Miss S.

There was an inkling as I eliminating massive quantities of liquids and gels from her check on bags for the second time in 24 hrs, but watching her “get lost” in the airport on a straight shot back from the bathroom, I became certain that this trip was going to be a bigger challenge than anticipated. 

Don’t get me wrong...I had expected difficulties. There are bound to be trials when traveling with the best of friends or family, and from the get go I knew Miss S, my 83 yr old neighbor in Idaho, would provide especially unique challenges.  I’ve helped out Miss S. for years with sprinklers, rides to the post office, technology support, weed spraying, etc. and she in turn offers me a constant borage of homemade foods, off the beaten path health cures and any tool you could imagine.  

Seeing her quirks over the years I thought I had a pretty decent handle on what I might be in for, and while not completely off base in my estimation of what the issues were, I underestimated the magnitude of her memory, stubbornness and organizational idiosyncrasies. This made for a trip of constant vigilance, reminding, gentle prodding, persuasion and sometimes outright force on my part. 

She is a trouper nonetheless, and she charmed people across Alaska with her gnome like face, confused responses and snaggle tooth. 

Here we have some of the many travel states of Miss S. 

Not too thrilled when cajoled out on to the boat deck the train deck.

Going down the “elevator” in the train so she can use the loo. 

Miss S after I finally convinced her to use her newly purchased camera. (this through threats to not help her carry it any more if she wouldn't use it)

Please note the angle of Miss S's lens in this shot. I'm quite certain 90% of her images are of the sky. 

Miss S Sleeping......

.... on the boat

...on the train

....on the flight seeing. 

There are dozens of sleeping shots, but I thought this would get the point across. 

Finally, the MIss S. I’d like to remember most....truly enjoying herself.

 After our amazing Denali Flight

In the Arctic Circle

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In the Arctic Circle

After our last train ride.

As with all things if looked at through the right lens, traveling with Miss S. proved a learning opportunity. It brought focus to my ever present control issues and allowed me practice patience and letting things go that were not my responsibility. A good, if difficult exercise. 

Will I do it again?  Uhmm...  no. 

A Break from Clever Words

Combining a series of academic "smart" sounding words has been the focus of my last several weeks. I DID have several visitors, all of the Cold Fusion kind, took a lovely camping trip with P and G, and a fun day outing with an old friend as well, but that darn smart sounding document has been niggling in the back of my mind the whole time. It is due August 1st, and although my chances of being awarded this competitive Fellowship are small, I still am trying. TIck, TIck, TIck, TIck

(I'm actually doing this post right now as a means of avoiding said clever words, not a good sign)

Anyway....
Instead of posting more images of my outings (I'll do that later) I'm including some photos Aleta was kind enough to share with me. First Miss Leah's senior pictures taken by big sis Rachel. (I understand Leah and James are both excited about our upcoming Alturas gathering, and I'm excited too)

Then some shots from Kimberly's wedding. I wasn't able to come to any parts of her celebration, so am happy to see these shots. Her husbands name is James (the irony) and I love seeing little James H. next to oh so tall James.

Ok, no more stalling.... filial topography...linear narratives...heuristic methodology.... OY!!!

IF?

“If, at your final destination, you should find articles missing from your luggage you can then file a complaint with United customer service”

This was the second person to monotonously spout this obviously memorized retort to my desperate pleas. 

I wanted to claw his eyes out.  

If?.. .IF? something was missing from my bag.  From inside the plane sitting on the tarmac in Chicago I had seen my lime green bag coming down the shoot. I had SEEN my drawings fall out as 5 ambivalent luggage handlers shrugged and made no efforts to retrieve the articles or even close the bag! 

IF? ??

Yes...claw out his eyes now. 

Well, I can’t go into the details.. it is entirely too long, and only one minute part of a whirlwind 2 months since last I wrote. 

I’ll just say that the drawings were lost to the winds on the tarmac, but with massive pleading and a bit of shaming, I eventually managed to get a United employee it meet the cart with my lime green bag and close it up before further articles were lost. It really was a miracle of sorts. 

The drawings were for a week long Cold Fusion residency in Wisconsin. I had spent two weeks in Idaho furiously working on those drawings, as well as some stencils, and without them I didn’t have a plan for my week of research. Hmmmm?  It was an interesting week indeed.

But, weeks later, I’m alive and the drawings a distant but somewhat bitter memory. 

What have I been doing you ask? Let me catch you up. 

May: 

Finish finals. Finish Grading. Tear up lab. Put lab together. 

Pack for Idaho, drive to Idaho. 

Make cold fusion prep stuff for two weeks. 

June:

Lose cold fusion stuff on tarmac in Chicago

Pretend to make interesting stuff for a week in cheese state

Camp and poo excessively with Crazy for a week (see her post)

Poo excessively for two more weeks whilst pretending to write a Fulbright application.

Host friend for a week. (yes, of course still poo-ing)

There.. all caught up. 

I’ll try to do better. 

Here are some pictures from random jaunts to help you forget about excessive poo. 

Grandbabies... obviously not mine.

If there is anyone left in the world who is not on Facebook (besides me) I thought you might enjoy seeing some Heiner Grandbaby updates.  The first three are from last February and Lilly's first Birthday. (Lilly being Tia's first, but that is Rachel holding both babies)

 Next we have Rachels' pride Peyton (yeah if you did the math that is three forms of Peyton, Payton in the V. great grandchildren)  He has a square head to rival his 2nd cousin Payton Olsen!  Maybe the square head is a prerequisite for the name?
Rachel loves taking photos and you can tell, there are some nice shots.
Anyway.. hope you enjoy.

One more!

Three posts in less than two weeks.  I know!  Is she high.... demented..on crack?  (maybe just spring break)

I've been waiting for literally months for Bert to send me the final pictures of this project I devised well over a year ago.  She just sent them so I'm super excited. 

It all started clear back in Christmas of 11 when Bert and Gordon came down for a visit. She kept commenting that she felt she didn't have an eye for arranging things in her house, and that she really wanted a place to better display all her family photos. 

I hatched a plan for what I hoped would be a "foolproof" way to arrange and change family photos and also camouflage the heater and cooler that were so high profile on her wall. 

This first shot is one I photoshoped together from one's that she had sent me showing her "feature" wall painted a barely there sage green.  (note all the photos on the piano and the giant swamp cooler on the wall)

I did a Photoshop mock up of this tree and photo frames, and removed the pictures from her piano. She and Gordon liked it enough to trust me to come up and paint it on!

Here is her real living room after I painted the tree last May using $3 worth of paint from a thrift store mixed with some I already had.  It isn't the exact color I would have chosen, but given the budget I thought it was great!  

While she was here in Tucson we had also gone on thrift store hunts for cheap frames we could paint all the same color, so while I was there in May we found just the right dark Olive color and I also painted all the frames. 

That is where my part ended. I left her house like this, and it was up to her to get all her photos in black and white and arrange them on the tree using the "rules" I had given her.  I've been waiting for the "after"pictures ever since. 

Here are the shots she just sent, and I think she did a GREAT job!  Now she can have lots of photos of family and that wall isn't all about the swamp cooler.  It was a lot of fun figuring out what might solve this visual dilemma and getting to actually do it!

Transformations

Given the top secret nature of my cold fusion research I am unable share the project I worked on most of February, (which gladly I've finished!) but I CAN show you some other minor non-fusion projects that have helped me keep my place a continual train wreck.  

Both of these were Craigslist finds that I gave a mini makeover to. Sadly I don't have a before picture of the number dresser, just an in progress shot after I did the numbers. No drama or big reveal here.  It was just a great dresser that had a drawer with the bottom out. I sanded it a bit, stenciled numbers, sealed it and put in a shelf where the drawer was, new knobs and..... Viola!

The mini bookshelf doesn't look so amazing either, but trust me, it was a horrid band aid color (see how it matches my house?)  and it is now a lovely seafoam and periwinkle.  (which you can't really see)

 The last transformation I once again do not have a before shot, but to be fair, I was not aware I would rupture my tendon and therefore did not take a photo of my chicken skin calf before the bruising showed up. I should have taken the shot a day or two earlier as it was a great green.   It is now a lovely yellow green on the hard to photograph back and in a strip on the front, which I find confusing.  (yes I am aware of the unshaved hair in the photo... now that I took the picture)

The leg is coming along fine. I can walk without a stability boot. It is slow and methodical, and I am sore at the end of the day, but I think it is healing up quite quickly. I'm awfully fortunate that it snapped just before spring break so I could heal up in private and not be sweating it all out in front of the students.

I've got a few other projects (ok... a LOT of other projects) started, but no completion date projected. I have done a better job of documenting on a few and only hope they turn out a bit more impressive than this lot.
Some things (like chicken skin legs and furniture in dim rooms) just don't photograph that well!

POP!

If I hadn't felt the bizzarre jolt coinciding exactly with the noise I am certain I would have believed a gun had been fired.  A low POP/BOOM. ( a poom?... a bop?  both sound a bit too cheery)

It was that very POP that scared the daylights out of me... your body shouldn't make a gunshot pop, and I found the ensuing intense pain quite confusing. How can this be?  I was simply leaning across the edge of my bed to pick up a pen. WHAT can this be?

Here is where it gets strange... I was reaching for the pen just after dialing a work associate to report a flooded room at school. 

Ring....ring....Reach for pen. POP!

Hello?

Uhhh, oh...I'm... I'm ... (SPASM, SPASM)  Oh Crap! I was calling (gasp) for something else (whimper then spasm) but I've just... hurt... myself.  gasp. 

Needless to say this is NOT a method I would recommend using to make a positive impression on your colleagues. 

The skinny. 

I ruptured my plantaris tendon. The good news, and great relief to me, is that no surgery is needed. This is a supposed vestigial tendon that runs from your ankle through the "meat" of your calf and into your knee. (it is the skinny aqua one in the picture below). 

When it goes, (and it apparently goes POP in lots of people "over 35") it detaches from all the muscles it was attached to and causes bleeding, swelling and minor tears in the muscles. So, loads of pain, swelling and bruising, and 3-6 weeks of hobbling back into full mobility. All this with the promise that it is highly likely the plantaris in the other leg is brittle and ready to go POP soon as well.

It IS true I've always liked to have things to look forward to.

I keep wondering what happens to the dangling plantaris. Is it absorbed back into the body? Does it rot? ... shrivel up? I'm hoping for dissolve. 

Days away from my spring break I am now unsure how I'll be spending it. I was planning on cold fusion research, but I'm ready to play it by ear. 

This has been an inconvenience, a pain, and frustration, but it could have been so much worse, and I'm very very grateful there is not any cutting, stitching or drugging needed.  (of course they offered all sorts of drugs, and I'm wondering now why I didn't take the offer and make a little profit on the street?)

Anyway... if you are over 35, hyperextending your knee and hear a gunshot.... it could be a popping plantaris.