Surgery Recovery: Day 2

I just watched Kate board the commuter rail out my back window. Of all my time living here I've always walked to the subway so I anxiously await feedback on the efficiency of her commute.

Several hours after I finished off yesterday's entry, I awoke from a nap to find myself rather uncomfortable. I was sitting in a puddle, and apparently my ice pack had ruptured during my nap. The ice melted, taking with it the iodine I had on my shoulder and staining my sheets, my shirt, and yes... sadly even my recliner. For the most part the recliner looks all right, but I can't say the same for the sheets and shirt. I immediately soaked the shirt with some stain remover. The sheets are pictured below, it sort of looks like I had some sort of bio-accident. Here I am modeling my replacement shirt and a new ice pack that Kate was kind enough to pick up for me.

Around noon today, I'll remove my bandage, shower, and apply some band-aids. This means no more shirt over the sling. It should be a great improvement over my current state!

Well as my arm is starting to ache, I think it is time for me to get back to my drugs.

TGIF?

Happy Halloween

Surgery Recovery: Day 1

Well I'm all in one piece after my torn labrum repair (ligaments in shoulder). My general anesthesia didn't make me violently ill or anything, but I was queasy afterwards, to the point where the cute Irish nurse attending to me gave me a second bag of fluids and held me in the OR longer to recover. They seemed a bit weirded out by how pale I was. It had been a while since I had bitten anyone in the neck, and so it was to be expected.

My Mom and Aunt Gigi came down and drove me to and from surgery. Afterward they picked up some goodies for me from Shaws Supermarket while I began what will be a week of vegging out and recuperating. Kate picked up the "George-watch" duty where they left off. She brought over a nice veggie platter that she made herself, which served as part of my breakfast today. Yesterday all I ate was a can of chicken noodle soup, a handful of grapes and a scoop of ice cream. You aren't allowed to eat anything after midnight, before surgery.

The Doctor gave me some Percocet for the pain, and a nasty smelling and tasting antibiotic, Cephalexin

I did manage to get some sleep last night. Kate came over to make sure I dealt with the drugs OK, and to keep me company. She'll be back again tonight, I look forward to it.

Well... as I am tired, and as I am not quite up to 2 hand typing yet, I think I'm going to cut this short and get some more rest.

I'll post my progress: Tomorrow bandage removing and my first post-op shower.....exciting!

Just like the old days....

Well the Red Sox made it into the playoffs, led us on, and then let us down.

A packed Tropicana field celebrated, overflowing with newly minted fans who never showed up to games, or bothered to care until their team made the playoffs. I wonder if it will go back to being vacant again next year, or filled with patrons supporting the opponent.

I kind of wish Lester had been taken out of the game earlier, to me it reminded me of 2003 where Pedro Martinez was left in to pitch against the Yankees too long, however given the strength of our bullpen now vs. what it was then, I just thought it would have been more obvious this time around, but I guess not. It would have been fine to leave him in during a typical season game, but in the deciding game to get in the World Series? I don't know, I guess I just don't see it that way.

With any luck hopefully we won't have repeat performances of this night that last for another 86 years.

My weekend was spent cleaning the apartment, and on Saturday night I had dinner with Kate and her mother, which was nice. Tonight Kate and I got together for a light meal at Panera.

Well..... Go Phillies!! (Can't say I'm going to change plans to watch the world series however..)

Postings far and few between...

I know, I know.... I've been lax in the world of blogging.

I'll get better....

Politics quite frankly has been even too grim for me as of late.

Work has been busy, and my life outside of work has been busy as well with Dr. appointments etc.

Kate and I celebrated her birthday last night. We went to her favorite guilty pleasure restaurant, "Friendly's" and had some greasy food. I brought over a cookie cake which I'm sure she and her roommates are enjoying.

I slept "wrong" last night and I've had a sore upper back all day. I'm headed to bed with an ice pack.

The Red Sox had a great turn around tonight. Those early innings made me queasy, but in the end we get to face the Rays back in St. Petersburg.

Tomorrow (Today technically speaking) is Friday, and that is welcome news if I ever heard any....

May everyone enjoy their weekend!

October Weekends, take 2.

My weekend started out with a show at the Middle East that featured Dr. Dog, Delta Spirit, and Hacienda. Hacienda and Delta Spirit were some of the best "opening" bands I've seen. I'm definitely going to have to go and try to track down some of their tunes. The show started late, however I entertained myself watching the Red Sox play in the mean time. I actually only ended up staying for I estimate, half of the Dr. Dog performance. This was primarily due to the show's really late start. Dr. Dog didn't get on stage till probably quarter of 12:00. As the T (subway) service can be dicey after 12:30 (they shut down around this time), I ended up leaving around 12:20. The cab ride can be as much as $35 to $40 back to Melrose and that didn't seem like a real attractive option. I might of considered it, but to be honest when Dr. Dog got on stage they turned their volume way too high. The vocals sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher, and I could feel them resonating in the beer can I was holding. I threw ear plugs in, when they weren't even half way through the first song and it was still too loud. I'm tempted to send a comment to their web page as sort of an FYI, but I'm not sure how serious they would take it. I'm sure it would have been great if they care more about sound quality and less about the shock & awe of being louder than the openers. One thought was that their systems just were set too high for the small Basement club that is "The Middle East".


Kate came over on Saturday and I had prepared a tomato tortellini soup (from a mix that my Aunt Rita had purchased for me) and made up some Italian sandwiches. The soup is great and I look forward to finishing the rest off this week.


Sunday I got up early and set a pot roast up in the crock pot for supper. Kate and I had pancakes for breakfast, and then afterward she helped me clean my car (which was desperately needed). We walked up into the Fells Reservation and then back to Main St. to supplement our feast with apple cider and pumpkin pie. It was a lovely autumn feast. Kate said she felt as though she were a puritan settler eating a meal during harvest.
I was feeling pretty lazy and tired all day for some reason...

Smoken Joe's

Kate took me out to a new BBQ joint in Brighton Center tonight called Smoken Joe's BBQ. The food was excellent, affordable, and the atmosphere was laid back and casual. As an added bonus a decent jazz group began performing as we were finishing our meal. We were reluctant to leave but decided we wanted to spend the rest of our time walking around on such a nice evening.

I wanted to add in this amusing Conan O'Brien clip where he took some liberties of the debate footage.

A rather uneventful weekend

The Red Sox played two exciting games, although it is a shame that tonight's ended the way it did. I really didn't want the Angels to break their losing streak.

Saturday was a day of many errands, laundry, my car inspection, and taking the air conditioner down for the season. In the evening Kate came over and she and I got some take-out from Liberty Bell. I had fish & chips and she had the chicken finger plate. The fried food and cole slaw was very satisfying . Saturday Night Live had one of the best shows I've seen them put on in quite a long time. Their take on Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Frank, and President Bush giving a press conference on the bailout was spot on, albeit marginally exaggerated (by a hair or so). The Killers were the musical act. I had seen them on either SNL or Conan back when their first album came out and recalled their performance being rather poor despite having liked samples I had previously heard in a record store (which honestly made me write them off). They seemed to give a solid performance this time around. Their take on the post punk/ new wave sound to me doesn't quite measure up to Interpol, or their precursors from the 80s (The Cure, Joy Division, Stone Roses, etc.) but I still would say their are probably better than most of the crap on pop radio today. I really got a kick out of the lead singer because his stage antics were basically a study of David Byrne's Talking Heads days... stiff spastic, at times symmetrical movements, with an oddly disconnected expression on his face as he sang.

Sunday didn't go quite as planned. Kate and I were going to go to the Topsfield fair, however, we headed out a bit too late. After sitting in traffic for an hour or so, we decided to cut our losses, turn around and get lunch. We stopped at Chili's on rt. 1 and had a mediocre chain restaurant meal. The chips and salsa were good if nothing else. Next I decided to head back to my apartment a bring a lamp that I don't use much to Kate's. It is one of those cheap dorm room lamps, and actually it belonged to Tim Hayes and he left it behind. Kate was going to put it behind her standing mirror in her room, however when I tried to clean the plastic lamp shade it broke in pieces. (I was very sad) We tried looking to see if there was something that we could use as a substitute but our search at K-mart and Target proved fruitless. I ended up saving the energy saving light bulb I had in it and tossed the lamp. On a positive note Kate did manage to get some shopping out of the way while we were looking around.