On this day, one hundred years ago, Oklahoma became a state. I suspect that Native Americans, particularly the Cherokee and Osage, will not be celebrating. I can't really blame them, as it put paid to their very last hopes of a land of their own, as promised to them by our less-than-faithful-to-its-word government. The Cherokee were moved there, after being robbed of their lands in the East in Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Georgia, by President Andrew Jackson (who really had a serious thing about "Indians", and today would be rotting in prison for committing "hate crimes" against them), which made the indigenous Osage less than happy. Oddly, for such "savage barbarians", they managed to settle the differences between them without maiming and killing each other. Would that we 'eurotrash' could follow their example...
It's a lovely place, Oklahoma, from the forested rolling hills of the eastern half to the miles and miles of miles and miles of prairie of the western half. The weather does tend to get a bit extreme, however - there's a reason why the National Severe Storms Laboratory is located in the center of the state.
My father moved our family to Tulsa when the state was two years shy of its fiftieth birthday, and I more or less grew up there, went to college there (Yay, SOONERS!), met my now-ex husband there, and so many other milestones. It's been years since I've even been there, but I still get homesick.
Friday, November 16
Monday, November 5
A Visit to the Opthalmologist
In Which the News Ranges From Bad to Fantastic.
Bad is that it's not my imagination, I am going blind. Under different circumstances, this would totally freak me out, as visually oriented as I am, but...
Good is that the problem is an easy fix! Yes, I do have cataracts, but things have changed a lot lately in cataract surgery. No longer do they remove the cornea and lens, and you're bandaged up for next to forever, you never really get good vision back, and you have to wear those ugly half-spherical glasses. According to the very nice doctor I visited this morning, he'll be able to do the procedure in his office, with no general anesthesia, it'll take about 10 minutes of actual surgery per eye, bandages for maybe 2 days, complete healing in a month, AND...
Fantastic is that since what he's doing is replacing the lens (through a teeny tiny incision at the edge of the cornea), the lens can correct my life-long near-sightedness, and I will never have to wear glasses to see more than 18" past my nose again!!! I may need reading glasses, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.
Good also is that other than the cataracts, the eyes look good, nice healthy nerves and retinas and such. This is a real relief, let me tell you.
Medicare says one must wait until a certain degree of impairment of vision has occurred before they will pay for the cataract surgery, and I'm not there yet. In the meantime, the doctor has changed my glasses prescription, which is going to represent a significant improvement, and we'll re-evaluate in six months.
Now I can quit boring you with medical crap for a while! Aren't you glad?
On the knitting front, MS3, Part deux has progressed to row 266, and inches closer to the end with every day I can work on it.
I started K3P3 ribbing on the practice sock about 1" or so above the turning of the heel, and there's now about 1.5" of ribbing completed. I originally wound the hank of yarn into two balls, one somewhat smaller than the other, and I still have quite a bit left on the smaller ball, so I'm doing good on yarn, too! I figure I'll rib to the point where my calf really starts swelling out, or the small ball is gone, whichever comes first. That way I KNOW I'll have enough yarn to knit the Second Sock.
As there has been no embroidery done, there's nothing to report there.
Before I go, I really MUST mention the weather. Sorry about that, but the past two days have been totally gorgeous, highs in the upper 70's, lows in the low 50's, with severe clear skies, blue as can be, and not a hint of a whisper of a wisp of a cloud. Autumn really IS here! I've thrown open the windows and turned off the A/C, and switched to the cool weather blankets on my bed. Joy!!!
Bad is that it's not my imagination, I am going blind. Under different circumstances, this would totally freak me out, as visually oriented as I am, but...
Good is that the problem is an easy fix! Yes, I do have cataracts, but things have changed a lot lately in cataract surgery. No longer do they remove the cornea and lens, and you're bandaged up for next to forever, you never really get good vision back, and you have to wear those ugly half-spherical glasses. According to the very nice doctor I visited this morning, he'll be able to do the procedure in his office, with no general anesthesia, it'll take about 10 minutes of actual surgery per eye, bandages for maybe 2 days, complete healing in a month, AND...
Fantastic is that since what he's doing is replacing the lens (through a teeny tiny incision at the edge of the cornea), the lens can correct my life-long near-sightedness, and I will never have to wear glasses to see more than 18" past my nose again!!! I may need reading glasses, but that's a bridge we'll cross when we get there.
Good also is that other than the cataracts, the eyes look good, nice healthy nerves and retinas and such. This is a real relief, let me tell you.
Medicare says one must wait until a certain degree of impairment of vision has occurred before they will pay for the cataract surgery, and I'm not there yet. In the meantime, the doctor has changed my glasses prescription, which is going to represent a significant improvement, and we'll re-evaluate in six months.
Now I can quit boring you with medical crap for a while! Aren't you glad?
On the knitting front, MS3, Part deux has progressed to row 266, and inches closer to the end with every day I can work on it.
I started K3P3 ribbing on the practice sock about 1" or so above the turning of the heel, and there's now about 1.5" of ribbing completed. I originally wound the hank of yarn into two balls, one somewhat smaller than the other, and I still have quite a bit left on the smaller ball, so I'm doing good on yarn, too! I figure I'll rib to the point where my calf really starts swelling out, or the small ball is gone, whichever comes first. That way I KNOW I'll have enough yarn to knit the Second Sock.
As there has been no embroidery done, there's nothing to report there.
Before I go, I really MUST mention the weather. Sorry about that, but the past two days have been totally gorgeous, highs in the upper 70's, lows in the low 50's, with severe clear skies, blue as can be, and not a hint of a whisper of a wisp of a cloud. Autumn really IS here! I've thrown open the windows and turned off the A/C, and switched to the cool weather blankets on my bed. Joy!!!
Saturday, November 3
I Am A Knitter!
A real Knitter, with a capital "K"! It happened this way...
I have been working on the 'practice sock' and tonight got to the turning of the heel. As the wrestling match with the beast proceeded, my language went from calm to beseeching to threatening to downright profane, on the last row when I discovered that I had managed to drop 4 stitches from one of the two needles on the instep side of the sock, while trying to pick up the 'fill the gap stitch' on the last wrapped stitch. After I succeeded in getting that 'gap stitch' made, and all the dropped stitches picked up (one of them had run down 5 rows), the language became completely triumphant.
At this point, my dear son, sitting in his chair, beside mine, and trying to watch the sports portion of the 11 o'clock news, and having absolutely no idea of the utterly cosmic connotations of the question, asked me:
"Do you enjoy talking to your sock?"
I have been working on the 'practice sock' and tonight got to the turning of the heel. As the wrestling match with the beast proceeded, my language went from calm to beseeching to threatening to downright profane, on the last row when I discovered that I had managed to drop 4 stitches from one of the two needles on the instep side of the sock, while trying to pick up the 'fill the gap stitch' on the last wrapped stitch. After I succeeded in getting that 'gap stitch' made, and all the dropped stitches picked up (one of them had run down 5 rows), the language became completely triumphant.
At this point, my dear son, sitting in his chair, beside mine, and trying to watch the sports portion of the 11 o'clock news, and having absolutely no idea of the utterly cosmic connotations of the question, asked me:
"Do you enjoy talking to your sock?"
Thursday, November 1
Hey, Karma! Listen up!
Many, many moons past, about 384 of them, give or take a few, I decided that I wanted a piano, that I needed a piano, and that someday, somehow, I was going to have a piano. I firmly believed that I WOULD get this piano, though I had no idea how, but I was pretty sure that buying it at normal prices wasn't going to be the way, as money and I have only a nodding acquaintance, at best. It took you, karma, almost eight years from that day, but I was in my favorite book store one day (this was before one bought books at Barnes & Noble [who was publishing textbooks then] or Amazon [which wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye yet]), one owned and operated by real people. I'm told that there are still a few of these dinosaurs around, but I haven't seen one in a looooong time. But that's another post, and I digress.
So I was in the bookstore, and Holly, the proprietor, asked me if I knew anybody that could use a piano, as she no longer needed hers, due to her last piano playing chick having left the nest, and she needed the space. I said "yes" immediately, of course, and asked her how much she wanted for it. "Just come and get it and move it away" was her response, so I motivated a bunch of strong backs, and I had my piano. Ya did good, karma, and I've been grateful.
OK, I now have another need, karma, and I'm putting you on notice that I firmly believe that somehow, in some fashion, you will bring me a kneeling, ramped mini-van, with swiveling front seats, and hand controls. It would be nice were it to come equipped with a good trailer hitch, and a nice small RV-type trailer, as well, but I'll cut you some slack on that. I don't want to be greedy, after all. I would prefer not to wait eight years for this, but I will if I must.
You've laid a lot of bad on me the last few years, karma, along with some good, but I think I'm about due for some really big good. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Most respectfully,
So I was in the bookstore, and Holly, the proprietor, asked me if I knew anybody that could use a piano, as she no longer needed hers, due to her last piano playing chick having left the nest, and she needed the space. I said "yes" immediately, of course, and asked her how much she wanted for it. "Just come and get it and move it away" was her response, so I motivated a bunch of strong backs, and I had my piano. Ya did good, karma, and I've been grateful.
OK, I now have another need, karma, and I'm putting you on notice that I firmly believe that somehow, in some fashion, you will bring me a kneeling, ramped mini-van, with swiveling front seats, and hand controls. It would be nice were it to come equipped with a good trailer hitch, and a nice small RV-type trailer, as well, but I'll cut you some slack on that. I don't want to be greedy, after all. I would prefer not to wait eight years for this, but I will if I must.
You've laid a lot of bad on me the last few years, karma, along with some good, but I think I'm about due for some really big good. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Most respectfully,
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