the shape of the boundary you leave behind

I've been playing Solitaire lately. Every time I play more than a few games a day I have this vision in my head of a great competition -- but it would never work, because I'm the only I know that would be interested in it.

I play one-draw, timed game. In my ideal little competition world we would play for a set time (10 minutes, for example) and the point would be to have the most points. Often I think that a sub-category for number of seconds spent on a game would be good, too, but if you're already playing a set time...I'm still working on it.

Anyway, I think I could do pretty well at that competition. I've found myself training to end a game with the most points even if I'm not winning. It's pretty ridiculous.

Why am I telling you about this silly daydream that I've had for years? Because I got tired of having the bruise post at the top. And nothing much else is going on in my life that is worth blogging about. (Not that this is a particularly stellar example.)


"Harbor"

these colors make my eyes hurt

Dear friends: This entry is about my awesome bruises. Please skip it if you don't want to see them.

I bruise easily! I'm one of those people you hear about all the time that loves to tell you about all the times they discover bruises in places they don't remember running into. I've started to hate those people, and I don't tell those stories very often, so I'm going to go ahead and get it all out now. You can hate me.

I especially love those bruises whose origins I know. Way better stories, for one thing. For example, you know those bruises you get from getting your wisdom teeth out? I had 'em! I had 'em good. Mine came from the oral surgeon holding on so tightly to my face to get my teeth out. I know this because I was awake. Only way to do wisdom teeth, in my opinion.

Then there's that time working grounds when I ran into the fire hydrant. That was a beauty. Same week I bumped my leg on the truck trying to get in. Also a beauty. (Since it's been 3 years I don't remember which is which, but these photos were both taken the same night.)






I've got some awesome bruises right now! There are some that seem to have faded (right when I went to take a picture, too!) that were definitely thumbprints on my lower leg. Can't you just picture the surgeons, holding my leg steady while they rammed the nail in? Whoo. And then there's my knee.

I think I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.



Ah, yes, you see the lovely bruise all along my knee there, continuing all the way underneath? Now that's cool.

(My mom would like the viewing population to know that the bruises look worse in real life than they do in the pictures, but when is that ever not the case?)


"Stray Italian Greyhound"

bones without names

One year ago, on June 5, I had "my surgery" to remove the tumor from my upper thigh. The mass they removed was about the size of my two fists clasped together. It was kind of a turning point in my treatment, and in my life.

So, since we all know I'm a "Note the Milestones" kind of gal, why didn't I post about my surgery on Saturday? Because I was commemorating it by spending the weekend in the hospital recovering from another surgery on June 4.

This was kind of a fun one! My femur is at pretty high risk for breaking, due to bending forces and the weakening that it suffered from radiation. So what they did is inserted a titanium nail (a hollow rod) down the middle of my bone. To hold it in place they drilled titanium screws into the bone at the top and bottom, near the hip and the knee.

What I'm going through right now is a very minor echo of what I went through last year (at this point last year, I still had about 3 more days to go in the hospital) but it's about as apt a memorial as anything else.

Maybe next year I'll decide to go skiing. That's something the surgery supposedly prevents me from doing. Or horseback riding. Or ... any number of things.


"Pontchartrain"

books

It was kind of a long month as far as reading books goes. I can barely remember reading the first book on this month's list, shown here:

May
62. Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies by Erin Dionne
63. Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
64. Mort by Terry Pratchett
65. The Pinhoe Egg by Diana Wynne Jones
66. Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
67 . Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman
68. Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett
69. The Goblin Wood by Hilari Bell
70. The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne
71. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
72. Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson
73. Drizzle by Kathleen van Cleve
74. The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
75. Archangel by Sharon Shinn
76. The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith
77. Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder
78. The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

This month my parents got confused at me because I don't count books I don't read all the way through. I read the second half of a book I'd read before, and when there's nothing else to read that's often what I do. And I don't count those. So I do read a bit more even than shown.

Moral of the story: I do need a life.


"Nothing Without You"