The holiday rushes

This year we’re having Thanksgiving in Harlem with some of my friends from school. I’m thinking of making the “Impossible Fat-Free Gluten-Free Vegan Cushaw Pie,” probably sans the cutshaw. This is not because of a fear of the squash family. I am well known for making a mean delicata that according to my friend Wes, tastes like cake. Rather, it is poorness and laziness that will probably send me straight to the canned pumpkin. I already have some organic canned pumpkin, and as noted in Susan’s blog, since it’s canned, it might even be cutshaw anyway. Hooray for pumpkin pie! The spread uptown will run the full gamut from actual turkey to vegan fare, so that will be interesting. My friend Christina, who is hosting, is an amazing cook, and also one of the more studious among us, so its always a total shock that she manages to throw together some of the delicous dishes that she does.

I had a good full weekend of houseguest hosting/friend seeing, and managed to fit some knitting and economics reading in as well. I have to find a way to come off of the pain pills completely, as I feel my slightly altered state, although perhaps now amenable for academic pursuits due to tolerance, has made me a lazy and bad hostess. I’m really looking forward to getting through the rest of the half week. I have my make up exam tomorrow, and a half day of work on Tuesday as well as class. Wednesday will be a half day at the office for me, and a full day for Ian – his last day at his advertising job before he begins at the new place. I’m really looking forward to diving into the lit review for my PDR a little more; hopefully finishing it even by the week’s end. Okay, I’m even more looking forward to baking, sleeping in and doing some laundry.

because an owl has never ruined christmas

Surely Christmas can’t be ruined by an owl.

My second time in the ER, for the kick-in-the-back pain, I had my first encounter with IV painkillers. That’s when the owls started to bite. Small, baby owls, politely biting me under the covers. Ian thought that was funny, but I thought it was hilarious. I still wake up some nights here at home from unexplained prickly pains (very mild) in my legs and I think of the baby owls.

I am so thrilled that Janelle Schlossman has allowed me to express my whole gall bladder experience thusfar through knitting. Until I learn to knit melancholy pears, anyway, I have this owl dishcloth. Not everyone knows about my slight hallucinations, however, everyone will be receiving an owl this year in addition to whatever magical item also fits at that intersection of my skill level and budget and their taste. Since everyone’s getting one, I figured a few pictures couldn’t hurt. The new laptop leaves me without the ability to edit my photos to my taste, but gives the added efficiency of lighteningly speedy uploads. So quantity, not quality is what we’re about.

Red may seem an odd choice for kitcheny things, but our living room/kitchen is red and blue and orange and I have four skeins of Lion Cotton in cherry. Enough for several of these, and hopefully, a bucket hat, to tide me over until Smiley’s next sale, when I can diversify my cotton stash.

doubling something akin to light pleasure

This is my first Christmas as a real knitter. Suffice to say, its a pretty classic story of how everyone I know is getting knitwear this year.

More details later, after Christmas, I suppose. Fantine came along like a horserace, and then I had to learn how to pick up stitches for the sleeves. This lesson has not gone nearly as well as the crossed stitches lesson, and she currently drapes Seth’s old favorite rocking chair. I’m not giving up; its just that the Christmas gifts are taking up all my alloted knitting time for now. The good news is that French Girl came through yet again with Violette, teaching me cables without telling me it was teaching me cables.

School is looking up. I’m not so far behind in my PDR; had a great meeting with my professor, and she loved my client memo. I’m beginning to have regular meetings with my client and I’m at a good point in my lit review. This is not to say that things are well. After 6 months of vague gall bladder symptoms (you know, the ones listed at the bottom of the webpage as “other symptoms can include”) I had my first attack two nights ago. It was scary.

I know I left off at this blog with the HIDA scan back in late September or early October. A quick recap, since I’m doing a much better job of documenting this stuff over at myspace than I am here:

Had the HIDA, with no ejection fraction (an injection that can cause a lot of pain.) The radioactive tracer moved from the liver to the gallbladder quite normally; transit from the gallbladder to the small intestines was a different story. When my doctor saw the results, he scheduled me for endoscopic surgery, an ERCP. On the day of consultation with my surgeon, I woke with a pain in my back on the right side as if someone had kicked me as hard as they could. I went to the ER, met my surgeon’s colleague, and found that he had the same name as my recently departed cat, Seth. He became my new surgeon. A week later I had the ERCP. I got to stay in the hospital for a night. Ewww. The pain went away; it was replaced by surgery pain for about five days. The bloating and stomach aches went away too, for about a week, and then we were back to our regular routine. Since the ERCP, I’ve visited the ER one more time, for an echo of the pre-ERCP pain, managing to miss an Econ exam, and then there was the attack just the other night. But I’m marching on.

Urban danger will soon have two bloggers. We’re working out the details now. Instead of one advanced-beginner going on and on about her knitting, we will soon offer you two. For reals.

Hard times are hard to forget

It’s been a bad month. Ian and I lost Seth. I wrote about his passing in a place where my friends visit regularly. Also this month, I went under the knife, and no sooner than I recovered from the surgery pain, everything returned to the way it was before, with bloating and tummy aches. School has taken a backseat to a strained relationship and anger. This means more knitting and more crying and less of pretty much everything else.