Thursday, November 25, 2010

Let it snow

When Hannah left for school at 6:40 this morning, the streets were wet and it was drizzling, but by the time I left for my catsitting duties at 8:25, snow was falling fairly heavily (large flakes, falling at an angle so even an umbrella doesn't help 100% to keep them off you). I walked home through wet, slushy snow. At least it will disappear from the streets quickly--I don't have to get back out in it, but I have to think about John on his bike and Hannah on the bus later this afternoon.

The cat lives up toward the top edge of the valley, and the view of the snowy village below was really beautiful this morning. I wish I had a working camera to capture a bush covered in little yellow flowers along its side with a thick layer of snow on top, or pink roses, fully blown and draped in ice and snow. The warm, spring-like weather we had earlier in the month has not done the foliage any favors now that it is snowing.

Judging by this webcam, though, it is not that snowy down in town, just toward the top of the castle hill. We often get more snow up here than they do down there, and the village even above us often looks like a winter wonderland while we only have a light dusting of snow.

I have reached the tipping point in my current sewing project, and I'm finding it hard to get my brain engaged with translating instead of sewing. Both should be completed within the next week, though, barring a disaster.

-Nee in Germany likes walking on snow, thereby destroying it

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Home stretch

Just 2 more doses! Yesterday I bought a bunch of probiotic yoghurt to start chugging once I am done. I am thinking that after "eradication therapy", which sounds like scorched-earth warfare on my innards, I am going to need to jump start things.

I am getting rather tired of the incessant low-level nausea, the taste and sensation in my mouth of having just licked a whole xmas-list's worth of envelopes, and waking up 3 times a night and not even having to pee. Plus the anxiety over swallowing the larger pills without choking. When I feel nausea, I start stuffing myself, but then I feel overfull PLUS the nausea. I can't imagine suffering through it for a long time, like during chemotherapy. So I am telling myself not to be such a wiener.

[Had to take a quick break to de-escalate a situation with the cats in the next room. It sounded like one might be ripping the other's head off, but when I walked in, they were sitting about 2 feet apart looking at each other. Whatever.]

I am already feeling like I have a lot more energy. Part of that may just be psychological since I feel like I'm finally getting somewhere with all this medical stuff, but part of it might be because I stopped taking the beta blockers. I've been checking my pulse in the morning right after I wake up, and it has consistently been 70 beats per minute, so I think going off them is probably ok. Even after a whirlwind weekend of turkey day baking and cleaning, I felt regular tired, not I-have-to-sit-down-in-the-middle-of-what-I'm-doing tired.

This morning has been almost as busy as yesterday already. Everything went basically the same up to the catsitting duties, then I took the car into the shop for a few small repairs and its biennial (every 2 years) inspection. Then I got to walk home in the rain. Well, more of a heavy drizzle at that point. (By the time John left for work, we were getting rain mixed with wet snow. Yuck.) I could have taken the bus, but I need to get a little exercise to start building myself back up. You can't sit on your ass, babying yourself for a couple of months without getting a bit out of shape, you know. Tomorrow morning I'll take the bus all the way up to the cat, but I'll walk home. Depending on when the car is ready, I may be doing it more than once.

Luckily for me, I was wearing my GoreTex shoes and my raincoat over my winter coat as I walked home in the rain. When I bought the shoes, I showed them off to John, who for some reason had it in his head that I had bought sexy shoes and was disappointed when it turned out that I had bought boys' all-weather shoes. When have I *ever* bought sexy shoes? If I took a quiz that told me what kind of shoe I would be (sounds like something you'd find on Blog Things), I'd be orthopedic, I'm sure.

The pinkination of the poinsettia seems to be coming along smashingly at this point. The citrus decided to make a liar out of me and has started dropping leaves again, but it has also started shooting upward in several places, so I'll just have to wait for spring to see what happens under normal growing conditions.

My two Thanksgiving cactuses have been blooming for a few weeks now. I think the pink one is running out of steam, but the bigger white one still has lots of buds on it. They have bright, interesting flowers, but I almost enjoy picking off the wilted flowers as much as looking at the fresh ones. Unfortunately, they drop yellow pollen on everything under them, including my shirt sleeve while picking off dead blooms. Sorry, I'm not the one you're looking for.

-Nee in Germany hasn't murdered any plants recently

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

No Peace for the Wicked

Yesterday it was the sound of running water, today it is a high-pressure hose across the street. About a month ago, some genius decided to tag a stone wall with some anatomically questionable penises (if I were younger, it might influence my decision to let one near me). Now someone has come out to spray them off the stone.

It's already been a busy morning. Since John was focussed on turkey day foods and American junk food on Saturday (and our fridge is so small), I needed to go get groceries for the rest of the week. I am also catsitting this week, so I got up, took my meds, got in the shower, ate breakfast once the post-med hour was up, drove over to tend the cat, drove to my normal 2 stores, and came home. I managed to score some excellent Xmas wrapping paper (you know I love me some gift wrap) and a couple of things to put under the tree for Hannah, oh! and a kit for a gingerbread witch house, which seems to be traditional at the holidays for some reason. Hansel and Gretel and all that, I guess.

Yesterday I managed to translate almost 4 pages, even after getting a late start in the morning, so I am hoping that today will be equally promising, work-wise.

-Nee in Germany can't decide if tagging with more realistic penises would have been acceptable

Monday, November 22, 2010

This and That

Our shower is leaking and the repairman won't be here until 4. I finally put a rolled up towel against the bottom of the door and closed the door to my office to try to block out the noise, but such loud tinkling of water cannot be contained. Between the sound of running water, the extra water I am drinking, the antibiotics, and yesterday's turkey dinner (more on that below), I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom today.

We celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. We could have waited until the weekend following, but the guests we had invited had a scheduling conflict due to child custody arrangements, so we moved it up. John and I both scoured the local shops for a large turkey and only came up with a frozen baby turkey that weighed about 9 pounds (not enough for 6 people) or a freshly butchered, large turkey for 50 Euros. Ouch! John has connections at the university, and she and her husband were able to take him and Hannah along to the local military installation, where they were able to gorge themselves on American fast food and drown in the junk food offerings of the commissary. And buy a big turkey, among the bags and bags of junk food they carried home. I started cleaning and baking on Saturday, and I was very glad to finally put my feet up yesterday evening after our guests were gone. All in all, it was a success.

Now it is time to concentrate on the next big event--forcing my poinsettia to bloom. I brought it and my citrus plant indoors a few weeks ago, and they both immediately started dropping leaves. Oh, no! But now they seem to have stabilized. The citrus has new leaves, and the new growth on the poinsettia is turning a nice shade of mid- to dark pink. I'm having to be extra vigilant about keeping the door to the sunroom (aka my office) closed because I suspect the cats had been chewing on the poinsettia's lower leaves, hence the extra pukiness after they were brought inside, and I know for a fact that one of them will chew on the plastic garbage bag covering it overnight if given the chance. Sadly, my ability to post pictures of the glory of a forced poinsettia is severely hampered by our dead digital camera (there is a workaround, but I am lazy), so you are spared my efforts at vegatative photography.

-Nee in Germany is dreaming of a red-poinsettia'ed Xmas