Fairy tales.

I picked up two very old books of fairy tales at an estate sale a few weeks ago. They look like two from a larger set, because each book is slim, with just four or five tales in each one.

The pictures are just stunning. Here's "Little Red Riding Hood:"


And "Rumpelstiltskin":

"Jack and the Beanstalk"...I love the funky design on that beanseller's pants:

These are from a story called "The Goose Girl," which is not a story I remember, but which seems to be about a passive-aggressive princess with golden hair:

We also have "Tom Thumb":

And "The Frog Prince," soon to be Disneyfied in a theater near you, I believe:

"Puss in Boots"--look at the cool windmill in the background:

And "Bluebeard," with his fetching wife poking her nose in where it was best left unpoked:

And here are a few of the pictures from the story of "Beauty and the Beast," a favorite of my nieces Natalie and Marissa.

The last picture is the picture that made me scoop up those books! Love the fireworks!

What I love about this style of illustration is all the detail, the floral patterns and the textures on clothes and fabrics, the swooping sleeves and flowing hair--just so perfect for fairy tales, especially.

Fishie.

This is not my favorite time of year to be in southern Virginia, but living near the water does have its compensations...

Caught...

Cleaned...

Seasoned...

Grilled...

Plated...

Yum! Now that's what I call fresh!

Boeuf et fleurs.

(Sounds fancier in French.)

I cooked up a whole bunch of things the week before my surgery, and we're still digging down to the bottom of the freezer and enjoying some of them. This is one of the things I cooked...I got the recipe from a Pea at Two Peas, and it is unbelievably good. While it's cooking, it smells like my great-aunt Helen's house when we used to go over there for Sunday dinner when I was very little. Pure essence of pot roast, only better.

Italian Beef Sandwiches

1 envelope dry onion soup mix
1 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. dried parsley
1 large garlic clove, minced
3/4 cup water
3-lb. rump or chuck roast

You just plop the roast in a crockpot, pour the water and spices over it, and let it cook all day on high, or till the meat's tender. Then you shred it up with a fork and let it simmer for a few more minutes, then eat it on a nice soft steak roll.

I like horseradish sauce on mine, but Todd prefers steak sauce. Apparently some people like to put banana peppers on the sandwiches...personally, I think a pile of grilled onions and peppers would be delicious on top. You can add provolone cheese or not--we didn't.

Todd thinks the meat is too spicy, so next time I make it I'll probably just use a half-teaspoon of red pepper flakes, but I think the heat is just right. And if I can find a reduced-sodium onion soup mix, I'll use that in the future, again for the hubby's sake. But boy, is it good.

I'm feeling slightly more energetic today. My body has rebelled and refuses to sleep on its back any longer, so I've had to contrive a way of sleeping on my side with lots of pillows under and all around me. I don't think it's the greatest thing for my incisions, but I'm compelled to do it. I've never had my body wake up in the middle of the night before and force itself into a position--it's like being demon-possessed. Very weird feeling.

I have a few randomly-connected pictures to share...my aunts put together the most beautiful bouquets for the church windows at my grandpa's funeral last week. They pulled together garden flowers and wildflowers and added cattails at the last minute, and it looked like something we could have picked on a random summer stroll around my grandparents' property 20 years ago.


Speaking of my grandparents' property, one of the items my aunt Molly salvaged from there was quite a bit larger than the odd chair or table. She took the summerhouse that stood right outside the front door and had it moved to her own yard a mile or two away.

Molly lives in an old brick schoolhouse, where my grandma and her siblings attended school, incidentally, and the summerhouse fits into her yard as though it had always been there.

She's having it painted and refurbished a little, and her neighbor gave her a wonderful old door with etched glass panels that will replace the original door. It's going to look great. But I think it looks nice, now, too. Here's how it was at my grandparents' house, painted blue to match their house:

Grandma had wildflowers and mint growing around it in the back, and rosebushes and other things in the front of it. I can't wait to see what Molly does with it!

Todd and I dropped in at an estate sale on Saturday that reminded me a lot of the sale we had at my grandparents' place last September. It was an old house with a barn where the parents had lived for 55 years, it was their large family of descendants holding the sale, it was piles and piles of very old junk that no one had thrown away for decades. And the family was Mennonite.

I had a very nice chat with the daughters, who are the same ages as my mom and her sisters, and picked up a few odds and ends. I got these three cream bottles from a whole huge box of saved bottles and decided to throw some garden flowers in them for my kitchen windowsill.

Can you see the price molded into the top of the bottle? Those were the days.

Various tired things.

Is everybody sick of my whining about how tired I am? Too darn bad.

Today is like a whole new level of tiredness. I have to exert effort to plop each finger down on the keyboard. This may just be the most exhausted I have ever felt in my life. The gnomes in my body must be very hard at work repairing my chest area today, that's all I can figure.

What's that you say? There are no gnomes in the human body? Well, maybe not in yours. But my body is maintained by a team of tiny gnomes. They like Ben and Jerry's ice cream for a special treat. I don't provide it for them very often, though, as their next task will be to address my tummy area and butterfat ice cream isn't the tool required for that.

Sooo tired. Blinking takes an effort today. I feel a disbelieving annoyance way down under the tiredness...I didn't expect to be this tired at this point. And I'm more bored than ever...what am I supposed to do between passing-out-on-the-couch periods? I type a sentence and then have to sit and rest for a minute or two!

Anyway, I found this game the other day. I can't even imagine having the energy and mental capacity to play it right this minute, but maybe someone else out there is more on the ball today than I am. It's addictive, I warn you. Kind of a cross between Scrabble and Tetris. Must Pop Words

Also my friend Beverly forced me to go to Bath and Body Works on Sunday and then she forced me to fill up a bag with stuff and then she forced me to buy it all. She had a gun stuck in my ribs and everything. I swear. She is mean.

So one of the things she forced me to buy is this scent called Vanilla Noir and it is seriously one of the best things I have ever smelled. I like vanilla scents, but often they are way too sweet. Vanilla Noir, on the other hand, smells like a warm pound cake that just found out about sex and is planning what to do with the knowledge. Yum.

I was also going to type in a recipe for something I ate for lunch and which is fresh in my memory as delicious, but I am too tired now. I'll do it later. Back to the couch for me. Sigh.

Pooped.

On Sunday night I made a big long list of things to get done this week, knocked about five items off yesterday and then collapsed in a sore and tired heap on the couch after supper, and was in bed by ten PM.

Today I am still sore and tired! I scheduled a massage this morning and almost fell asleep driving home from it. My original neck and shoulder pain is almost completely gone, but I have a knot next to my right shoulder blade now--I think it's from holding my torso differently and sleeping on my back, working muscles in different ways now.

I thought it might be good to have someone work on those new kinks before they solidify into real pain. And it was good! We had to work out a way for me to lie down that wouldn't completely crush my very sore boobies, though...I had to use a body pillow and sort of wrap myself around it sideways.

Now I'm feeling like that massage may be just about all I get done today--that and this blog post. It's driving me nuts to sit around when my mind is buzzing with things I need and want to do. So my pattern right now is to break into a mini whirlwind of activity for a few hours, and then pass out on the couch for an hour or two. But yesterday I overdid it--too much reaching over my head putting dishes away and hoisting wet towels into the dryer, among other things.

Susan, the massage therapist, told me I need to be patient, that my body is working overtime to recover from the surgery and that's using up most of my energy. Little does she know that we Clarks are each allotted about 3 milligrams of patience as our genetic inheritance, and we use it all up within the first two weeks of our lives.

Bon appetit!

My friend Beverly and I went to see "Julie and Julia" yesterday, which is a film based on Julie Powell's book of the same name, in which Powell writes about the year she spent cooking her way through Julia Child's book Mastering the Art of French Cooking and blogging about it.

I read the book several years ago and enjoyed it, although it's a little less about food and a little more about being almost 30 and struggling with the idea that your life isn't going the way you thought it would. Powell's blogging/cooking project gives her a new path to follow, and a sort of guardian angel in the person of Julia Child.

I was surprised to hear that a movie was coming out based on the book, because there didn't seem to be quite enough in the book to base a movie on. The moviemakers must have agreed with me, because they split the movie roughly in half, and showed two parallel stories at the same time--Julie Powell's (played by Amy Adams) cooking adventure and Julia Child's (played by Meryl Streep) cooking adventure.

The Julia Child segments are based on another book, one of the best memoirs I've ever read: Julia Child's My Life in France, the story of her marriage, moving to France and falling into what was to become the defining task of her life: learning French cooking and teaching it to Americans.

So in the movie we have the modern-day segments, with Amy Adams battling subway crowds to work and then coming home to cook in her lousy Long Island apartment kitchen, and then the Julia segments, which take place in Paris in the 1940s and 50s and which feature Meryl Streep doing a dead-on and completely delightful version of Julia Child. Two guesses as to which storyline is more interesting!

The stories do play off each other perfectly, as each woman is trying to find her niche in life, supported by a loving husband, but although Amy Adams is a perfectly good actress, every time Meryl Streep comes onto the screen, you forget all about whatever Adams was doing in the scene before. You can't take your eyes off Julia, who is as bright and vivid and full of life as she was in real life. Stanley Tucci plays her devoted husband Paul Child, and you just want their scenes to go on forever, it's such a pleasure to watch them together.

Plus the costumes, the cars, the sets from the Julia segments are pure eye candy. Bev and I loved this movie. It was funny and inspiring and beautifully filmed. Sort of a chick flick, but the men in the audience seemed to enjoy it as much as the women did. It was also a pretty clean movie (much cleaner than Powell's book, anyway) with just one or two obscenities and only implied sex between loving married couples. (It's mother-in-law-friendly, Viv!) We walked out of the theatre smiling.

I wonder if this is the first movie about blogging?!

Movie night.

Oh me oh my, I am feeling at loose ends tonight. Todd is out fishing with a co-worker when he should be home with me watching "Buffy" Season 4. Being in recovery mode for a few weeks means that I have watched almost every DVD in the house and done more crossword puzzles than any human should ever have to do. My "mousing" hand is sore from Internet usage. I've dipped into at least five different books in the past two weeks, and none have been able to hold my interest. I hate to say I'm bored, but I am.

Thus a ramble here.

It is odd that director John Hughes died yesterday, because Todd and I were talking about "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" just the night before that. Todd was sitting at my desk, and I have a painting by Georges Seurat as my desktop image, "A Sunday in the Park on the Island of La Grand Jatte."

Todd mentioned something about that being the painting that Cameron looks at. I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. He said, "Yes, that's the one where Cameron looks at the little girl in the middle, and then it cuts to his face, and then back to her face, and then a close-up of his face, and then a close-up of her face...you know, in 'Ferris Bueller.'"

Well, I've seen "Ferris Bueller" any number of times, but the main thing I always remember about it is the parade where he sings "Twist and Shout." I didn't remember that scene at all. So we found it on YouTube:



The girl's face dissolves, of course, because it's composed of tiny dots of paint in Seurat's style of "pointillism," which is an awesome word as well as a cool way to paint.

It's strange that I (the English-major) forgot all about that scene, because it's a key moment in the film, and one that still moves people to pondering, if my Google search on "painting cameron ferris" reveals anything. I loved what this blogger had to say:

"In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Cameron stands in an art museum in front of a pointillist painting by George Seurat, and as he stares at the image of a little girl, the camera cuts back and forth, jumping closer and closer to each shot. As we get closer to his eyes, it seems as if Cameron is having an existential crisis. As if he is facing the realization that we are all just little dots.

"In an industry where anything that seems superfluous ends up on the cutting room floor, it is to Hughes' credit that his film allows for the moment, one that continues to move me to this day. That is the gift of John Hughes."

Maybe I should pop in "Ferris Bueller" to ward off my boredom tonight, eh? I hate to watch it without Todd, though. I don't know about Todd, but for me that is THE high school movie of my high school years. Seems a shame to watch it without my high school buddy along.

I haven't seen all of John Hughes' movies and people my age are always shocked when I reveal that I've never seen "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," or "Some Kind of Wonderful." My favorite of his movies I have seen is "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." The first 2 1/2 minutes of this scene literally make me cry with laughter every time:



Man, I wish John Candy was still around. What a funny, funny man.

As long as I'm talking Hughes films, I also have a soft spot for "Home Alone." I took my cousins Alan and Michael to see that movie over Thanksgiving break in 1990 when they were 11 years old and I was 20 years old and I was baby-sitting for them. I had such a great time that I called Todd (my then-boyfriend) right afterward and said, "We have to go see this kiddie movie tonight."

Here's a montage of my favorite moments from that movie...it's like watching a "Tom and Jerry" cartoon...awesome.



They left out my favorite line, though ("Why are you dressed like a chicken?") and my favorite bit where Marv screams like a little girl when Kevin puts the tarantula on his face. Good times.

Maybe a Christmas movie in August would be a fun way to kill the rest of the evening...

I bless the rains down in Africa.

And now for something light-hearted...being a true child of the 80's, I have always loved the band Toto's song "Africa." This is an amazing acapella version done by a Slovenian group. They start out by making the noises of a thunderstorm with their hands and feet--so cool. Such a great song, too!

Memories of Grandpa.

It has been an interesting time for me, processing all that has happened in the past week. It seems odd that a person can get to be almost 40 years old before losing a close relative, but Grandpa's death is indeed my first close-up experience with that kind of loss.

I loved and respected my grandpa very much, but I was not especially close with him. He was a complex person--as of course most of us humans are--and came from an Old Order Mennonite family that was quite non-demonstrative and more than slightly dysfunctional. He didn't like to talk about his childhood for the most part.

In the bit of dabbling I've done with genealogy, I often wish I had more information about the kind of people my ancestors were, any little bits that would give me a peek into their lives and help me see who they were and what qualities I may have gotten from them. So I thought I'd write down some things I remember and some things I know about Grandpa, in case some future descendant ever wants to know.

Grandpa only received an eighth-grade education before having to leave school, but he made up for that as an adult by finding books that would teach him whatever he wanted and needed to know. He was a creative person who loved to tinker and make things. When I brought my husband-to-be into the family, Grandpa recognized a kindred spirit, and hauled Todd down to the basement to show him all the stereo equipment he had rigged up so he could listen to and record his favorite classical music.

Grandpa raised eight kids on a very meager salary, but still did his best to provide them with treats and trips. He ran an auto body shop from his home for years. He loved birds and always had feeders close to the kitchen window so he could watch them. He built bluebird houses and put them up on all the roads around his home--whenever I see a bluebird, it always makes me think of him.

He painted a small antique chest of drawers a psychedelic shade of acid green, and was very proud of the effect. I can remember at the time thinking that it was just plain wrong, and I was only 7 or 8 years old! He made 8-track tapes of songs and stories for me and my siblings to listen to when we were little.

He was a father as well as a grandpa to my cousin Michael when my aunt Kathy was a struggling single mom trying to work and go to school and keep a roof over their heads. He fretted over the health and well-being of everyone in his family, and there were a lot of us to fret over. Mom remembers the words "Keep us safe from harm and evil" being a regular part of his mealtime prayers.

He had a big orchard with peach, apricot, and apple trees. Probably pears, too, but I can't remember for sure. He had a blueberry patch, and he rigged up a cannon-type of gun that would fire at intervals to scare the birds away in the summertime. I don't think it was especially effective, but I'm sure all the neighbors loved it.

He provided wagons and balls and various rusty outdoor toys for us grandkids, and wasn't terribly happy when we would swing on the low branches of the big weeping willow in the front yard instead.

He took lots of photos and would let me sit and look at all the slides of them with his little slide viewer. He liked to travel and got to indulge in that later in life, when my uncle Lowell went to work for an airline and could get Grandpa and Grandma inexpensive tickets.

He liked cats and music and fishing and National Geographic magazines. He did not suffer fools gladly. He almost chopped off his thumb with a saw once, and had to have it pinned back on till it healed. When someone at church asked him teasingly if the protruding pin was his strawberry huller, he replied that no, it was his nose picker.

He struggled with depression and anxiety all his life, but he survived and thrived despite it. I find this helpful to remember, as I'm one of his descendants who unfortunately inherited those genes. But I also inherited his curiosity and love of knowledge, and the belief that all the answers are out there if I can just find the right book.

It seems like often when an elderly person has long and difficult final years, it can be easy to forget the person they were before that. What our family has been talking and thinking about for the past few days has been the person Grandpa was in all the long years of his life before the end when ill health took over. That is the person we wept for on Saturday and Sunday, even though we were glad to know that he is at peace and not struggling any more. He was at the root of our family, and it makes a difference in our lives to have him gone now.

Back home.

My gosh, what a whirlwind the past three days have been.

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who was praying for me and sending good thoughts--I know for a fact they helped because I got through the weekend with very little pain or discomfort. In fact, I was in much better shape than my poor sister, who has been sick and running a fever for days, OR my poor brother, who was and still is battling a badly infected foot. We were quite the trio this weekend.

I have felt so blessed the past few days, not just with healing, but with the privilege of being able to be there to say good-bye to Grandpa; with the love and support the church family showed to all of us; and most of all, with the amazing people in my family--my parents, aunts and uncles and all my terrific cousins--you know, none of us would be here were it not for Grandpa and his life, and I have never felt so grateful for my big funny family.

The funeral was especially meaningful, with hymns Grandpa had chosen, and memories of his humor and creativity. My aunt Kathy shared a letter he had written her years ago, and my uncle Larry spoke about the qualities that made Grandpa a blessing to his family. The service closed with a snippet from The Messiah, which was one of Grandpa's favorite pieces of music: "And the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed..."

I was so glad to get to see some of my cousins who live far away...we never manage to make it home at the same times, and it was great to see them: my cousin Michael who's in the Coast Guard in Wisconsin right now, my cousin Krista from Atlanta, my cousin Dennis from Colorado, my cousin Pam from Illinois with her new husband, and all the others, too.

It was the quiet presence of my cousin Janine that I found oddly comforting--Janine is just a few weeks away from delivering her first child, and her cute big tummy was sort of a silent reminder that life is irrepressible and always coming back.

This is me and my brother (far right) and sister (third from left) with all our first cousins and our aunt Carol. Two cousins were unable to make it: Jarrod, who's overseas in the Air Force, and Darrel in Colorado.

And my mom with her brothers and sisters:

This is an arrangement of some of the little things that symbolized Grandpa's life.

Grandma with my cousin Pam:

It was a hard few days for Grandma, too, of course. She is suffering from dementia now, but she did know what had happened and she was sad. She and Grandpa were married for 66 years.

My flights home on Monday went fine, although I did have a small delay and sat in hot, crowded LaGuardia Airport much longer than I would have liked. It was very neat coming into LaGuardia, though--we came in right over Manhattan, and I could see the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Central Park, and even the Dakota apartments from my plane window. It was cool.

Today I'm just super tired, but thankfully I have plenty of time to rest up and get back into the swing of things. Todd is working crazy hours so far this week, which is fine except that I still need him to help me hoist laundry in and out of our stackable dryer, since I can't quite manage that yet! Who knows when the laundry will get done?

Thanks again for the good thoughts and prayers. I am going to try to be a better Blogger and Facebook friend than I've been lately! I'm definitely feeling ready for life to get back to where it was a couple months ago after all these events.

I'm off to Ohio in the early *yawn* hours. Keep your fingers crossed for smooth flights, if you would, and none of those airline shenanigans that they like to pull. Back late Monday night, see ya.

I was watching "America's Funniest Home Videos" last night for a little dose of humor, and they showed this video of a terrified kid on one of those giant swing rides where they strap you in and you bounce way up high...he was clutching the seat for dear life with his eyes closed and shouting to himself, "I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay!" as he bounced up and down.

I was thinking about that in the car today and it made me laugh all over again, because I feel like every time I check in here at my blog I'm reassuring myself in a way, "I'm okay, I'm okay!" Right now this blog is more for my own comfort than anything else.

I felt a little tiny bit like I was on that swing ride as I rushed around this morning--going to the doctor (he says I'm healing up great) and trying desperately to find bras that pinch my sutures as little as possible (not possible) and looking for a tiny wheelie bag that I can carry on or check, whichever seems easiest, and oh yes, meeting Todd at the body shop to drop off the car on his lunch hour because we're having car repair issues in the midst of everything. And it's about 180 degrees outside this week, and humid. And of course, I'm thinking abut my grandma and my mom and my aunts and hoping they're all doing okay.

None of it is a big deal at all, except the sad stuff, but when it happens all at once, it feels a little overwhelming. But I'm okay!

Well, I've given it some thought and decided to fly home for Grandpa's funeral. I think it's something I will be sorry to miss out on if I don't go.

So I'm flying out Saturday morning and coming back Monday night. (The funeral is on Sunday.) Shouldn't be too difficult, and I have a few more days to heal up between now and then. The doctor says it's fine to go, so I will.

Here's the link to Grandpa's obituary in today's paper.

Ira Eber Martin, 91, of Columbiana passed away at 12:22 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, 2009, at the Ivy Woods Care Center in North Lima, where he had resided for the last three months. Prior to that he had resided on Renkenberger Road, Columbiana.

Ira was born March 1, 1918 in Wayne County, Ohio, the son of the late William and Anna (Lehman) Martin.

In earlier years Mr. Martin raised laying hens and sold eggs on a retail route in Youngstown. He later owned and operated Martin's Auto Body Shop from his home for 25 years and also worked at G.M. Lordstown plant from where he retired in 1979.

He was a member of the Midway Mennonite Church in Columbiana.

Ira enjoyed walking in the woods, hunting, fishing and observing nature. He also liked reading, traveling, classical and sacred music as well.

Ira is survived by his wife, Martha (Weaver) Martin whom he married on Jan. 21, 1943. He is also survived by daughters, Naomi "Molly" (John) Hostetler of Columbiana, Lucille (John) Clark of Washingtonville, Charlotte (William) Beck of Berlin Center, Kathy (Bill) Schroedel of Silver Lake, Carol Moser of Austintown; sons, Lowell (Doris) Martin of Strasburg, Colo., Ronald (Patty) Martin of Warren, Lawrence (Lucia) Martin of Leavittsburg; 16 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Mr. Martin was preceded in death by one sister, Mary Martin, and two brothers, Daniel and Harvey Martin.

Services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 2, at the Midway Mennonite Church in Columbiana, Ohio.

Friends may call 6-8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 1, at the Seederly-Mong & Beck Funeral Home, Columbiana, and also one hour prior to the service Sunday, Aug. 2, at the church.

Family suggests material contributions be made to Midway Mennonite Church, 13376 Columbiana-Canfield Road, Columbiana, OH 44408.

Sad news.

I got a call today that wasn't unexpected but still made me cry. My Grandpa Martin passed away this morning.

He was 91 years old and lived a very long and full life. And the past three or four years, his health, his mental health in particular, had greatly deteriorated. I know that now his mind and his spirit are at peace.

When we were home a few weeks ago, he was living in a mental hospital and was rapidly going downhill. I chose not to visit him then because I wanted to remember him the way he was when we were home the year before, when he had just moved into an assisted living facility and was in one of his "good" periods.

He was whizzing down the hall on his motorized scooter and telling everyone he passed, "This is my granddaughter and her husband, from Virginia!" He had shown us all the birds at the feeder outside his window, too. It was a moment of good spirits for him, in a time of what had become increasing anger, anxiety, and irrationality. I am really glad to be able to remember him in that moment of time.

I'm sad that he is gone, but also very sad because I don't think I am going to be able to make it home for the funeral. I am feeling okay for being a week post-surgery, but not okay enough, I think, for a plane flight home. I've been sitting here trying to think it through for a few hours now. I want to be there very much.

One week with new boobage.

So one week ago at this time, I was sitting in the recovery room at the hospital feeling very grumpy and dazed.

I weigh seven pounds less than I did a week ago, four pounds of that being breast tissue and the other three from not having much of an appetite most of the time.

I discovered that Wal-Mart is THE place to go for soft squishy bras--and that Todd is an awfully good sport to go there and come home with an armload of them for me to try. I hope he didn't get weird looks from the checkout girl.

Actually, Todd is an awfully good sport in general...he has hosed me down in the tub, washed my hair for me, helped me try on bras, checked to make sure things were looking okay when I was too grossed/freaked out to check for myself.

Right now I still have dissolvable stitches inside me, and a whole train track of incisions being held together with steri-strips all around and over the place. Hence the need for very soft bras. My job now is just to wait for everything to heal and for the steri-strips to fall off, which could take anywhere from 2-4 weeks.

I am really glad to have this first week over with! I'm feeling very unusually sore today for some reason...I don't know if I overdid it yesterday (but how can you overdo it when you're sitting on the couch?) or if I slept weird last night but I stretched something that didn't want to be stretched, that's for sure.

It's a little bit hard to be patient with the soreness and the tiredness, and with not being able to do everything I want or even need to do, and with being generally quite bored, as I still seem to be unable to concentrate on a book for any length of time.

On the other hand, I am just so grateful that everything has gone so smoothly, the surgery, the recovery, everything has been better and easier than I dared to hope it would be.

Off to find some lunch!

Out in the world.

My friend Cheryl took me in to get my stitches taken out today and then took me for lunch at Red Robin--aah! Sunshine! People! Activity! Conversation! And salad! What a pleasure!

Now all I have to do is sit back and relax until my check-up next Thursday. And try not to itch. And maybe go out and search for a bra that fits right. And getting a decent night's sleep would also really help.

I keep having these very long, involved, intense dreams with lots and lots of detail and storyline...I'd blame the pain pills, but I seem to have them no matter whether I've taken a pill or not. So my nights generally run like this:

Sleep for an hour or two, get up to pee, look at the clock and heave a sigh, lay back down. Wake up after a dream that feels like a Cecil B. DeMille movie (hours long with a cast of thousands,) get up to pee, look at the clock and blink in disbelief because it's only an hour since the last time I got up. Go downstairs, put in a movie, lay down on the couch and repeat the process for the rest of the night. Urgh, it's tiresome.

And a couple of the dreams have been really upsetting--there was one about the death of someone I love very much, which seemed to go on FOREVER and was so real, I still feel like maybe it happened, in the back of my mind.

So it would be great to lay down on my tummy and sleep hard the whole night through with no dreams, and wake up feeling rested. But other than that, and the itching, I am doing awesome. The sore throat's mostly gone, and everything is as it should be with the girls. Thanks, Cheryl, for getting me out of the house today, I really needed it!

Drains are OUT, what a relief! I am not one to use exclamation points all willy-nilly, but I'm going to throw in a few more to show how much better it feels to have those things gone--!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I go to get my stitches out, too.

I have a bad sore throat. I think it's from having the tube down my throat while I was out, and also from sleeping on my back with my mouth hanging open in the air-conditioned house...if y'all could cross your fingers that it will go away fast and not develop into something unpleasant...? I would so appreciate it! I'm going to ask at the doctor's tomorrow about it, too, maybe it's one of those common things. No fever, it just hurts when I swallow. I'm drinking lots of fluids, so I'm swallowing a lot.

The girls are getting itchy as all get out, which is a good sign, from what I've read. The doctor barely gave them a glance today, so I assume that means they're okay. At least he didn't recoil and gasp in horror, right?

I'm still tired and sleeping every chance I get--and very bored in between. Lots of crosswords getting done here, and not much else. I seem to have just about enough brain capacity to fill in letters on a crossword puzzle, but not enough to read anything more demanding than a magazine or a book I've already read before.

I can't say enough how grateful I am for all the love and concern I've gotten by way of Facebook, the phone, the U.S. mail, and face-to-face, too...thank you all so, so, SO much. I am really doing great and still feeling amazingly good.

Doing good, just very tired today and the drains are still giving me a lot of pain and discomfort. But I get to go in tomorrow to have them taken out, rather than Friday, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I pulled out all the extra padding and gauze from my bra today and got a look at the girls for the first time--yeesh. My out-loud pep talk to myself went something like this: "Okay, slowly, slowly, there we go, oh ick ick ick, don't look at that, oh yuck that's nasty, ow ow ow, okay now hold that and now pull that and here we go and close it back up. Whew!"

They can only get better looking from here, let's just put it that way!

Still doing well.

Everything's still good here. The only real pain/bother I'm having is with these stupid drains. When they start to hurt too much, I just take a Percocet and have a nice little nap, and then awake feeling quite good and alert. It's nice to have the alertness between the naps, rather than feeling drugged up all the time.

I've got a frozen dinner in the oven and Todd will be home from work soon and maybe we'll watch a little "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" tonight. Things are good.

Post-op.

I am home and not doing too bad at all. I was feeling pretty awful when I came out of surgery, and in recovery, and on the drive home, and for about an hour after I got home. Then the Percocet kicked in and I have been having a series of nice naps, broken only when my snores wake me up.

I hate sleeping on my back, because of the snoring, and because I never feel like I get into the deep, good sleep, but I'll be having to put up with that for a while.

I'm not sure what I did in Acute Recovery when I was waking up, but when the nurse wheeled me into regular Recovery, she announced, "Here's Ms. Clark, the wildcat!" She was laughing, but yikes! She told me I pulled off my oxygen mask and threw it at her. I can also remember repeatedly trying to sit up and people pushing me back down. I always seem to wake up from anesthesia in a bit of a panic, I'm not sure why.

They were really good to me, though, fetched me my mints from my purse and made sure I had plenty of water and ginger ale to drink and Saltines to eat. I was feeling extremely queasy and terrified that I would throw up and/or dry heave, which would have been painful, to say the least.

The only part that really distressed me was how uncomfortable the post-op bra was, and the fact that I have (avert your eyes if you're sensitive) these drains inserted with crazy long tubes that run to these squeeze bulb thingys that we're supposed to uncork and drain off a couple times a day, measuring the fluid each time. They are super unwieldy--I got my hand caught on one of the tubes and almost pulled it out by accident--and I have to walk around with them sticking out of me till Friday. Not real happy about that.

But once we'd gotten home and I'd had my first Percocet nap, I looked at the bra and realized they'd gotten it onto me completely crooked, plus the straps were twisted. So we unfastened it and got it moved into place, and then rearranged the drains and taped the tubes down to the bra. Much better and much more comfortable.

This is probably way more detail than anyone wants! But it feels so good to be sitting upright and thinking lucid thoughts!

Now, I really can't tell how much "smallening" has taken place yet. I'm padded with gauze and swollen up and draining off fluid. (Yucko.) Todd says there's a big difference. My neck feels better than it has in years, though, so that's encouraging!

Thanks for the phone calls and the good thoughts...I really appreciate it. If anyone catches me during a lucid moment, I may be ready to have a phone conversation, otherwise Todd will field them. Right now my wish is for Friday to come fast. I look like I'm ready to get hooked up to some demented milking machine...with really horrible-looking milk. (Yucko again.)

See y'all later.