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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Boo universe! Boo!

I can't get the hang of the last few days. I've been trying and trying to start a quick project for the last few days now that I've finished Decimal, but each time I try something gets in the way. Went to the yarn store yesterday to buy needles and they were closed. Went again today, and they had run out of 2.00 mm dpns. Impatiently yanked my 2.25 mm dpns out of my long-suffering Jaywalkers (2nd heel is turned at least!), only to find out that the yarn I though I had with me is still in Ottawa. Start anyway with other yarn which turns out to be very difficult to work with. Put it down again. Getting down to the wire...

On top of the knitting frustration, I have a broken toe. Technically I broke my toe three weeks ago, so I've been dealing with limpy foot for the last 3 weeks, but I got official confirmation of this yesterday.

Everyone has their own hospital waiting room story, and now I have mine.

Still limping after having tripped over the leg of the futon two weeks before, I went to the Student Health Centre to get it looked at. The doctor said it could be broken or sprained, but either way there wasn't much to be done about it. Stay off your foot as much as possible and have an x-ray to make sure. So I went in for the x-ray on Wednesday.

On Friday I got a call from the health centre while I was in class. I was in class until after the office closed for the weekend, so I left a message. On Monday, the nurse called again while I was in class. I called back right after class and left another message. Since they had told me they wouldn't bother calling me if my toe was only sprained, I figured at this point it must be broken.

When I finally spoke to the nurse she told me I had a fractured metatarsal and needed to go to the hospital to get a "boot." Indeed. Now, I don't watch enough medical dramas to know off the top where the metatarsals are, so I said thank you and hung up. Looked it up on the internet and wondered what the deal was with that since if anything I thought my toe was broken. Whatever, I trust health professionals (or I DID... hah).

I told my evening class prof I might be late and went to the hospital. As I headed there from the university, I knew I was making several mistakes. One, no knitting with me - I don't usually bring it to campus. Two, no reading material - the "book" I'm reading right now is an audiobook on cd that resides in my bedroom, and all my course readings are on reserve in the library or online journal articles. Well, damn. But it couldn't be helped, since going home before going to the hospital would have been out of my way and taken up more time...

So yeah. A little over 3 hours in the waiting room later, after being told they'd probably have to do more x-rays but then not actually sending me for more x-rays, I saw a doctor. The nurse there looked confused and asked why they hadn't sent me from more x-rays here. Presumably they called someone about this because when the doctor came in he looked at me apologetically and said he was so sorry that the idiots at the student health centre had sent me here, since there's nothing they can do about a broken toe. But what about my supposedly broken metatarsal? I enquired. Someone misread the x-ray, he thinks. Blah!

Ultimately, I'm relieved that I don't have a fracture in a metatarsal and don't have to wear a "boot." Anyway, 3 hours in Urgent Care isn't so long - the people that showed up after me were looking at 4+ hour waits. I made it to my class on time in the evening, and now I have the certainty that my toe is broken so it's inadvisable to join the swing-dancing club. But damn, 3 hours in that waiting room without knitting or a book.

I'm okay with this being my stupid hospital story, and I hope I don't have a worse one to tell in the future. Now, as long as I didn't catch swine flu from anyone in that waiting room...

Monday, September 28, 2009

Okay that's that. Update.

Can it be I'm already tired of this semester? Boo! My summer of working spoiled me - all I want to do in the evenings is read, knit, not work on assignments...

On the knitting front, I blocked Decimal and it grew a little, but not as much as I hoped. It's still a wee bit small. Ah well, I still like it a lot. Pictures coming once I get buttons for it, though I won't be able to do them up.

On the recipe front, I made Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie. I am going to claim this as a new recipe tried, even though I basically didn't do any measurements. I did the veganized option with soy milk in the potatoes and left out the tomatoes - did I mention this is my vegan week? Well it is! So far kind of uninspiring since I've lost the will to cook exciting things. I bought wheat berries and things a few weeks ago in anticipation of making some lovely vegan grain/pulse dishes... but so far it's been lentil soup and chickpea curry. Ah well, I'll get to it!

On the blog front, I'm spending a lot of time thinking about posting to my class blog but I haven't actually gotten my ass in gear to post to it much. Blogging as required assignment - not sure how I feel about that in practice, but it's a fun idea.

No pictures. How boring.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Thursday Word, Decimal, and New Hampshire

Dear me, it has been a busy week with no blogging. Excuses, excuses.

Senocular
Having six eyes.
~OED

No idea when I'll get the chance to use this one in regular conversation, but I like it so there! This is one that I ought to have been able to figure out from the Latin roots, of course. But I'm a little rusty.

This past weekend I scooted down to New Hampshire for a cousin's wedding party. It certainly was not a carbon neutral trip, what with all the flying and driving, but it was great to go down there again. Beautiful!

There were mountains,


animals,




Fireworks,


and festivities all around. It was a fun time, but rather chilly when night fell - hello knitwear weather!

On that note, I mostly finished Decimal on the way home, and all I need are buttons and blocking.

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Bad webcam shot shows it is indeed quite small, but I'm counting on growth from cotton. My swatch turned out okay. Really. if it doesn't grow, it might still be wearable, just a little shorter and more open than I'd prefer. Here goes...

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Word Thursday: Prolix

Prolix

1. unduly prolonged or drawn out : too long
2. marked by or using an excess of words


~ Merriam-Webster

A good word to describe some of the readings I'm doing now that term has started...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Toronto adventures, belatedly. picspam

The last 12 days have been full of adventures (and non-adventures) with one of my favourite people ever. But yesterday he went on his merry way and I'm being shocked out of vacation mode by classes and assignments.

I spent a day or so in Toronto exploring (#58!) while waiting for his plane to land, and afterwards. While I did poke my head into Lettuce Knit while wandering around Kensington Market, the only knitting content I can claim for my time in Toronto is this:

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In Toronto, we wandered around being tourists
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Appreciating detail
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Witnessing a practice airshow
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And relaxing
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I received a beautiful gift from Venice
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Lastly, saw some amusing graffiti on a tank in London (ON): contains swears!
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Wheeee! I'm excited for December already :)

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Word Thursday Words

Two words this week because I missed last week due to moving and other fun adventures (more on this later).

absterge
To wipe away; to wipe clean; to cleanse; also fig. to
purge.
~ OED

gurge
A whirlpool (lit. and fig.); ~OED

I discovered on my last day of work that my workplace subscribes to the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary. Why didn't I figure that out before? I always have fun with obsolete and obscure words, but for this particular project I want to learn more words that other people might understand if I use them, so I have been trying to pick words that aren't entirely obsolete. Still, my OED fun probably yielded a few unfashionable words that I'm happy to learn.

So. Today's offerings are the literarily-pleasing Gurge, which will likely be more useful in its figurative sense when I'm overwhelmed in the coming term. Absterge is a word I like right now because I've just moved - moving house can be a cleansing / purging experience.