Yup. A new Panasonic 42" Plasma HDTV for the bedroom.

Hopefully it will have the level of picture quality I need and will work well without cable TV since we do not have cable upstairs.

I need to call the doctor's office to get the exact scoop since having the NalaMatka regurgitate the doctor's phone conversation to her no doubt left something out.

Well, as close as I can tell:

Floaters
The joint had debris that was floating all around and he cleaned out everything.

Kneecap
He scraped my kneecap of the arthritis it had.

Cartilage
As best as I can relate, they drilled several holes into my remaining cartilage in the hopes that it will produce new growth, and likely lubrication for the joint. I'm not sure if they did this on the medial or lateral sides or both.

Arthritis
The joint is fairy arthritic and was in pretty bad shape. They cleaned up a lot of the arthritis.

ACL
They inspected the scarred up tear of my ACL but beyond that I don't know what else they may have done.

So my joint is in an immobilizer from by ankle to my upper thigh. As far as I can tell I will need to wear this a lot during the next 4 weeks.

I'll be happy when I can get some simple range of motion. Without the immobilizer, and a simple knee bend, I can drive and do many other things without having to put any weight on the joint.

Maybe after the holiday I'll discuss short-term options with the surgeon such as this.

- - -

The part I hate is that it will be very hard to get around for a very long period of time.

Giga will likely have to drive me to and from work every day (starting Dec 30), and getting up and down the stairs will be a real pain in the ass.

I forgot how utterly horrible moving a fat ass such as mine around on crutches can be. I have no idea how long I have to avoid weight-bearing pressure on the joint but trying to pivot and navigate with the knee immobile sucks the balls of nastiness.

Thankfully I'm not in any real pain. I can feel some of the obvious surgery pain but since I can't really bend the knee I can't say for certain if the pain I've been having these past few months is still here.

So.

That's it.

I don't know how bad it'll be to try and get to Glass City for the holidays and all the other things planned for the next few days.

Getting any more decent Christmas shopping is out and I may have to send out Giga to get randomly shitty gifts for others. At least I got his stuff online and it is arriving piecemeal.

In a way that is a lot better and I won't be coming home after 7 but this going without coffee is gonna kill me.

Yes. I know some of the few people who may still read this site that I barely update probably don't know but I'm having knee surgery.

I'm pretty much a physical mess right now due to the back problems of 2008 and then the knee problems since August.

Let's not go into the 60 pounds I put back on because I haven't been able to exercise since July.

Yeah.

Long time no write.

Been hurty and stuff.

Especially hurty now that Pierogi Day is over with and the almost 2 days of standing on a bad knee are confined to history.

There were a lot of people over throughout the day yesterday rolling dough, cutting dough, stuffing pierogies, boiling pierogies, etc.

Jeff had all kinds of issues learning the dough routine. However, the attachment to the Kitchen-Aid make a massive difference.

Flour fighting and other off-color shennanigans were the rule of the day for the kitchen.

The dining room became the center of stuffing activity.

Arjun is now of the age where he can particpate in such activities and he not-so-much made but assisted-in-making several pierogies.

Even though there was probably 10 solid hours of pierogi making going on we didn't make quite as many as last year.

Still... it turned out fun and crazy.

Definitely more insane than in years past.

You can thank the wine for that.

It is freezing and we've not had our first day with actual accumulation.

Winter has arrived in the Cowlands.

Health experts have long known that drinking red wine can have such positive benefits as reducing blood vessel damage, lowering the risk of heart attack, and preventing harmful LDL cholesterol from forming. But researchers at the Northwestern University Department of Preventive Medicine have recently found that the consumption of four to six glasses of red wine, most notably at dinner or a family function, may be linked to totally going off on one's mom...

...The positive effects of wine consumption were seen in as little as three hours, with 86 percent of participants showing greater resistance to unsolicited career advice, 77 percent displaying increased mental function in the area of the brain devoted to reminding you why Dad left you in the first place, and 60 percent demonstrating less concern to "play this little happy-happy game anymore."...

...The Northwestern team is currently in the process of securing funding to determine what ingredient in bourbon enables one to finally wrestle one's stepfather to the ground.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving!

1. Dachshunds are never permitted in the house. The dachshund stays outside in a specially built wooden compartment named, for very good reason, the dog house..


2. Okay, the dachshund can enter the house, but only for short visits or if his own house is under renovation..


3. Okay, the dachshund can stay in the house on a permanent basis, provided his dog house can be sold in a yard sale to a rookie dog owner..


4. Inside the house, the dachshund is not allowed to run free and is confined to a comfortable but secure metal cage..


5. Okay, the cage becomes part of a two-for-one deal along with the dog house in the yard sale, and the dachshund can go wherever he pleases..


6. The dachshund is never allowed on the furniture..


7. Okay, the dachshund can get on the old furniture but not the new furniture..


8. Okay the dachshund can get up on the new furniture until it looks like the old furniture and then we'll sell the whole works and buy new furniture, upon which the dachshund will most definitely not be allowed..


9. The dachshund never sleeps on the bed. Period..


10. Okay, the dachshund can sleep at the foot of the bed..


11. Okay, the dachshund can sleep alongside you, but he's not allowed under the covers..


12. Okay, the dachshund can sleep under the covers, but not with his head on the pillow..


13. Okay, the dachshund can sleep alongside you under the covers with his head on the pillow, but if he snores he's got to leave the room..


14. Okay, the dachshund can sleep and snore and have nightmares in bed, but he's not to come in and sleep on the couch in the TV room, where I'm now sleeping..

First, Scipio lost Bomilcar and I just got an email from TA who discovered that Lucy had a tumor growing into her sinuses and brain so he had to put her down.

I was already depressed today.

That just put me over the edge.

:-(

This is a great "letter".

Unlike the general gist of Havrilesky's comments, I am incapable of throwing my loyalty to anyone outside of my family without extreme suspicion.

But I definitely understand what she's saying.

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Oh my god!

"we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house"

I'm starting to feel a sense of satisfaction about my vote.

I know that this topic has been major issue for many of my acquaintances in California and especially in San Francisco but really I'm not all that surprised at the likely passing of proposition 8.

Now it is true that I don't support gay marriage.

Most people assume I do and I don't.

I don't even really believe in heterosexual marriage so I obviously can't be keen on gay marriage.

Maybe in the 2100s this kind of thing will pass.

But not today.

Not in our lifetimes.

Probably not in the lifetimes of generations beyond us.

This isn't the same thing as the issue of race in this country.

Unless you clear the belief in magic away it will never change.

And I can appreciate that on levels that most people don't even think about.

In all the "We did it!" euphoria of last night there still remains the fact that unless the core values of this country evolve, it will go the way of all other empires.

Just looking at a recent map, with some states still undecided, shows what I mean.

If you cut the country off at the Mississippi river, it pretty much looks exactly like the United States did 145 years ago. (Except there were a lot less displaced New Yorkers in Florida then and Virginia's changing demographics have shifted that once red state.)

The United States must evolve in the 21st century.

I know, if you believe in magic then you don't believe in evolution, but the fact remains that buried deep into our animal brains is nature's simplest imperative: change or die.

And that applies to culture just as much as it applies to the individuals that make up the society that the culture holds together.

The players have temporarily changed but the game in this country remains the same.

Don't forget that.

The game needs to change if we are to survive the coming decades.