Turkey Day Weekend....

It was a rather melancholy Thanksgiving for me. My Aunt Gigi was away in Maryland visiting my Aunt Rita & Uncle Fritz and cousin Hope, her husband Tom and their newborn Justin. My holiday as a result was extra small, and it consisted of just my parents and I. My parents are taking on the project of moving the bathtub and re-tiling the wall in the bathroom. As a result I could not take showers while I was home, which was tough to bear. I find baths kind of worthless (I always feel as dirty or more dirty after them), and the whole sponge bath technique never seems to do the job.

Shopping didn't go as I would hope, all I bought was wrapping paper. The malls in my home town of Lewiston/Auburn were rather dead too. A sign of the times. I suspect the markets will reflect this as the figures start coming in and "Black Friday" turns out to be "Still in the Red Friday".

I took my mother out for her first Thai meal at "The Thai Dish" in Auburn, which actually has a location here in Boston as well. The food was pretty decent and could stand up to the Thai establishments of Boston. My mother busied herself pegging the staff with questions ranging from the composition of Thai tea, to the portraits of Thai royalty on the wall. One amusing result of this inquisition was the admission that a tapestry actually had a Japanese sign on it rather than a Thai character. The staff did not know what it meant, but joked that they might just tell anyone else who asked that it means "Love".

I had hoped to see my friend Eric Labelle, however he did not make it back to Sabattus from Manchester, NH as planned. I never got around to seeing my other old high school friend who lives in Lewiston, Jason Chaloux. I suspect it would have been tough to orchestrate with the holidays, and since he works a lot of hours at the county jail. I will have to make a more of an effort to get in touch during Christmas break.

1 month post op now. I have an appointment tomorrow, however I've just realized that I have conflicting appointment information, one form says that it is at 10:00 am, another 3:00 pm. Go figure. I guess I will be showing up for the 10:00 am, and if that time is wrong, I can busy myself shopping at the North Shore Mall.

So long November 08, you've been a month for the history books in more ways than one.

The old haunt...

Kate and I had a great evening out after work. We met at our favorite Chinese restaurant in the Boston area "Mary Chung's". We warmed ourselves with some hot tea, and enjoyed our food and great conversation. I tried Mary Chung's "scallion pancakes", an item I've never had but had read about in reviews of the restaurant. They were quite good and were served with a spicy soy based dipping sauce. Kate had chicken with peppers in a black pepper sauce, and I had chicken lo-mein. I had never tried the lo-mein there before but the noodles were al dente, and the vegetables were crisp, just how I like it. Mary Chung's has one of those endless menus, and has preparations that are probably less "Americanized" than the typical Chinese restaurant.

After our meal Kate and I went to the 1369 Coffee House in Central square. We had hot chocolate and a Blondie-Brownie. It was tough to go home. We'll have to wait till after Thanksgiving till our next night out on the town.... travesty.

Sushi and Spinach

Makes a fine supper....

It has been an exhausting day, work, meetings, a sense of no accomplishment, and some physical therapy.

A random sampling of things I experienced today:

A mentally ill man on the subway claimed that everyone was hitting him.

Pigeons sharing bread crumbs with those tiny frisky birds.

A young woman with a cell phone and an ipod rudely ask a elderly overweight woman with a cane to step aside so she could get by when exiting the Central Square subway station.

People not washing their hands after releasing violent diarrhea in the bathroom stall next to me.

The continuous announcements of Obama's "bipartisan cabinet of change".

A cold and crisp November day.

Other than that Mitt Romney has apparently decided to return to making sense now that he is no longer running for president. This column he wrote for the NY Times is worth a read.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html

From article:
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check."

You might have seen this today:
Big Three auto CEOs flew private jets to ask for taxpayer money
You can tell there is a crappy business model for American automakers when the U.S. congress can point out wasteful spending.

It is good to see that DC seems to be listening for the time being, however it is short lived. Pro-Union Barack has already pledged to help Barney Frank and company send a bailout to Detroit so Unions can continue to overpay a spoiled, unproductive, work force. Unions all of course supported Barack and donated heavily to his campaign and the campaign of democrats every where. Payment for a service.... I thought Barack was supposed to be above that sort of thing?

Related reading:
Labor unions look to cash in with Dems

American Axle Strike: Unions Continue to Kill U.S. Manufacturing

1st post op physical therapy session

Well it was this morning and it went fairly well. No complaints. I don't have a lot to write about. Work is busy, life is hectic. Annoying things have been going wrong on top of my surgery to make life that much more fun.

I've been doing some paperwork in the evening, and I've occasionally been taking some work home with me. (Yecch...)

Tonight I had some Chinese take out, a kung pao chicken combo (George likes his chicken spicy), did a few errands, and then finally sat down for some Cosby Show reruns. The Cosby show is my new guilty pleasure... reminds me of childhood I guess.

So I guess that's all. Not much to report.

You wouldn't believe me if I told you....

I'm having a little tiff with the landlord about him fixing a running bath tub faucet. It took the landlord 3 business days to respond, and if I was an outsider, and if my arm wasn't in a sling... his response may have been comical.....

Guesses anyone?

In other news our once "generous billionaire's" true colors are revealed when he turns out to be just another big business opportunist looking to exploit the public. Suddenly when he finds out that he can't make as much of a fortune off of the Natural gas due to falling gas prices... suddenly independence from foreign oil and reducing CO2 emissions gets put on the back burner.
Can't say I'm surprised.
Pickens' wind plan hits a snag

sigh....

Too tired to write anything.... I'll write about my eventful day tomorrow if I manage to survive it.

Surgery Recovery: Day 6

I can't tell if my allergic reaction from the bandaging is getting worse or better. Today it was scabbing over, and I decided to wear a white T-shirt all day. This is a milestone, the first day I put on a shirt that didn't button up the front.

Last night was the first night I didn't have Kate over in several days. I did miss her, and I found myself waking up in the middle of the night and putting the television on to help me fall back to sleep.

Today I logged into work and worked on one of my reports. It was a bit aggravating because my work lap top was especially slow over the VPN connection. I made a couple of substantial edits to a report before giving in for the day and eating the left over shepherd's pie for supper.

Tomorrow is election day and its results will likely (almost certainly) mark a fundamental change in nearly all American policy for years to come. I'm going to hobble across the street to my polling center, cast my vote, and then return and watch the talking heads. It will be very interesting to watch history unfold over the next few years. I'll be awaiting the "New"New Deal, the potential for isolationist policies, and to see if the end of free trade is brought by Obama as he has been promising to many of the blue collar Americans he is courting.

If you visit Obama's website, he is promising to expand pretty much every program including the military, all while creating giant new bureaucracies (Nationalized health and College tuition for "Volunteer" work), then he also says he'll be fiscally responsible, and at the same time he'll cut taxes for 95% of Americans. It makes George W. Bush's fuzzy math seem pretty straight forward. And he even continues to sell these ideas in the face of over 1 trillion in "bailout" spending. Did I mention that Barack Obama is anti big business and wants to increase energy taxes? Something has to give somewhere.... It will be interesting to see what it is, how it is spun, and what the public reaction is.

Surgery Recovery: Days 3,4, and 5

Halloween was a rather uneventful day, with the exception that I was able to take the bandage off finally. I did take some pictures of my iodine and adhesive stained wounded shoulder, but I decided against ruining any one's Monday morning by posting them here. Kate and I celebrated Halloween by getting some pizza delivered, and watching some of ghost hunters, and the latest Harry Potter installment. I continued with my regiment of opiates to sedate me, which made for some good sleeping, albeit with rather strange dreams that included the occasional glowing disembodied head.

On Saturday Kate and I put a jigsaw puzzle together that she bought me. She had mentioned it previously, and asked me what sort of puzzle I'd want, just in case I wanted to hang it up. I thought a retro-food advertisement would be nice to put in the kitchen. I think the coke ad that she settled on will look pretty sweet in a frame.
After putting the puzzle together, Kate and I went to Shaw's and CVS to pick up some more band aids for my shoulder, and ingredients for supper. Kate cooked up an excellent meal of Shepherd's pie. I look forward to having the left overs this week!

Here I am interacting with Molly (the plant) in a drug induced haze. This is me headed out for the first time post surgery. This coat, with some effort is able to fit over my sling. I suspect I am going to have to stand on the Subway because it makes me sort of bulky.
Here I am getting high off of a Reese's peanut butter cup wrapper. I thought it would be a good alternative to eating more junk than I should, and rationing out my supply.Chinese food on Sunday! The ice pack on my shoulder was named "Binky" by Kate. The suggestion I believe was that I hold a certain amount of affection for it, which I'm neither going to confirm or deny.

Kate made the time go by fast and helped me out a lot through out the Weekend. I'm really lucky to have her in my life!