A Time for all things

This week, my Beloved and I are preparing to go to war. To be more specific, A war. Quad War, it's called. It's the largest annual gathering in the Principality of Avacal. Oh, you've not heard of the Society for Creative Anachronism? See sca.org for beginner's information on the SCA. See also http://www.sca.org for more information on the Society, and http://quadwar.avacal-sca.org/index.htm for the website of the event known as Quad War.

For now, we have acquired a new tent, two new foam-filled air mattresses, stove and fuel... Now we're getting the clothing ready. We each need garb for four days - and water for four. My Beloved is sewing at every spare moment, and I am attempting to braid four cords with the lucet, to be used to tie collars and cuffs of children's shirts. The stove works: I heated water for tea last night on the back steps. The air mattresses took a long time to inflate decently at first, but they're very comfortable. The sleeping bags will be checked tomorrow evening. Life is good.

Since I practice only modern first aid on our injured populace (if any injuries occur), I am not allowed to carry leeches, except the gummi variety. Gummi worms will be taken, and prescribed as needed. "No., no, don't swallow it whole; you have to grind it up by chewing for the medicine to work!"

The things that people have to go through...

Since I last posted, I survived a colonoscopy on July 14; yeah, the doctor thinks I’m getting “older” and am beginning to need routine preventive maintenance. And I discovered how small the world can be.

I could go into excruciating detail about it, but there are people reading who might get squeamish. Or would it be more accurate to say that there are SOME people reading who might NOT get squeamish?... So let’s just say that it’s a private sort of place, and not most people’s idea of the best thing to put on television. But if you’re told to have one, please don’t worry about having a colonoscopy. They’re not that bad, honest!

I will give a very brief synopsis: the liquid diet was not bad. It made an interesting challenge: can Neil walk past cookies, potato chips, beer, cheese, and my Beloved’s leftovers in the fridge? Yes, he can. For two days.

The worst part of the whole thing is the laxative. They try to make it semi-palatable by adding a really strong orange taste. That probably wasn’t as bad as the stuff would taste without it, but it was disgusting anyway.

Second worst part was waiting 7 hours in the hospital to have it done. By the time I was wheeled into the room, I was ready to undergo ANYTHING just to get out of there. So in a way, the long wait was a good thing: I stopped being scared, and just got impatient for it to be over with.

The third worst thing was for me only (for your sake, dear reader, I dearly hope it was only me): the nurse assisting recognized me from my workplace... Oh, lovely! Here I am, about to display some of my most private anatomy, and the nurse says, “I know you from the art gallery!” Thank you, no; I work for the City, not the gallery. They just lease the space in our building. And here I am, hooked up to intravenous, pulse oximeter (I have a resting pulse that didn’t want to go below 57), blood pressure cuff, and there’s tools around me that would make the Grand Inquisitor jealous, and I’m explaining my workplace to the nurse...

Trust me, colonoscopies don’t hurt; the drugs are very good. They do, however, inflate the, um, work site with air to ease the tool’s passage. The air goes in, distends the stomach, which is uncomfortable, and afterwards you’re told to lie on your left side, because that’s the way the wind blows. And blow it does. They encourage you to let the air pass without shame. The distention goes down, they call your ride home and you’re done.

And yes, there is a CRT screen in the room; it’s necessary, and allows the procedure in the first place. And no, I did NOT watch. I fell asleep. GOOD drugs.

And after all that, there’s actually a good side to what I went through. Well, two for me. They didn’t find anything evil, which is good. But they also asked if I’d be part of a survey group (YES! anything that helps). They needed an extra but small blood sample (sorry, Elizabeth), and two weeks later, I give another fasting blood sample, and that’s it for me. The reason is that there’s some sort of bio-marker been discovered in the blood. If you have the marker, you may have a 90% probability of bowel or colon cancer. If the marker isn’t in your blood, you are unlikely to develop cancer down there. So the study (whose lead researcher is married to someone I work with), is looking at the reliability of the bio-marker. If it turns out to be reliable, I may have helped prevent you, or more likely your children, from having to undergo routine screening colonoscopy procedures. And that IS a good thing!

But I still think my doctor could have found a more appropriate way to celebrate the storming of the Bastille last Monday.

Of Bicycles and Cats

Having bought and transported home by bicycle (on separate occasions) a tent that will comfortably sleep five, and a four-foot ladder, I found today that a new propane stove was in order. Of course, it came home on the bicycle. In terms of attaching things to a bicycle, it was like shooting fish in a barrel.




In light of my use of a bicycle for transport, I ask you, gentle reader, to comment with the strangest thing you have seen being transported on a bicycle. No, your little sister/brother doesn’t count. I will start the bidding, as it were, with having seen a cyclist pulling another bicycle; he had the front wheel strapped to an Xtracycle (a kind of frame extension/funky pannier), but it would have been little trouble to do the same trick with a regular bicycle. Or would it? Hmmm. Perhaps I’ll have to try it some time.

Meanwhile, it’s a cat’s life at our house. Our Siamese helped clean Youngest Son’s room by preventing any books from falling behind the bed.


I see a LOLCats caption for this photo: “Now that I’ve finally finished reading these books, I need a nap.”

Music!

I went to a practice tonight for the benefit I'm going to play at this month. I discovered that my mandolin calluses are gone, my shoulder hurts if I play the bones, and I still love making music.

Penny whistles still work for me, though, and even though I'm going to have to relearn a bunch of tunes, it'll be worth it.

However, I'll miss the fiddler I played with ten years ago. Barbara Powell was a wonderful player, and I felt almost telepathic when we played together. But she died about five years ago of breast cancer. That was when some of the musical magic died. I'll always treasure the memories of playing with you, Barb.

It's late, and I'm too tired to make sense. I'll try to post something meaningful next time.

Canada Day

I spent the afternoon in the park with my Beloved and two younger sons, and some of the local group from the Society for Creative Anachronism. We had been asked to show what we do, so four members wore armour and fought each other several times, I was the herald/announcer for a while, and we sat aound and looked cool for four hours. My Beloved took a drop spindle and attracted as much attention as possible while explaining how much work people had to do to create clothing.

I have no photos of the event because of (1) privacy issues, and (2) I suck at action photos.

it was hot and windy, with forest fire smoke blown in from the northern part of the province, but we had a good time.

Beth at Screw Bronze mentioned today that she has received the necklace I sent her. I put 5 belly dance bells on a cord made of crochet cotton, and braided on a lucet. What is a lucet, you ask? Well, here's a photo of mine, with the necklace in progress. I made the lucet from a spare piece of oak, and have made several small projects with it. Lots of fun, and good for surprising wonderful people with small gifts.


Now, it's after midnight and I'm exhausted from the day, so I'll post this to see how it looks.