After my surgery they gave me a bottle of vicodin to take as needed (up to 8 in a 24 hour period). I took the vicodin. I took the vicodin and chilled and napped and watched movies and chilled and napped and had my picture taken to be placed next to the definition of ‘chilled’ in the dictionary.
Then I started to notice something strange. I was in love with everything! EVERYTHING! Whenever I went to bed it became the most comfortable bed ever. My naps on the sofa were the most comfortable naps ever. My dogs were the funniest things ever, movies had never been so entertaining.
The Friday after my surgery I was making a chicken sandwich (by which I mean I was gracelessly tearing chicken off the carcass with my left hand and slapping it on sloppily mayonaissed bread), I took the sandwich, my baby carrots and my spicy hummus and sat down to watch more Battlestar Galactica. The first bite was good, the second was better.
OH MY GOD!!! This was the best chicken sandwich I had ever eaten! I wanted to get on my cooking group and tell them the secret to the chicken sandwich, I wanted to figure out how to describe it on here so YOU, my faithful readers, would know the love of a good chicken sandwich.
I knew that even if I described it, you would not appreciate it unless you were here with me and I made it for you with my left hand. This was the chicken sandwich prophesied in the bible, “and, lo, the wrong armed temptress would create a sumptuous dish of fowl and multigrained manna and it shall be good”.
Then I realized, whoa, this is just a chicken sandwich. It’s good, but it’s…not phenomenol.
It’s just a sandwich.
That day I decided to stop taking the vicodin. I figured if I kept taking it then chicken sandwiches would only attain this level of attraction while I was on the pills and I would have to take more and more vicodin just to make the chicken sandwiches palatable.
My surgeon told me I had great self control and I didn’t know how to tell her it had nothing to do with self control, I just didn’t want to ruin chicken sandwiches.
80 Pages
am 80 pages into The Lemon Tree and already I know I can only read it in very small chunks at a time. I get so pissed I literally can’t form sentences about why I am so pissed.
I’ve always felt that the Palestinians were dealt a blow of the most horrific injustice when they lost their land, but this book really sets out step by step what happened.
Every step of the way I get pissed reading this. I’m hoping that the personal stories offer some sort of internal resolution since there is no real answer anymore for the people in the area.
Read this book.
In other news, I went back to work today. The office can survive without me for 2 weeks. This is good to know. On the other hand, Anna managed to lose my electric stapler!!! ANNA!!! I still need that.
Tonight my mom and my sister too me out to sushi for an early birthday dinner (my mom is flying out to new hampshire tomorrow and won’t be in town for my b-day). I’ll write later about the evil waitress who hated me and insulted americans (she said we were messy).
aaaaaw
The saddest thing about going back to work is that Maddie will be alone. She’s been so happy these two weeks, getting to spend her days cuddled up next to me with a look on her face that says “I love you so much that if if I could express my devotion in a number that number would be ‘elephant’ and I would multiply that number by ‘corn’!!”
She’s not the brightest dog in the world and she has no clear concept of numbers, but I knew what she was trying to say.
To Heal
Today is my last day before I go back to work. Strangely I am really looking forward to going back. I miss it, I miss having structure in my day, I miss talking to different people.
Today I slept late and got nutty on the quality of my dreams. I love zoloft dreams, it’s like the best benefit of being on this pill. I’ll be sad to let them go when I finally get around to finding a better pill. Today, I also cooked and knitted.
My hand is getting better and more useful, though I do use it more often than I should and every night as I go to bed it aches, but I don’t mind. Currently, it is still in worse shape than pre-surgery, but I know it will get better.
Today I cooked because I missed cooking. I cooked like a mad woman sentenced to a lifetime without pans! It started last night when I made the perennial favorite snack treat “Bear Turds” (oatmeal, cocoa, peanut butter, sugar, butter unbaked cookies). Then today I made a dense porridge for maddie consisting of chicken thighs, carrots and rice cooked completely to death. It smells great but is completely bland.
She loved it. I hope it helps her get better. I know it made me feel better to be able to do something for her.
For dinner I made this:
1 head roasted garlic, skinned and mashed
2 thinly sliced green onions
1/4 cup basil cut in a fine chiffonade
1 good handful parsley rough chopped
1/4 chopped canned artichoke hearts
1 14 ounce can Muir Glen fire roasted crushed tomatoes
1 15.8 ounce can great northern beans rinsed and drained
S&P to taste
1 tube ready made polenta sliced to 1/4 inch slices and fried to crispy edges.
saute garlic and onions in a bit of olive oil until they start to brown a bit. Add tomatoes. Stir. Add everything else and maybe a bit of water. simmer for 20 minutes. Serve over polenta.
It was awesomely good. I loved it, David loved it. My soul loved it.
Then I made a wheatberry salad with wheatberries, green onion, grapes, fried tofu, carrots, parsley, tamari almonds, some other stuff and a raspeberry vinaigrette. That will be for lunches. I felt more productive than I have in weeks.
Nudities
What do ou do when it’s over 90 degrees out, your central air is broken and it’s 89 degrees inside? spend the day flopped out with your nudities on.
all day, nudity!!!!! Try it.
Also, maddie is getting better and that relieves me to no end. I’m still worried and watching her but it seems that things have started working for her.
The saddest thing about maddie being sick is that she gets special canned food from the vet. the dogs don’t get canned food regularly, it’s a treat and poor ghengis desperately wants some of this treat!
I think the hard part will be migrating her back to crunchy food. the cruchy food dish is out and always full and she is perpetually disinterested. She’d not dumb, she wants her mushy food.