hosted as many as 15 relatives, all passed now.  I never thought of that at the time, that we were the youngest of them all, including my sister 4 years older than me and N's brother 4 years younger than him.  And of course, N is gone too, a huge shock.  So goes life.

I skipped Black Friday and thus saved 100%, since I didn't buy anything.  Well, if you count on-line purchases, I bought some socks for me, and some for C.  Not for Christmas, just to have them.  Mine are light compression, I hope they will help with the swelling in my ankles and feet without feeling like a tourniquet.  And C had walked through his.  I kinda like going to the mall at Christmas, but I can't manage the crowds now, with the walker.  And if I fell, it would be ambulance time, boo.
I wish we came with spare leg, jack me up and toss the old one and put on the new.  Maybe someday they will be able to grow a leg or anything else and replace the bad one.  Like a 3D printer.

Time to go back to bed, I think I have dislodged the nightmare by now.  Cheers!

Oh no....

I fell the day before yesterday ... that is, the day before Thanksgiving.  It was a bad fall, knee buckled right in front of the closet, where I was aiming to pick out my clothes for the day.  I hurt my Knee, my butt, and I hit my head on the wicker trunk.  Thank god it was on the wicker; a little to one side and I would have impacted on the metal corner piece.  As it is, there is a head-shaped dent in the wicker and another lump on my head.  I only got up the nerve to shower today, when the pain in my knee has subsided a little.  The only thing I can think to do is hyperextend my knee to the back while leaning on the walker.  I tried to hang onto the walker to catch my balance, but all I succeeded in doing was pulling the walker on top of me.  C heard me screaming "Help!" and came and once again lifted me to the dining room chair so I could sit and wait until I caught my breath, to stand with the walker.  I had an appointment two hours from then with the GP doctor, who wasn't a lot of help; no surprise as the ortho doctor is stymied too.  I see him on Friday.  She suggested a rollator walker, it is heavier and less likely to tip up.  We shall see.

But because of the fall, no stairs were attempted, and we all gathered around the card table down here and had a yummy dinner which C and R prepared.  I won't try the stairs for some days yet.  I feel like I will never get better. June 23rd will be a year from the first surgery, and Feb. 19 will be the 6th and last surgery at one year.  And all I wanted was a simple knee replacement.

I have the bookmark almost finished, the hummingbird is done at last! the one with a zillion thread colors.  Now to finish the flowers.  The chickadees will have to be a birthday present, there is no way to get it done in time for Christmas.  The next project will be for me!  That is the sampler for my 45th wedding anniversary,  and instead of saying "the best is yet to come" it will read "Cherish the memories".  It will look nice, I think, and I am the only person whose opinion will matter.  Maybe I will get it fully finished by June 6th, 2019.  It is large, and the framing will cost a bunch, I think.

I am stiffening up just sitting here, so it is time to lie down for a while.  Hope everyone had a good holiday and I will return here in a few days.

Did you know hummers can't walk?  only hop.

Wildfires

It is a profound loss in California and we feel sorrow for each person driven from their homes and losing everything a home represents.  We lived in San Francisco many years ago and grew to know some wonderful people in the Malibu area.  The news looks almost unreal as the great and small communities all suffer.  In time there will be rebuilding, but for now the loss is very real, not just buildings but lives are lost too. To everyone:  Hang in there.  The only way is UP.

Oh deer

Two nights ago, sitting in my bedroom facing the windows, I caught a glimpse of something moving outside quite close to the windows.  It was a herd, an actual herd, of deer.  I lost count around 8 as they moved away from the windows in a bunch.  We always have some in the yard, munching away at my ornamental plants (who would think hosta would be yummy?)  but never in such numbers.  It will be deer hunting session at Thanksgiving, but these were all does, as far as I could tell.  But hunters seeking out "good spots" for buck hunting make all the deer move around in different areas than usual.  Boy, they really move fast.  And there were a lot of deer flashing by.

We got the 4 dead trees cut down, it was quite a production.  They used a cherry picker to top the two trees growing into the power lines and then cut the trunks to fall in the yard.  The trees were huge at the base, easily a 2 feet wide stump at the ground.  It cost a lot, but I won't have to worry every time the wind blows.  The neighbor next door got his yard tracked up by the truck, where the ground was soft; then they got the truck stuck and had to pull it out with the big truck from the road.  But they raked it even and scattered grass seed and straw to mend the ruts, etc.  And they hauled every bit of the trees away, if we had put them in the burn pile it would have been quite a conflagration.

I got the photos back from The Darkroom from the 35 mm film, and boy were they bad!  Out of focus, crooked, underexposed, you name it.  You tend to delete bad photos on a digital camera right then, so the ones retained are pretty good.  You don't have that luxury with a film camera; once it is shot, it is there.  Guess my recollection of the quality of film photos was a bit too "rosy".  There is some film left in the fridge, but I really can't see me using it any time soon.  And I hated when people would look at a handful of photos and say, "you must have a really good camera"  when from this exercise with film shows the errors are from behind the camera!

And for today's trivia, did you know if you peel the thin black rubbery piece off the bottom of the stapler (Swingline, I don't know about the other brands) there is room to store more staples?  Now you can amaze all your friends during stapling sessions.

It snowed last night and this morning everything is covered in a blanket of white.  I guess winter has officially arrived, damn it.  If it only fell on the grass I wouldn't mind, it is the roads that do me in.  Maybe this will be like last year, more rain than snow, and what there was melted quickly.  I hope.  I wasn't outside last year, except for ambulance rides, so my recollections may be a little off here as well.

Time to hit the shower.  The bathroom is  a little warmer now, so I won't freeze my _____ off.

Meanwhile:

Odds and Ends

The daughter of my cousin called to tell me that she died in an auto accident;  and to ask me if I knew contact information for her brother.  They have been estranged for a long time, I tried to reach him when our uncle and aunt died 4 years ago, no luck.  This time I really worked online to find him, and what do you know, I succeeded.  I called the daughter back last night and it went straight to voice mail.  I expect I will get a phone call today.  It is funny (peculiar) how death brings people together when any other occasion is ignored.

I have not been here in a couple of weeks, having been depressed from my lack of progress with my knee.  I still go to therapy twice a week, but the fall in October really set me back.  I was doing so well transitioning to the cane, too.  I need to get my courage back so I won't dwell on falling again.

I bought a skillet from Kitchen Collection, and the one I received was not the one I ordered.  Customer service admitted it was their fault, but their inventory lists the piece I want as discontinued.  So I want the prepaid label to send this one back and get a refund.  After several weeks I finally got the label.  They had sent it to an email that belongs to me, but which I never check, one character different from my main account.  Now to get it boxed back up, which I had put off doing until I heard from them.  There was a Kitchen Collection store at the local mall, but when three of the anchor stores closed (Sears, Elder-Beerman and Belks), they bailed too.  It was one store I really enjoyed browsing, rats.  I think they need to become an outlet mall, the nearest one is about an hour away from here, and seems to be prospering.  What a shame they folded before the Christmas buying frenzy too.  Online with Amazon for me.

My cross stitch is at a standstill for a while.  Just got frustrated with my slow progress and stopped for a while.  I will try to get back to it this weekend.  The two main projects are full of "confetti", stitching where you change colors every few stitches.  I hate it.  I have to re-thread my needle with a magnifier, I just can't see the eye of the needle otherwise.

I am just back from getting my hair done.  It is a good time to go, while university football is going on, and no one is ahead of me.  It feels good to get it out of my face and styled (which I seldom do myself).

Time for lunch, bye for now!