I'm Avuncular Again!

avuncular: Having the qualities of an uncle — genial, generous, tolerant

My best friend Jean had her baby early this morning, five weeks early. At under five pounds, little Lillian Page is pretty tiny, but both people involved appear to be healthy. I'm excited about being an "uncle" again.

Drew Peterson: Homicidal Don Juan or Lucky Bastard?

Drew Peterson's third wife was murdered, and Drew himself is a suspect. Then his fourth wife went missing, and again he is a suspect. And now, this 55-year-old is engaged to a 24-year-old woman.

I've had one date in, well, let's just say since Drew's wife went missing. I only have one past wife, and she's still alive and well. I'm not a suspect in any police investigations (or, if I am, I've never been alerted to the fact). How does Drew manage to find a woman 31 years his junior and get engaged? It just doesn't seem fair.

Having watched their interview on The Today Show, perhaps I shouldn't be too upset. This particular young lady doesn't seem like the sharpest needle in the haystack. Perhaps I just have higher standards than Mr. Peterson. (I know, I know -- whatever let's me sleep at night.)

One of the oddest things things that came out of the interview was that, between the two of them, they have eight children, with one grandchild on the way. That means that this young lady will be a grandmother (step-grandmother?) at 25. That's just wrong.

Good luck to her. I hope she doesn't get murdered. I hope she comes to her senses before the wedding and finds a nice younger guy who's maybe only ten or twenty years older than she is.

A New Kitchen, and Then Some

The contractors were here nice and early this morning -- 8am. I guess I was the only one up and ready to go -- they started on my kitchen right away, even though I'm on the second floor. If I wasn't so overloaded with stuff at work, I would have been excited about the kitchen renovation all day long.

I came home to find a beautiful new kitchen. Pix below. New fridge, new range, new cabinets, new countertops. They even replaced the sink (including some more stylish fixtures) and the dishwasher. I didn't think they were going to replace the dishwasher.

My new sink with brushed-nickel faucet even comes with a sprayer. W00t!

My new Whirlpool oven with the clock set to the wrong time.
There's a light in the oven; I'm livin' the high life now!

They even replaced the countertop and cabinet in the bathroom.

That's me in the ugly Hawaiian shirt.

They also replaced all the door knobs with stylish handles, and the three cheap ceiling lights in the hallways and bathroom with nice, frosted-glass lights. They already raised my rent this year, and from the looks of things, I can expect them to do it again next fall.

My inaugural dinner in my new stove was baked to perfection:



I only wish I would have taken a"before" picture. (Of the kitchen, not the dinner.)

I spent all of Monday night getting everything out of the kitchen and into boxes and bags in the dining room. I'm procrastinating on moving everything back. Why ruin such a pristine kitchen?

Good News for Foot and Kitchen

Good news was waiting when I got home from work yesterday. I got a bright green note from the apartment complex that my building is on the list for kitchen renovation next Tuesday. This is the same kitchen renovation I've been looking forward to since last April. Monday night I'll be emptying everything in the kitchen except the fridge -- all cabinets, the drawer under the stove, the top of the fridge. Not to mention all the junk. (If you've seen the state of my kitchen, you know this is a big job.)

What do you think are the chances that it will go smoothly and quickly, and that I'll be enjoying a new kitchen Tuesday night?

I also got good news this morning. The swelling in my right foot has gone down quite a bit. It still looks uglier than what's in the previous pictures (moer bruising and burst capillaries), but it's gone from bratwurst to frankfurter. When I have the boot on, I can even put some pressure on it, so I've been able to hobble around with only one crutch.

I might have to go find myself a nice cane this weekend.

Good News, Bad News, and Ugly Photos

The Evolution of a Fractured Fibula

The bad news is that I cracked the base of my fibula — that bump that sticks out on the outside of your ankle. The ER folks put a hard splint thingy on it. Of course, my toes stuck out and just sat there being cold. Here's what it looked like, with Homer giving me a little warmth.

That's the nice view. Underneath that elastic, flesh-toned exterior lies an increasingly purple and swollen hoofer:

You can see the swelling there in my right foot, compared to my left.

The good news (I guess) came on Monday, when I saw the orthopaedist. They fitted me for an expensive, ill-fitting, open-toed ski boot:

I thought the splint was uncomfortable. My foot is forced into a 90-degree angle, which my swollenness does not appreciate, and I can't move anything. I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, though. It isn't a big plaster thing, and I can take it off to (very carefully) bathe.

I was kind of hoping for a little shake-up in my life, for something to change. This isn't really what I had in mind.

Wanted: Sympathy, Comic Books

If my 40s are anything like my 30s, I'll be dead before my 50s.

Let me explain what happened to me today. I had a nice lunch at Panera Bread and got a large coffee and lemon poppyseed mini-bundt cake to take with me to work. The guys in charge of such things did a remarkable job of clearing the snow out of the parking lot. Considering the slippery state of the roads in general, this was one clear parking lot.

I was thinking this as I walked to the building. I got to the sidewalk and noticed that they weren't quite so clear — mostly just snow that had blown across from beside the sidewalk. It was a little slippery, but a little slip doesn't didn't scare me. I got to the little dip in the sidewalk for wheelchair access — a little slope down to the lot — and I remember thinking that, if I were going to fall, it would be here on this little incline. But I made it across fine. But then,

The first step I took after the handicap ramp was a disaster. Most of my body slipped down to my right to the sidewalk. My right foot decided not to follow suit.

I hobbled into the building, inconvenienced about a dozen people going to and from lunch, nearly passed out, nearly vomited, and answered a bunch of questions from the woman in charge of the facilities. Then the ambulance showed up.

If you've ever been to the emergency room with non-life-threatening injuries, you know what I mean when I say that it's really just an expensive waiting room. I think I waited for over an hour before I could get my leg x-rayed. The IV they gave me in the ambulance emptied itself into my arm and hung there useless for maybe two hours.

In the end, I learned that I had cracked the bottom of, I believe, my fibula. Not a complete break, but a (painful) fracture all the same. They gave me a temporary cast, some pain meds, and the number of an orthopedist.

Now I'm finally home, laying on the couch. My ankle is throbbing. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to work out the rest of the weekend, and the remainder of the month. I can't drive (it's my drivin' foot). I suppose I could try to drive with my left foot, but that might not be such a good idea. Especially in this snowy weather.

I am thankful, though, that I bought the WiFi router, so I don't have to sit in front of my desktop to do stuff.

When my brother was laid up in the hospital for a few weeks at the beginning of the sixth grade, people brought him all sorts of comic books to read while he was there. I still remember being jealous. One of them was Peter Porker as Spiderham. Since then, I've always equated hospital stays or general medic down-times with comic books.

But I don't have any comic books. :( Maybe I'll go online and read the Heroes comix.

Conspiracy Theory Alert

Two things happened yesterday:

• A plane flying out of NYC was forced to land in the Hudson River in, as newscasts put it, "the shadow of ground zero."
  
• Dubya gave his farewell address.
  

I suspect a large number of anthropophobic, obsessive-compulsive conspiracy theorists are at this very instant penning their belief that these occurrences are not coincidental. The beginning if Dubya's presidency was marked with a terrible incident involving a commercial jet running into something that it shouldn't. And now, the end of his presidency is marked with another commercial airline incident — and in the same general location as the first!

I'm sure the stories will differ. Some may believe that this incident was designed to show people that, even though things can happen, airlines are still safer than they were on Sept. 11, 2001. Others may believe that this is a failed attempt (by either Bush or his enemies) to crash another plane in the same general area.

Who could be involved? Dubya and Cheney, of course. Barack Obama, likely. Big oil? Commercial airline bigwigs? Osama bin Laden? Rudy Giuliani? Al Frankton? The Illuminati? Martha Stewart?

Regardless of what their stories turn out to be, I'd wager that they will all miss the mark. The downing of flight 1549 reveals a new threat that I'm sure all the usual conspiracy theorists will miss, that will go unspoken even in the most paranoid circles. The threat is, of course, suicide Canada geese.

Of course, these are only the pawns in a global war against homo sapiens. The real ringleaders are the squirrels, the most intelligent animal on Earth apart from humans. (Have you ever been to a college or university — hubs of learning and cutting-edge technology — that wasn't jam-packed with eager squirrels?)

[Hat tip to Tim Bedore]

Who Could Hang a Name on You?

Why does every day seem like Tuesday?

Well, yes, today is Tuesday. But that was a surprise this morning; I was sure we had had a Tuesday yesterday. Tomorrow will be horrid — such a long week, and it's only Tuesday.

Wii-in 2

113 213 lbs. I count that as a 2-pound loss.

[Oops!]

The First Wii-In

Thanks to a freelance copy editing check, I bought a Wii today. Tomorrow, I'll sell my PS2 and games to cover some of the cost.

I decided recently that a Wii was for me after I did some boxing and tennis on someone else's Wii Sport (the game that comes with the console). My heart rate was up, and I was sweating...a decent cardio workout. And a helluva lot more fun than a stationary bike.

So I bought the Wii for health purposes. Really! I'll try to play on the Wii for 45 minutes to an hour each day (the sacrifices we make) as my exercise. I'll track my weight, and in mid-January I have to see my doctor again anyway, so I can see if the exercise is helping my cholesterol and triglycerides at all. In the meantime, I'll just have some fun.

So at tonight's Wii-in, I come in at an embarassing 215 lbs. Gotta start Wii-in' it off!