A real Vacation

Ah Yes, I did. I took a real vacation. This past week. I didn't really do it on purpose, but I'm sort of glad that it happened.

This vacation was sort of imposed on me by mother nature? Or the fates? Whoever's in charge of pulled muscles made me do it. As I was getting on the plane to come home, I stepped into my narrow row of seats, and facing the back of the plane, tried to lean forward to get my backpack off my back. There wasn't enough room for me to bend my knees, so I just leaned, straight-legged, forward and felt it. It was a snap in my lower left leg, and then something like a bungee chord rippling up my leg. No pain.... but the thought, this can't be good. So I unpacked things I needed for the flight, and sure enough when I stepped back out in the aisle to put my back pack up in the compartment, wow. I decided to get some ice. Thank goodness I was almost to the back of the plane anyway or it would have been a very painful walk. The flight attendants were very nice and gave me a pack of ice. But when I got back to my seat all of the worst thoughts started coming into my head; emergency surgery, crutches for the next six months, permanent injury for the rest of my life.... But there wasn't much to do about it for the next 8 hours. The ice helped a bit, but then later I had to get up again and when I got the back of the plane I new something else - there was no way I was going to make it from the plane to any baggage claim. So the nice flight attendants gave me a hot pack this time, and said they would order me a wheel chair.

Long Story Short: this is the fastest way to get through customs ever. There was an enormous line - and I got wheeled right past all of them and was through security in a blink. My luggage was there already and the nice lady who had to push me all over the place got me into a cab. I got home, the nice cab driver helped get my stuff into my house and took me straight to an emergency room. And to still keep it short - after a two hour wait in the emergency room, all I have is a pulled muscle. But I got ace bandages and crutches and instructions to take 600mg of Ibuprofen. (Which I thought was the same stuff I was supposed to take for my eye - where they gave me another drug to keep me from having stomach bleeding. Can that be true? I'll have to go back and check.) I ignored the Ibuprofen, and just used up a whole tube of arnica. The pain was only there where I tried to walk on it anyway. So, for injuries this summer that makes 3, emergency room visits, 2. I'm done for a while I think.

Thus the imposed vacation. I decided to just go with it. I had movies and knitting and I think I really did need the break. I also looked in my own library and decided I needed to re-read The Secret Garden. I remembered that I had loved that book for a few years and then got over it. Re-reading it now reminds me why I loved it. By Tuesday I was walking without any crutches, but carefully. Stairs and moving fast are still a problem. Not too bad, but I still have to be careful. Not so much standing for me at work this week either.

While I did check out for quite a bit this week I managed to get my syllabus done! Shocking! A whole week and a half early. I just need to fine tune the course book, make some corrections, add some new things and all will be good.

Friday I spent the day with my friend Mary, who just bought a house and quite her job to start her own business. Go Mary! So what do you need to do in that case? Spend money! We went to IKEA to get chairs and supplies for her, and a new set of kitchen knives for me.

It turns out I have been cutting with .... I can't even come up with a good word for it - My old knives, while pretty colors (on the right) are just dull, dull, dull. I've always tried to do the fancy chef cutting of veggies, where they leave the knife tip on the cutting board and I was never able to do it. That's because I always had to saw through everything. With these new knives, holy cow, they just glide through things like butter. I feel like a grown up now.

And then the garden.

Yes, after three weeks of neglect it had pretty much turned into a jungle. Ugh. So I tackled that yesterday But the garden is doing beautifully. I have tons of tomatoes, flowers and... cantaloupes!

Okay, I only have three so far, but I've got high hopes. This vine went crazy and is about 5ftx5ft. It was attacking everything in sight, tomato plant, forsythia, pine tree. I think if I would have let it, it would just have taken over everywhere.

And my celosias are just gorgeous. I will have these all the time in my garden. They are funny lookin' flowers aren't they?

Pictures really don't do them justice. I know I can dry them and if I remember correctly they seed really well. Maybe then I can save some money on the seeds. There was also this funny bug on the stalk. I tried to identify it on whatsthatbug.com but I couldn't find it. Maybe I'll send them the picture and ask.

And Jacques? He's fine. He's happy I'm back. He was fine spending every morning in his basket next to me. But in the afternoons he wanted out. There are always things to guard, cats to chase, and sounds to try to figure out.