T's Knees

Here she is!

Her leg and foot are secured to a motion machine that constantly, slowly, gently, bends her knee slightly.  The blue box and tube and its twin on the other side of the bed circulate ice water to to water bags wrapped around her knees.  They in turn are wrapped with Ace type bandages.

Close up of the motion machine.  It does one leg at a time for 4 hours, then is switched to the other leg.  This goes on 24/7 while she's in the hospital.  An identical machine will be used for another 10 days or so when she comes home - not 24/7 but as needed/recommended.  I'll pick up the machine Mon or Tues, cart it home and set it up so it's all ready to go when she arrives.

The gadget hanging on the end of the bed is a foot squeezer, one squeezer wrapped around each foot.  Not sure why this is needed, circulation perhaps.

More gadgets and monitors.

That thing she has in her mouth is a lung exerciser that she blows in periodically with enough pressure to keep the float indicator at a prescribed level.

The surgery was on the 27th and she plans to come home on the 31st, so 2 more nights.  She'll have therapy 3 times a week for 6 weeks, after which she should be getting around fairly well.

Our thanks to everyone who has sent hugs and love and prayers!

Pied

Here's a bit of trivia.  I used the word 'pied' in one of my online scrabble games today.  I've neither heard nor seen the word used anywhere other than The Pied Piper, and it occurred to me that I had no clue what it meant.

Do you know what it means?  Were you thinking that maybe on the way to serenade the gerbils or guinea pigs or whatever, Mr P stopped at Denny's for a large slice of apple pie?  Or, like me, have you never thought about it at all?

Remember seeing pictures of Mr P in the fairy tale books?  Remember he always wore a colorful court jester/Swiss Guard outfit?  That's the clue: pied means having 2 or more colors.  Otherwise, he would have been called The Monochromatic Piper.

Now, I can say that I know more today than I did yesterday.  Well.......... maybe not.  Lots of things that I know darn well I once knew I now know not.  There's a black hole somewhere in the memory banks, and I strongly suspect said hole is sucking stuff out the back door more rapidly than I'm stuffing stuff in the front door!  

Book Review

Sometimes I read a book that irritates me so much, I'm tempted to email the author and rip 'em a new one.  I should say start to read - why continue doing something you don't enjoy?  I've not yielded to the temptation of emailing authors, and won't.  It wouldn't accomplish anything.  A skunk is going to stink, no matter what, just can't help it.  Instead, I'll vent my irritation here

The book in question was a random quick-pick from the library's new fiction shelves.  The back cover has excerpts from reviews of a previous work by the same author, which I, in turn, excerpt here - and add my own review comments.

'The guy's a national treasure.'  Wall Street Journal
'The guy's an esoteric, lowlife asshole wallowing in a tank of schlock.'  Mike

'Easily the best crime novel I've read this year.'  Boston Globe
'Obviously the only crime novel you've read this year.'  Mike

'This is essential reading.'  Lee Child, author of Jack Reacher novels
'Come on, Lee, we both know it's essentially crap.  An excellent writer like yourself saying this guy is essential reading?  How much did they pay you?'  Mike

The author in question is George Pelecanos.  He has an impressive resume and has allegedly won several literary awards.  Either The Double, the book that inspired this rant, isn't up to par, or it's simply not to my taste - most likely the latter.  What's not to my taste?  This kind of stuff:

1.  An endless stream of detailed descriptions of neighborhoods, streets and hangouts that are totally meaningless to anyone who hasn't lived a long time in that particular city.

2.  Oh-so-hip ghetto/gangsta/druggie street-talk, using slang most folks have never heard.  And never wanted to.

3.  The overall arrogant, ain't-I-super-cool attitude that makes one wonder how many times he's broken his arms - whilst patting himself on the back.

And there you have it, my holidays book review.  Venting does one's heart good, got me from 'bah humbug' to 'ho-ho-ho.'  Merry Christmas!

Dyslexictionary additions: gabberflasted; lood gooking, farb, ponsticated, freakbast, dorncog, oxbot.

Good TV

Every so often I bad-mouth TV.  That's because a. I hate commercials, b. There's precious little I consider worth watching, c. I hate commercials, d. I don't like being slaved to a schedule, and e. I hate commercials.  That said, there are a few serials that Trish and I enjoy, and we enjoy them all the more because we either stream them or get them on DVD, thus eliminating the freakin' commercials.  Here's a few of the serials we currently like.

The Newsroom.  DVD.  Jeff Daniels stars as a Big Three news anchor.  We've only watched 2 episodes, thoroughly enjoyed them.  A segment of the pilot went viral on youtube awhile back; Jeff is in a panel discussion and fields the question, is America the greatest country in the world?

# 1 Ladies Detective Agency.  DVD.  Another recent discovery, it does a fine job of keeping true to the book, which was a best seller several years ago.

Hart of Dixie.  Stream.  Newly-minted female doctor moves from NYC to small southern town to take over late father's GP practice.  Silly but funny, lots of eye candy.

Lilyhammer.  Stream.  Steven van Zandt stars as a US mobster who joins the witness protection program and moves to Norway where he assembles his own mob of local characters and uses them as blunt instruments - but mostly in a good way.

Burn Notice.  Stream.  CIA spy is 'burned', reason unknown, wants back into the ranks.  He helps folks in trouble with gangs, mobs, etc using sneaky spy tricks.  MacGyer meets James Bond.

The Glades.  Stream.  Super sleuth cop leaves Chicago and moves to Florida, where he solves crimes but is often crosswise with his boss and others.  Good casting and writing.

That's enough for now.  There are occasional TV specials and mini-series that I'd enjoy but am not driven enough to seek them out in the schedules.  If you're aware of any, let me know please.

Bird's the Word!

Today's the day.  Bird's the word.

'Bird's the word' is a line from the song 'Surfin' Bird'.  On Thanksgiving, the day on which millions of birds are consumed, that song always comes to mind.  Released by The Trashmen in 1963, Surfin' Bird is a top contender for the Dumbest Song Ever Written Award.  Despite that, I love the darn thing, makes me grin every time I hear it.

 The song was inspired by an ad jingle for Thunderbird wine, the notorious, sickeningly sweet, rotgut swill popular with winos and dirt poor college students back in the day.  'What's the word? Thunderbird!  What's the price?  Thirty twice!'  And so on.

Another contender for the Dumbest Song award is 'Wooly Bully' by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (1965).  They also did 'Li'l Red Riding Hood'.  I love those tunes, too.

What's the appeal of these nonsensical oldies?  I guess it's simply their sheer fun-ness.  That, coupled with fond memories of my college days when the songs first hit the charts.  Or, maybe it's just a character flaw.

BTW, The Trashmen stole the song, were sued for, and found guilty of, plagiarism.

I have much to be thankful for today and I hope you do also.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Good, Bad & Ugly

The Bad
A couple posts back I reported on Trish's arthroscopic knee surgery.  She had her follow up appointment with the surgeon this week to review findings, results and what comes next.  Findings: as the doc suspected, the cartilage is gone, it's bone on bone and there's damage from arthritis.  On both knees, not just the one.  Results: some decrease in pain level but not enough.  What comes next: full replacement surgery on both knees ASAP.

The Good
It's a freebie!  The health insurance deductible has been met so it's on the house if done this calendar year.  More importantly, after several years of living with ever-increasing levels of pain, she can finally look forward to full function, pain-free.  And, I get the fringe benefit of having my very own bionic woman to play with.

The Ugly
Invasive!  Two bones in each knee will be cut off just before the joint and replaced with metal.  Where the metal parts meet, there will be synthetic cartilage-replacement material to provide the necessary cushioning/lubricating - a Frisbee-shaped spacer coated with WD40 or Liquid Wrench I believe.

Due to the invasive nature, the healing period will take several months, maybe an entire year.  During that period, of course, Trish will need to severely limit her activities.  As the healing period winds down, Trish will be winding up: get the hell out of the way or get run over!  Don't say I didn't give you fair warning.

Is there a dog?

It's been 30+ years since I first heard the joke and I thought it was quite clever at the time.  Still do.  Given the vintage, it's likely that everyone has heard it, but just in case, here's the rest of it: What does the dyslexic agnostic ask?

Does the absence of political correctness (PC) in that joke, or my lack of sensitivity in finding it funny - and even worse, repeating it - offend you?  If so, read no further.  How about you and your PC going out for a nice long hike?  And, y'all have a great time together now, ya hear?

For those who are still with me, at the risk of being redundant, I'll clarify my PC position.  If you want to poke fun at me because I'm old, bald, Irish, have big feet, a small bladder or any one of dozens of other flaws and quirks, have at it!  I'm gonna poke it right back at you and have great fun doing it.  I love banter.  If you can't take a joke, can't laugh at yourself, can't help being a PC-Nazi, you have my deepest sympathy.    

So, where am I going with this, you ask?  Here it is: a couple days ago, out of the blue, came this thought, It would be fun to build a dyslexic dictionary.  The end product would be helpful to dyslexics and non-dyslexics alike, help them understand each other better, and the building process would be a kick in the shorts for those who enjoy wordplay.  Like moi.

I'll include new words in my posts as they occur to me and I encourage you readers to participate.  Place your dyslexic dictionary words in the comments section of my posts or email them to me.  I'll publish them in a subsequent post.  To add comments to a post, click on comment, select anonymous from the 'comment as' drop down menu, write your comment (and your first name and first initial of your last name if you wish) click on publish.

Here are some seasonal words and phrases to get the ball rolling: givthanksing, brancerry cause, ffusting, pweet sotatoes, perry chie, creen gean basserole, pacy's marade.