I'm mostly chipper. (Especially in the mornings, much to the consternation of most of my travel partners.) So even after royally fucking up my knee, I did my best to remain upbeat. Dislocated the knee and have to stay off it for a while? OK. Going to need a few months of rehab? OK. Oh, hey, it's actually a torn ACL? OK. Gotta get some surgery and it will take a year to recover? OK. No family or boyfriend or roommate around post-surgery? OK.
But I'm not made of stone. I had to break eventually. In the end, it was the lasagna that did it.
See, at work we have two half-size, under-the-counter refrigerators. If you've ever had one, you know that the freezer space in them in tiny and prone to excessive frosting. So it's no surprise that one of the freezers is completely frosted over and utterly useless. The other freezer is only half-frosted over. (Should half-frosted be hyphenated as a compound modifier in that sentence? It feels right and wrong at the same time. I digress.) This leaves me enough space to jam in the ice pack I need to use constantly at work. I'm really struggling with the swelling in my knee, and the solution is ice and elevation, both of which are tricky to do at work.
On Thursday, I was icing my knee while eating lunch because I'm a multi-tasker. When I returned the ice pack to the kitchen, I found a frozen lasagna wedged into the freezer. It wasn't just wedged in there, it was dominating the space. There was no room for my ice pack. I suppose I should also mention that there is a full-size refrigerator and freezer in the ARSC offices one level down. But the lasagna was upstairs. A refrigerated ice pack is not nearly as effective, and my knee was pretty achy by the time I went home.
At physical therapy the next day, it all came to a head. My flexibility had been getting worse, and my strength was rapidly fading too. I got downgraded to the 2.5 lb ankle weight for short-arc quads. The previous week, I had been rocking 7.5 lbs, but now I was struggling with 2.5. When my timer went off, the PT asked me how the set had gone. I said "Fine," and promptly burst into tears. Yes, I turned into that emotional wreck of a person, sobbing in the middle of the physical therapy center. There was no rhyme or reason to it, but I just couldn't stop crying. The PT recommended I take the day off from work, which I readily agreed to.
I spent the weekend relaxing, elevating and icing. I got back to PT this morning in a much better mood. I still had that damn 2.5 lb weight, and my flexibility was still crap, but I was in a better mood. Then I got to work. The fucking lasagna was still there. Who does that? Who not only buys a lasagna in the middle of the day and takes up all the freezer space with it, but also leaves it there for 4+ days? I moved it to the fridge and sent a blanket e-mail explaining that I had moved it and that I needed some freezer space for the ice pack. No one has fessed up yet.
Damn lasagna.
I got myself a fancy new iPod Touch. Apparently I can use it to update my blog(albeit very slowly). And no, I didn't spend my money on this. It was free, courtesy of a University of Alaska wellness incentive program. I managed to accumulate enough points for the grand prize despite injuring myself halfway through the program. I guess my healthy lifestyle has paid off. Too bad it's all gone to pot since May 30.
a T-shirt and a thigh-high anti-embolism stocking.
I don't understand why I'm not meeting more men.
I've been spending some time chatting online with one of my friends lately. She moved to Cambodia a few years ago, and I've been meaning to go visit her ever since. It hasn't happened yet, and I fear she is tiring of fragile democracies and will move on before I get the chance.
She had her ACL replaced when she was in high school, so she's been listening to me moan about my pain and mobility issues. Every once in a while, she'll throw in a special little tidbit, like the fact that I may get some sensation back in my knee, but it will likely be numb to some extent for the rest of my life.
I've been working on getting over my squeamishness with regards to looking at my knee. I'm fascinated with the bruising and the numbness. Although I feel pain deep inside my knee, I can't feel anything on the surface. It generally feels hot to the touch, even after I finish icing.
This was the bruising on Sunday. Note the lovely brown tones.
Here you can see how the bruises are really coming into their own and spreading out nicely. I recently likened them to a friend as a cross between Turmeric and Puce. I like to describe colors like a J. Crew catalog. Fun fact: Apparently "puce' can be used to indicate two different colors. I've always known it to be a light brownish green, but apparently it is normally known as a reddish purple. (I know it says Victorian Pink, but you're just going to have to trust me that CC8899 is the hexadecimal value for puce!) I can show examples of both of these colors in just one bruise!
And yes, my leg is still ridiculously swollen. Thanks for noticing. Swollen knee + atrophied calf = cartoon leg.
I am planning on going back to the office next week. I will still have physical therapy three times a week. Those appointments have been last about 90 minutes lately. But there's a lot of stuff to do at work, and I'm getting bored at home. I do have concerns, however, about my ability to keep my knee elevated and iced while I'm at work. Technically speaking, it needs to be above my heart. So just keeping it extended in front of me won't cut it. I'm going to have to experiment with propping it way up on the desk and perhaps taking breaks to our rest area to lay down on a couch.
Of course, all this also begs the question of work attire. ARSC and UAF in general are not really big on dress codes. Some people dress up, some people wear old jeans and T-shirts every day. I usually fall into the dress-up category. However, I can't put any pants on over my current brace. I could go buy a pair that would fit over it, but they would be ridiculously huge on the rest of me. But I can't really wear dresses if I'm going to be propping my leg up on the desk, right? I've been living in bike shorts and T-shirts for the last week and a half. I think I might have to go to bike shorts underneath dresses when I return to work. It will be very early-90210 chic.
I've never been one for stretching after exercise. It must be noted that I am rather on the flexible side to begin with. Sure, if I was led into some stretching, I would follow along. But I'd just hold the poses and wonder why I didn't feel anything. The closest I could get to a stretch was trying to touch my head to my feet in a seated forward bend. That kind of hit the old hamstrings a bit.
Naturally, some people I talked to exclaimed about the benefits of stretching. and after the third or fourth fitness trainer told me I HAD TO stretch, I decided to start humoring them. So, sometime around the beginning of the year, I started stretching after exercise. I felt nothing. I did it daily. I still felt nothing. I kept it up for months.
Bada bing, bada boom. Tore my ACL. I am now convinced that stretching broke me.
Not safe for work. For that matter, not safe for those with delicate stomachs.
Think of rainbows and kittens and sunshine and gumdrops. All bright happy things. Do not think about my yucky, yucky knee.
Some people keep asking about it, so I am going to address the issue in this post. But I'm going to preface it with lots of Julie Andrews-type cheer first. So please, if you're at all squeamish, just stop reading now.
Back when I had a healthy knee, MNB and I went hiking at Angel Rocks. This is his Captain Morgan-ish pose near the top.
In May, I purchased new living room furniture. It's a good thing I did, because I don't think I could get up from my old couch in my current condition. Also, the removable back cushions are the perfect size to prop my leg up at night, so one of them is now permanently ensconced in my bedroom.
A new addition to the house is this coffee table that I made. Yep, made, as in cut the wood and put it together with my own two hands. Cutting wood precisely with only a circular saw is hard, so it's a touch wonky. Clearly I need a double bevel sliding compound miter saw. With laser marker. The design was drawn up by Ana White. I somehow found her blog right after she started it, and I've been singing her praises for months. Those swivel wheels are my favorite part of the coffee table, as I can move the table around while in a prone position on my couch.
This is the first hint of carnage in this post. Since I don't have a dedicated woodshop, I built the table on my back porch. Thus, when I stained and finished the table, I did this on the back porch too. One of the perils of finishing wood outdoors is bugs. This one is forever entombed in the final coat of polyurethane on the table top. I believe that his cries for help scared all the other bugs away, keeping them from joining him in the polyurethane grave.
My physical therapist kindly took a MySpace-style self portrait when I asked him to take a picture of my leg. I also made the mistake of peeking at my leg after the picture. I started feeling light-headed when I looked at it. Later on during PT, I said I needed to take a little break, then promptly bent forward at the waist and collapsed across the table. This caused a bit of concern among the staff. It also got me out of finishing that set of hamstring curls.
OK, I've talked enough about it. This is your last chance to look away.
Seriously, you've been warned.
I'm posting the picture now...
Behold my knee, 72 hours after surgery. They removed the blood suction device from my knee on Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday they took out the On-Q anesthetic device. There are small incisions on the side of my knee where the surgeon did most of the real work, but there's also a big slash down the front where they had to harvest 1/3 of my patellar tendon to replace the torn ACL. And as you can see, some blood is still oozing out of something at the bottom of my leg. And in case you're wondering, yes, that is a very sexy thigh-high anti-embolism stocking on the other leg.
To be fair, I gave PLENTY of warning before I posted that picture. I like to think that I'm slowly getting better. I actually got hungry today, instead of just remembering about twice a day that I ought to put food in myself. I managed to sit on a stool next to the bathtub and wash my hair today, which I consider a major victory. An actual bath or shower is just beyond my comprehension right now, so I'm making do with whore baths and baby wipes. As far as the pain, well, it's there. There are times when it's OK, and times when it's very bad. Right now I don't see much of a pattern. But I'm continuing to take all my medications and going to daily physical therapy, and I have every hope that I am going to heal quickly.
I tried calling the insurance company today about the 26-visit cap on chiropractic, massage and physical therapy visits that went into effect on July 1. They were very apologetic, but said that UAF had made that decision, and that I needed to talk to someone at HR to request an exception. Of course I got a message that HR had closed the office for the afternoon when I tried calling at 2 p.m. I'll try again tomorrow.
I made it through surgery. Spent the night in the hospital, didn't need to be on the morphine drip. I could keep the pain under control with percocet, and the passive continuous movement machine was cranking my leg to 90 degrees all night long while I slept. Now that I'm home, it's a slightly different story. My flexibility and leg strength are all but gone. I spend most of the day with my leg propped up, which makes my back hurt. I would like to take a shower but have neither the stomach nor the supplies to uncover and recover my wounds. I plan on bathing with baby wipes and maybe trying to wash my hair in the sink tomorrow.
My surgery is tomorrow, which means I am spending my weekend running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I had hoped to go see Fairbanks Shakespeare Theater's musical production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. My friend Anne assured me that someone could pick me up in the parking lot and drive me to the outdoor set. Alas, it looks like I may have to miss all the FST shows this summer, because I have a chore list a mile long.
Clean out the fridge.
Take the garbage to the transfer station.
Go grocery shopping.
Clean my car a bit. (Liz needs to get her car fixed, so I told her to schedule the repairs for next week so she could borrow my car as long as she needed.)
Clean up the house a bit more.
Do laundry.
Change kitty litter boxes for both cats.
Put a rolling chair in the kitchen, since I won't be able to move food to the living room to eat.
Rearrange furniture to suit my post-surgery needs.
Pack a bag for the hospital.
To make my weekend more pleasant, I spent more time at the walk-in clinic yesterday morning. I started getting some symptoms Friday, and tests confirmed that I have an infection. Thus I started a course of antibiotics. I hate antibiotics. The surgeon said this shouldn't interfere with my surgery.
I do have several things taken care of already for my convalescence. I have the rest of Star Trek: Enterprise to watch. There's quite a few Bollywood movies I've been meaning to get to. I need to continue studying Hindi. I built a new coffee table on wheels so I can spend some time on the couch as opposed to in my bed. I also entombed an insect with polyurethane on the top of said coffee table, but that's a story best saved for another post when I share pictures.
My friends are rallying to help me post-surgery. I have issues (which they apparently have already discussed) about asking people for help. So they are forcing help upon me. I did take the step of setting up a Google calendar so that we can track all of my doctor's appointments and who is driving me.
My health insurance fiscal year began again on July 1. I've already reached my deductible and my out-of-pocket maximum. However, they changed the plan this year, and now chiropractic, massage and physical therapy are all lumped into one category, with a maximum of 26 visits per year. Since I am already scheduled for 42 visits for physical therapy after surgery, this presents a bit of a problem. The PT office tried to call the insurance company to request an exemption, but got the runaround. So sometime after surgery, I will have to call UAF HR and start the onerous process of trying to get my medical care covered.
I've got a date for surgery in two weeks, and have been working hard to get flexion and strength back in my leg. I need my knee to be as healthy as possible before the surgery so I can recover better afterward. To that effect, I have been going to physical therapy three times a week. I've also been on a roller coaster of medications meant to protect my stomach and bring down the inflammation. I had to enter it all into my online calendar to keep track of when to take which pills. As of Sunday, I am down to just two medications - the stomach stuff and one new anti-inflammatory. The new medication is not my friend. I am feeling rather dizzy and am waiting for a call from the surgeon so we can talk about this.
At PT yesterday, they measured my leg for a new brace. I will need to wear this brace after surgery. According to my insurance company, the brace "meets the criteria" for being a covered expense. However, they would not pre-authorize the brace, which means they might refuse to pay for it. I ordered it in metallic pink. If I'm going to potentially pay $1,400 for the brace, it had better be sparkly and pretty. I hope it looks like the Borg assimilated Hello Kitty. Did I mention my insurance year starts over again on July 1? I think I'll be hitting my out-of-pocket maximum pretty quickly this year.
One of my neighbors has been kind enough to start mowing my lawn for me. That's a good thing, as I currently can't do it myself, and the back yard had become a knee-high field of dandelions. In return, I made him a chocolate root beer cake. I am trying my best to keep up with the house and the cats. It's all going to go to hell for two weeks after surgery, but I can try to enter that period with a clean house. It doesn't help that my roommate's cat decided to pee on the area rug. I need to devise a gate system to keep the cat trapped in the back of the house. I am clearly unable to handle two cats in my present condition.
I've been able to get back to the gym for limited activity, and am going to try some swimming after work today. The lack of exercise has been driving me crazy. Hopefully the dizziness won't get worse when I've got my glasses off and am in the pool.
I'm heading down to see MNB this weekend. This will probably be the last time I get to see him until he comes back to Fairbanks for school. I don't feel up to a 6-hour drive, so I used some of my miles to buy a ticket. It galls me to spend 20K miles on a 350-mile flight. Of course, it galled me even more to see the exact same flight show up for 15K miles the next day. Thanks to a 24-hour cancellation policy, I was able to cancel, then rebook for the 15K. I'm mostly off the crutches for now, but will be bringing them along just in case. I'm sure getting through security with a knee brace, an ankle brace and a crutch will be good fun.
I stopped taking the Vicodin. It wasn't so much the insomnia as it was the apparent destruction of my stomach. It may have been the Vicodin, it may have been the ibuprofen. All I know is that 2 weeks ago, I laid on the floor of the bathroom for an hour and spent the rest of the night in bed, twitching in pain.
Last Monday, I began physical therapy. I only did one session before the PT sent me for an MRI. He suspected I may have torn my meniscus. It turns out my meniscus is fine, but I tore my ACL. Not just a little tear; it's completely gone. There's also an avulsion fracture, where a chunk of bone was ripped off. The MRI additionally shows extensive bone bruising on both the femur and tibia.
The PT managed to get me in for an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on Friday. I was there for about 4 hours, doing tests, looking at the MRI, and discussing my options.
The short version is: I need to have my ACL replaced. It looks like that will happen in about 3 weeks, as I need to get the inflammation down and flexibility back. In order to get the inflammation down, I am starting a pill-intensive regimen of no less than 3 anti-inflammatories. But first I'm starting with drugs for my digestive system so I don't get sick again.
Lest anyone worry, my winter travel plans will continue. MNB is coming with me, and we decided to buy travel insurance, just in case I blow out my knee again and need an evacuation.
On a side note, tonight I had a panic attack. It's been a long time since I had one of those. It only lasted about 10 minutes, but I had forgotten how powerful they can be. I'm sure the notion of impending surgery had something to do with that.
MNB was in town last week, but I didn't get to see him as much as I would have liked. He was working at the Air Force base, and had to stay late because of equipment issues. He wants me to come to Anchorage so he can take care of me after surgery, but I don't think that's the most logical plan. Instead, I am going to try to visit him once before the surgery.
Sunday night: Took the Vicodin. Couldn't get to sleep.
Monday night: Skipped the Vicodin. Slept well. Could barely walk with the crutches in the morning.
Tuesday night: Took the Vicodin. Can't get to sleep.
The prescription medicine I need for the pain in my knee is apparently causing insomnia. And yet, without the pills, I am in a lot of pain in the morning. I have not yet figured out how to balance this equation.
Of course, the listed side effects do not mention insomnia, but do include drowsiness. It's 1 a.m. I need to be at work in the morning.
Living in Alaska, I have started a love affair with Amazon. They will ship almost anything up here for free. The only thing better is Zappos or Endless, because they give me free two-way shipping on shoes. Shoes!
Amazon is now in the habit of suggesting passphrases, a few words you can easily remember when you need to log in. They make some suggestions for you. My latest order prompted the suggestion: Mary's Colonial Policy.
I always did think of myself as a benevolent dictator.
I've spent a lot of time in bed during the past few days, usually filled with self-pity. It took me 44 hours to get a knee immobilizer. That's 44 hours of a dislocated knee kind of flopping around. So I feel I've earned a bit of wallowing time.
I keep thinking of things I can't do. I planted flowers last week, but if it doesn't rain, they will die because I can't water them. Tango classes are starting up again, but as you can imagine, I won't be attending. I have handed temporary control of my troupe over to Rachel, since I won't be performing again this summer. The lawn is a sea of dandelions, and I can't mow it. Yesterday my ex-boyfriend came over to change my winter tires for me. Most baking and cooking is out, since I can't get around the kitchen. I probably don't need to tell you that I won't be hiking Kilimanjaro this winter. (Don't worry, I've got alternate plans scheduled for my vacation time.) I have packages to mail but can't even get them to the car. I have to finish installing at least the one window on my house, but will now have to pay someone else to do that for me. Pretty much all household renovation projects for this summer must be canceled. I need to do laundry and change the kitty litter and do dishes, and all of these are nearly impossible when I have one functional leg and need to use both arms for crutches.
Sigh.
the epitome of compassion
The madness of May is finally over. OK, technically this is the last day, but I'm calling it over. My busy, busy month concluded with two days of dance workshops with the amazing Sharon Kihara. And the end result of those workshops was NOT a broken ankle. It's merely a sprained ankle and dislocated knee. Owie.
After getting our butts thoroughly kicked with 9 hours of conditioning, training and technique, my troupe had a private choreography workshop scheduled with Sharon. And approximately 30 minutes into this 3-hour workshop, I found myself sitting on the floor, cradling my leg, screaming "It's my knee!" as people ran around trying to find ice and figure out what to do.
I felt kind of like this, minus the ferret on a waterslide.
But of course, instead of ending the workshop, I laid on the floor with my knee elevated on yoga mats someone found in another studio and watched the rest of the workshop. Afterward, Liz drove me to the emergency medical clinic. By the time we got done there, all the pharmacies in town were closed. Most of them are still closed today because of the holiday. I managed to get my Vicodin filled, but the only open pharmacy doesn't have knee immobilizers. So my dislocated knee is flopping around until Tuesday, apparently.
How does this affect my life? Well, I'm glad I haven't ripped out the bathtub yet, as it looks like I'll be sitting on the floor of it to shower for the foreseeable future. And I probably won't be able to go to Anchorage to see MNB next weekend. Definitely not going to the gym tomorrow. I plan on going in to work for a 9 a.m. meeting, then searching for a damn knee immobilizer and getting a temporary handicapped parking permit.
After careful consideration (which means about a week of turmoil), I chose the new furniture for my living room. on Thursday night, MNB, his truck and I went to the furniture store. As we were walking up the steps, I looked through the window where the couch used to be and remarked, "Oh, they must have rearranged." When we got inside, it became evident that not only did they rearrange, but that in the intervening 7 days since we'd been there, the couch I wanted had disappeared.
I'd had a sinking feeling all day that the sale from the previous week would be over, and the price would be jacked back up. I figured I could talk my way back into the lower price. But how can you talk your way into a non-existent couch? I flagged down a saleswoman we had chatted with last week, and she got on her little walkie-talkie to figure out if there were any more of the couch left. And the couch? Well, it turns out that while I was at home pondering, it had been discounted and moved next door into the clearance section. We hurried over, and there it was! On clearance!
Alas, only the couch was there. The loveseat, chair and ottoman were nowhere in site. Undaunted, I asked yet another salesperson if they had any loveseats left. After conferring with her walkie-talkie, she told me they had the matching loveseat in Anchorage and they could ship it up for free. Furthermore, the price for the couch and loveseat was now the same price as just the couch would have been last week. Score! Even better - they have one more of that couch in the warehouse, so I can get the brand-new one as opposed to the floor model.
So on Saturday, I will be getting up early to bring my old couch and recliner to the UAF Really, Really Free Market. I will then scrounge the market for any power tools I can get my grubby hands on. Then MNB and I will go pick up the new couch. And then I should worry about doing construction or cleaning, but I will instead go for a hike and a soak in the hotsprings. This is my only free weekend this month and is also the last weekend MNB is here before he heads back to Anchorage for the summer. So screw it, I'm relaxing!
And since I haven't mentioned it recently, remember that tiny little hole we cut in the wall to find the broken pipe? Well, the plumber finally came to fix it on Monday. (Hooray for home warranties, which covered the repairs. I only had to pay the $75 service call fee.) In order for him to fix the pipes, we had to make the hole slightly bigger. Maybe more than slightly. And since I'm going to start ripping the walls down in about a month to renovate the bathroom, it made no sense to patch them up again. All of this is my long-winded way of saying we have bathroom walls that are covered in black plastic. Staple-gunned in place, of course. It gives the place a very rustic charm. I can't wait to start ripping down more walls.
we only need two pigs
after the apocalypse
I need to buy new living room furniture. No, it's not what you think. Well, not if you're thinking, "Oooh, someone bought a house and got an $8K tax credit and wants to spend her money." However, if you were thinking, "Oooh, someone is finally getting rid of her 5-year old couch that she got for free when someone moving out of state left it behind because it was falling apart even then," you were pretty much spot on. The couch attempts to swallow you whole when you sit on it. Cushions, blankets and small children have disappeared in its proximity. And the arms are starting to separate from the rest of it. Plus, $8K tax credit, suckas!
So here's my debate. With small floorspace, I have fewer options when it comes to furniture. Thus I've found three possible options. I present to you, without further ado, floorplans.
My current living room situation. The yellow is representative of the wall color. And all that stuff to the bottom left is not a solid wall but open space to the dining area and built-ins. The only thing that must stay is the wood tv stand along the bottom edge.
Option #1
Option #2
Option #3 (The thing between the couch and loveseat is a possible matching ottoman)As you can see, there really are limited possibilities when it comes to furniture arranging. All three choices also come with a chair or ottoman, but I don't really think they'll fit. And yes, Virginia, the boxes do represent the color of the furniture. But remember that my walls are paintable.
Actually, when I use the bathroom sink, it pours, too!
On Sunday night, I got sidetracked and started cleaning the bathroom. Then I noticed the bathroom sink was draining slowly again, so I decided to clear the drain with a little Drano. And that's when we heard the melodic sound of water splashing onto the dirt in the crawlspace underneath the bathroom. A quick glance downstairs confirmed that the bathroom sink drain was pouring water. No other pipes have been affected.
On Monday, MNB and I got changed into work clothes and ventured into the crawlspace. It was pretty obvious that the pipe we needed to fix was not down there, but rather inside the bathroom wall.
Step 1: Turn off the water to the sink and move it.
Step 1: Turn off the water to the sink.
Step 1: No, really, turn off the %$*#ing water to the sink.
The old valves were stuck in the open position. Nothing would make them turn. So, Step 1: Crawl under the house to reach the water main and turn off the water to the entire house. I made MNB do that.
With a bit of prying, sawing and smashing, we were able to see the pipes. The problem seems to be that the big old iron drain pipe is, for lack of a better word, broken. Not cracked. Not a little hole. Broken clean through. Since the drain enters the pipe below the break, it may have been broken for a while. I think that the pipe can handle a small stream of water, but larger amounts can't drain quickly and thus back up to where the break is and spill out.
Do you know what the plumbing books say about iron pipes? Call a professional. Fortunately, the sellers bought a 1-year warranty on the house for me, and according to the paperwork, plumbing is covered. Even better for the plumbers, I'm not going to ask them to patch up the hole in the wall. I plan on ripping out the wall entirely when I renovate the bathroom this summer.
I'm still alive and kicking. When last we visited, I was in Anchorage. One small incident later, we returned to Fairbanks. (I may have caused a wee little security shutdown of a military base when I tried to pick MNB up for the drive back. Oops.)
So what are the updates?
My sister had a baby. Hmmm. I am a bad aunt, as I don't know if I ever mentioned online that she was pregnant. Anyway, she and her husband now have a daughter, Ashley Something Evenson. I got away with only seeing one of the nasty, placenta-y photos from birth. That was more than enough.
Spring is finally here. The snow is gone, it's getting warm. We have more than 12 hours of daylight. And I'm itching to get house projects down.
Speaking of house projects, I dropped a cool $1.3K on new windows. There's still one window left to purchase, but that requires talking with someone about patching the siding of the house, as I need to put in a much smaller window than what is currently there.
Also speaking of house projects, MNB has an air compressor. I plan on borrowing it for my bathroom renovation project. He was not too horrified at my behavior in the tool section the first time we went to Lowe's together. It helps that I showed restraint and did not purchase a dual bevel compound miter saw with a laser marker. But I wanted to.
And MNB? Yep, he's still around. He'll be heading south for the summer soon, though. I'm hoping to get down to Anchorage to visit him at some point, and am trying to convince him to convince the Air Force that they need him to install stuff at Eielson this summer.
In February, Gary and I made plans to to to the Loon this weekend. There was a DJ coming up last night, and we wanted to go dancing. In March, I regretfully declined a road trip to Palmer for dance this weekend, citing the aforementioned plans. On Friday morning, Gary mentioned that he might not actually be able to go out after all. So, like any sane person, I went home after work, threw some stuff in a bag, and drove 350 miles to Anchorage for the weekend. It helps that MNB had to go down for work, too.
Let me tell you about the drive to Anchorage. It is long. And boring. And not pleasant at night. I usually only drive the route in the summer, so I wasn't quite prepared for the tedium of driving it partially in the dark. I got on the road by 7 p.m., and it started getting dark about 3 hours later. There's pretty much nothing between Fairbanks and Wasilla at this time of year. There's still another month or so until the hotels and shops at Denali open, so it's just one long, straight road. That didn't stop one car from using their GPS as they drove. They were also driving the speed limit. Suckers.
I managed to make the trip in under 5 hours, including one bathroom break, a refueling stop and pausing for the most horrific nose bleed I've ever experienced. Basically, I got to town in time to go to bed. On Saturday, MNB got up bright and early to go to work while I planned my route of attack.
- Skinny Raven for new running shoes. $100 well spent, as I tend to destroy a pair within a year.
- Target. Don't judge me - we don't have one in Fairbanks.
- Modern Dwellers. Gourmet chocolate truffles. Like, wasabi-ginger truffles.
- New Sagaya Market. Sadly, they do not sell naan anymore.
- Title Wave Books.
- Middle Way Cafe.
This morning I got up after MNB left with plans for a run at the hotel gym. I got halfway dressed before I discovered that I left my running pants in Fairbanks. Argh. To add insult to injury, the breakfast today was crap. All nasty, unhealthy food. They didn't even put out the fresh fruit! So much for trying to be healthy. I'll continue the downward spiral with Moose's Tooth pizza for lunch.
For some reason, MNB has decided to skip flying back in favor of driving with me. I told him I'm going to sing Neil Diamond the entire time, but he is still going to do it. Just wait until I bust out a Star Trek podcast.
Last night MNB showed me an online game he'd designed. I had been drinking a beer, so I was only half paying attention as he tried to explain how to play, but it involved moving seeds along two rows of nine cups. There was something called a "home cup," and the objective was to capture your opponent's seeds.
I tried explaining to him that I was a sore loser. I told him how I would scream "Don't touch me!" when Tom tried to console me after games of Scrabble. But nope, he wanted to play this game anyway. So I agreed to do it.
Then I whupped his ass.
I whupped it so thoroughly.
And when I was done whupping it, I pointed out how he needed to redesign the program because the box for my score was too small and my score actually extended outside of it.
And thus he did learn that I am also a sore winner.
What makes a perfect spring day? Is it driving aimlessly on back roads with the windows down and The White Stripes on the radio? Is it sitting on the porch rail of a local bar in the sunlight, drinking a beer with the Grateful Dead drifting through the open bar door? Any way you cut it, Easter Sunday was a damn near perfect day. We'll get to that in a moment.
Saturday night was Scott's surprise birthday party. We met up at Lavelle's Bistro to ring in his 30th year (+11). He was a little taken aback that we were all there, and of course we sang loudly and badly. The plan was to go bar-hopping after that. For some reason, though, I started insisting that we should go to the Mecca. There is no way to put this gently or not sound racist: the Mecca is a Native bar. I knew this; I had been there before. But I thought it wise to go anyway. We'll always have the experience, but we downed our round of drinks and got the hell out of there. Next stop: The Big I. We took over the rear of the bar, and ended up bringing two GIs along with us when we departed for the Boatel. MNB was along for the ride, so he was my designated driver. We made the Boatel our final stop of the night, and then went home to sleep it off.
Neither of us remembered it was Easter until we were eating our lunch at The Bakery the next day. The holiday meant many stores and businesses were closed, so rather than doing anything useful, we just drove around. MNB only looked slightly horrified when I made him stop at the transfer station. He might have been OK with the visit, except I saw someone bringing a reel mower to the recycle deck. I hopped out to ask the guy about it, then picked it up and put it in the back of MNB's truck. We eventually made our way to Ester and the Golden Eagle. The sun was hitting the front porch, so we sat on the rail, drinking beer and talking. Instead of going straight home, we drove out along the Old Nenana Highway, looking for a good plot of south-facing land to build a house on.
Back home, I tested out the new mower on my front law, which is quickly emerging from the snow. I rounded out the day by raiding the Fred Meyer floral section for discounted Easter lilies (Maybe I can keep them alive for a little while. I <3 lilies!) and baking a batch of blackberry pie bars with lemon sugar. Ah, spring!
