Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

I’m Not Dead Just Yet

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You may have noticed that lately, I appear to have dropped off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, this is due to my having had a pretty major relapse in my recovery from The Autumn Of Illness. Thankfully, there has not been a return of The Hostile Alien Bacteria. But everything else-the arthritis, the fatigue, the feeling like I’m being pulled naked across asphalt all day long-that’s all back.

I finally had my first pain-free day in about a month last Sunday. And I’m tentatively optimistic, because I’ve now had 3 in a row.

So hopefully I should have a little more to say around here. I appreciate everyone sticking around while I’ve peeled myself up off the floor yet again. šŸ™‚

Yesterday

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I found out that I have another stupid cavity.

“Well,” said the hygienist, poking me with a very sharp stick, “you have a pit that we’ve been watching for a while, and now it’s developed into a cavity.”

Hm, really? Well, thanks so much for sharing that information with me, when it can do me absolutely no good whatsoever.

“But it’s only a little cavity. And it will only need a little filling.”

That did not make me feel any better.

But it did make me wonder; is that anything like being just a little pregnant?

Learning How To Knit, Part Two: Asking For Help

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So despite the “assistance” of the cats yesterday, I was able to dive right in with my trusty knitting needles, yarn, and two knitting instruction books. And the most important thing I learned yesterday was, that I am apparently NOT a person who can learn how to knit from a book.

Fortunately I found a yarn store that was open today, where I planned to go and throw myself on their mercy, or quite possibly throw myself on the floor, whatever it took if only someone would please, please show me how to do a knit stitch.

Unfazed by my dramatic entrance (which apparently happens there quite a bit), the owner of the shop was more than happy to teach me the basics. Soon I was easily casting on, knitting, and binding off, right up until the time when I accidentally unraveled an entire row.

There was a knitting circle working in the store while I was there, and one of the nice ladies jumped right up to help me repair the damage.

“I do have a few holes here and there,” I said as she worked to recover my stitches.

“Oh no, honey,” The Nice Lady quickly corrected me. “Those aren’t holes. Those are design elements.”

Masculine Or Feminine?

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From the ezine, “Gibbleguts” (March 28th issue)

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in
Spanish, unlike English, nouns are not genderless but
are designated as either masculine or feminine. House
for instance, is feminine: la casa and Pencil, however,
is masculine: el lapiz. A student then asked, What
gender would a computer be?

A. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
B. The native language they use to communicate with other
computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
C. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term
memory for possible later retrieval; and finally
D. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
spending half your paycheck on accessories for it!
(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should
definitely be masculine, ‘el computador, because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as you commit to
one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could
have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Wedding Wrap-Up

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The wedding festivities for my sister-in-law kicked off Friday morning with an event that can best be described as

Pre-Wedding Brunching With Engineers

It all started off innocently enough, with a brunch meant to welcome my husband’s uncle. He had recently arrived in town from Israel, which is the fourteenth country in which he’s lived.

He had called my sister-in-law earlier in the week to discuss his final travel arrangements, and she told him that at first she wasn’t sure she should take his call, since the number was so odd-looking on her caller ID.

Naturally this led right into a competition designed to see who could identify the most country codes, because if there is a better way to get into the mood for a wedding, I surely don’t know about it.

So different people (read: the three engineers) started calling out random questions for the rest of the group.

“What’s Israel’s country code?”

“What’s ours?”

“How about Italy’s?”

“Ah!” shouted The International Uncle, in the tone of someone who has just successfully squared the circle. “What’s Kosovo’s country code?!”

Shockingly, no one knew the answer to this question.

“Ha ha,” revealed The International Uncle, that trickster. “They don’t have one. They have to use Serbia’s. And, boy-are they miffed.”

(Yukking laughter from the three engineers, who frankly, could not possibly imagine anything more humorous than this.)

Me and the bride: (looking desperately at each other to communicate the urgent messages of “Please help me!”, and “How can we STOP THE INSANITY RIGHT NOW?!)

And so that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

Eventually we did make it through the rest of that day, until finally it was time for

The Wedding Rehearsal

In the spirit of celebration, as well as the spirit of, “Well, I might have to wear a tux tomorrow, but tonight I can wear whatever I want, mwa ha ha ha ha!” my father-in-law, who plays the bagpipes, decided to adorn himself in full, bag piping attire. When I tell you that he is over six feet tall and was wearing a kilt the color of pumpkins, you will understand why that caused such a big stir.

As the rehearsal was winding down he came over to talk to me and my husband, which gave me the opportunity to ask him why he appeared to have a small purse strapped around his midsection.

“Is that where you keep your flask in case all of this wedding stuff gets to be too much?” I joked.

It turns out that it is something called a “sporran”, and while I suppose you could use it to store your flask, he was using his to store his wallet and his keys.

“Now there are some sporrans that are encrusted with gems, or that are covered in goat hair,” my father-in-law informed us. “So technically, mine is not actually an evening sporran.”

I’m pretty sure he was able to slide by on that one.