Witty knitter

Wednesday special

You may get daily posts for a while. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Here's the progress on Cleo. Body's finished and now I'm doing the raglan shaping in the round. This is a light-weight yarn from Croatia called Linie 164 Java, that I got from Rubi+Lana. It's cotton and rayon that has a delicious drape and silk-like lustre. I started with nearly 600 stitches, and I've lost about 50 in the first ten rows. Soon I'll insert the gap for the V-neck, so things will speed up more noticeably. The second picture is a close-up of the pattern that I've put on the edge and plopped randomly around the front. I think I'll also put one on the top of each sleeve.

I've also started a new sock: Lana Grossa Weilenweit Fantasy in the most delicious colourway, also from Rubi+Lana. I was going to give this to my daughter, but it's just too yummy to let go. Sorry Liz. I'm a bad mother. But you already knew that.

Daytime TV sucks. I'm up-to-date with the few podcasts that I can bear to listen to for more than five minutes. I think it's a light fiction day.

It's Tuesday

Well, it is here. I guess it's still Monday in some places, so don't panic if you're in one of those places. OK, Jo?

I thought I'd tell you about my night of horror. Keep in mind that I had had surgery in the evening - I returned to the ward around 9pm - so was drug-addled and not at my usual level of perceptual acuity. But there was nothing wrong with my acidity - in fact it was probably sharper than usual. The woman who was looking after me (I'd use the word nurse but I'm not really sure that she deserves it) called me 'gorgeous' on our first meeting. Always a bad sign. She was slow-moving and deliberate. Keep in mind that I was sharing a room as I tell you this story.

At first things went well. She came in and slowly, carefully, 'did my obs' at what seemed like every five minutes. But as the night wore on she didn't lower her voice (remember that other woman sleeping behind the curtain?), nor did she turn out the light when she left. I didn't have control over that light. After a few visits I pressed the bell and, when she returned, I asked her to turn it out. She didn't take the hint the next time she left.

But the real problems started after I threw up the first time. I pressed the bell, she arrived. I said I'd thrown up. She just stood and looked at me. I asked for something to wipe my face. She asked "Wet or dry?". I said "Both". She brought me two towels, one of which was slightly damp in one corner. And then she left. The light was still on. I waited. I lay down. Nothing happened. I pressed the bell. She returned. I asked her to take the vomit bowl away and turn out the light. She said, defensively, that she had left the bowl in case I wasn't finished.

There followed a confusing period where I asked for pain relief and was given an injection by a real nurse. After a while I was still in pain so I asked for more pain relief, and was brought tablets. A little while later I threw up again. Pressed the bell again. The real nurse came and put an anti-emetic in my drip. She also brought a pan and explained that it was really really important that I pee, which I eventually managed with considerable difficulty. At some time in all this kerfuffle the cradle that was keeping the blankets off my legs was removed - maybe so I could sit up to pee.

What I remember, after this, is waking up feeling cold, reaching for the blankets and not being able to find them. Feeling weight on my sore leg. Realising that I could still smell vomit.  I rang the bell and asked her to remake the bed. We discovered that all the bedding was scrunched up on my legs. She had left me without straightening the bed, and the vomit bowl was still next to me. With much sighing and muttering she managed to untangle the bedding. I had to ask her to replace the cradle and she couldn't work out how to put it into its slots at the end of the bed. (Remember that woman asleep on the other side of the curtain?) She began to leave and I had to remind her to remove the vomit bowl and to turn out the light. And she was still calling me 'gorgeous'.

Luckily the woman next to me had taken a pill and slept until about 5am.  I determined to leave  before night fell again and the woman who didn't deserve to be called nurse re-emerged from wherever they hid her during daylight hours.

Wassup?

Hey, it's Monday and I'm sitting up in bed at Sandra's. I feel fine, and am hardly using any pain relief now. I can get about the house quite comfortably on crutches for short trips, which I'm working on increasing. I can scoot around on the office chair, which means I can carry hot drinks safely. I can stand at the bench and make a sandwich with my knee on said office chair. So it's all good. Of course, I'm mainly still resting and getting over the load of drugs I ingested on Thursday and Friday

The surgeon's staff have been so efficient. They are sending me the signed form for a disabled parking permit so I can park near the door when I return to work in two weeks. They explained that the reason that I was left waiting three hours in the hospital lobby was that the woman at the insurance company was trying to contact me on my home phone while I sat in the hospital lobby. Then she went to lunch before faxing the approval. As the surgeon only operates there on a Thursday it was imperative that the paperwork be done immediately, and hours went by because this dipstick hadn't read the papers properly and didn't realise the operation was that day.

So now I'm depending on you all for entertainment - alert the media, dudes - just sayin'...  (That last bit's just for Carol.)

Post-operative

I have had the op and am at Sandra's for a few days. Her house has flat accesss from the street and mine has three steps up.

I can walk a bit on crutches and can scoot round on an office chair, so I'm not too dependent. Still taking painkillers, and I have a huge bandage on my leg, but otherwise fine.

Time for a little lie down... more later... thanks for all the messages. Mwah! mwah!

I'm in shock

Almost literally. A small stumble at lunchtime the other day. Came down heavily on my left foot. No pain, some internal bleeding and a weirdly behaving foot. Saw my osteopath this afternoon, she was concerned enough to send me straight to an orthopedic surgeon. It's become a snapped achilles tendon, and now it's maybe surgery tomorrow, if the university's insurers will quickly agree to pay. Otherwise next week.

Two months of convalesence in plaster and on crutches. Up to a year of rehab. Can't be true, can it? If you don't hear from me for a few days you'll know where I am.

I'm still alive

Post updated with pictures...

Thanks to the couple of people who inquired after my health, it being so long since I'd posted. I'm fine, just busy at work (two more weeks of this pressure!) and tired in the evenings. My back has recovered well, and isn't giving me too much grief. I returned to swimming yesterday and feel like I'm finally getting the hang of freestyle, which is a buzz. I can do breaststroke, backstroke and now freestyle, so I'm in less danger of getting bored with doing lengths. I'm up to 600-700 metres a week now, and my aim is a kilometre. I've been stuck at this level for a while, so I need to really push myself a bit more.

Yesterday was also an SSK day, and Sandra took some lovely pictures which I'm aiming to put up over there later today. Update: pictures are up - go over there and take a look.

I finished this last night and it fits beautifully. (The picture was taken before I pressed the front shaping flatter.) A really neat little pattern, which I followed to the letter - an easy two-week knit that will be a useful addition to both my work and my evening wardrobes. I made it in Anchor Magicline, a multicoloured pure cotton that is heavier than the pattern used. My tension square had  fewer stitches than the pattern suggested, and I liked the feel of the fabric with those needles, so I made a smaller size then I thought I'd need and it worked out nicely. So now I'm back to Cleo.

I also finished the ethereal fichu - only one year in the making. It's hand-dyed silk, and the colours are stunning. I enjoy lace knitting, but I find it takes a lot of my brain and I can't do it when I'm tired, so it tends to languish in the bottom of the basket for months on end. But I'll probably start another lace project soon. I've got the whole of Victorian Lace Today that I gave Sandra for Christmas to choose from - I love presents that keep on giving (back).

Monday morning...

...and I'm still at home. A muscle in my back has been spasming and it's really difficult to sit. It's improving, as they do, but I'm not up to a day's sitting at work. So I'm at home, alternating  standing with lying on the floor Today I will get to the bottom of the ironing pile for the first time in a long time.

Here's an amusing video - after the response to my last post I think quite a few of you out there will enjoy this.

Responding (updated)

I am moved to spend part of my lunch break responding to Adele's comment below.

I can't reply in detail without breaching a boundary I consider important and risking my employment. But please believe, Adele, that you have no idea of the level of ignorance that I encounter. I will give one example: the person who tried to send us an email by writing the address into the URL line of a browser and then rang up in a fury to report that our email was broken. That person was employed at a university, a place where virtually all important information about their work is transferred online. They had never activated the email program on their computer - didn't even know what it was. They had never used a browser. This person is an academic - how do they do a library search?

We regularly encounter people who don't know what a browser is, who don't understand the difference between a username and password, who don't understand that 'the internet' extends beyond the boundary of the university. Often they are angry because they are being 'forced' to use the software we support, or because it isn't the perfect tool they think it should be. And they take that anger out on us. And often they claim not to have received any of the raft of informative emails we send to our users.

I actually really like this part of my job. I like helping people - it makes me feel useful and (even, maybe) slightly powerful. I enjoy the contact with a wide range of people, most of whom are vitally interested in their students and have lots of good ideas to engage them online. But there are days at this time of the year when it is really hard to keep the smile on my face (because, you know, the person on the other end of the phone can hear it.)

Update: How am I supposed to respond when I am dealing patiently with someone who can't log in, despite being sent clear instructions on how to do so in an email, and they say aggressively, "Oh, no-one here ever reads those emails." I could try "That's why we send them out, so that people can ignore them and then we can have the pleasure of helping them on the phone." Or maybe "You know, I kind of suspected that." Or then there's "Would you like us to remove you from our email list so that you're not bothered by the useful information in them any more?" What I actually said was "I can't really do anything about that, can I?" Probably too subtle. It resulted in silence - I could feel the furrowed brow through my headpiece.

Just checking in

Tired.

Sick of talking to people with negligible computer skills who need to use a computer to do their jobs.

Finished adding to Hannah's cardigan.

Started a new knitting project - you'll never guess: it's a cotton top.

Went to SSK and forgot the camera. But we weren't the only ones, so that's OK. Several old friends there, and a new one.

Swam 600 metres. I've plateaued on swimming - I have to push myself more.

Was asked to talk to some PhD students at another university about blogging.

The builder took the plans away to quote on them. That's exciting!

And that's all the news that's fit to blog.

I've been slack

I know, and I apologise. I went back to work. It's our busiest time of year. And that's all I'm going to say about that. Excuse me if I yawn from time to time.

I thought I'd missed the St Brigid's Day silent poetry reading, but it's still 2 Feb in some parts of the world, so I've made a late entry: my favourite contemporary poet telling the story of my life. I left my matrimonial home in dramatic circumstances in April 1987, creating chaos that I thought would never end and leaving wounds that may never heal. I don't regret leaving, although it was the hardest thing I will ever have to do. I hope.

The journey
Mary Oliver

On the day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.