Saw this car in the grocery store parking lot and thought of Jim.

Now that’s a convincing message.

tricoteuse
? noun (pl. pronounced same)
one of a number of women who sat and knitted while attending public executions during the French Revolution. origin French, from tricoter ?to knit?.

That’s very disconcerting that there’s a specific word for that.

Here is an excerpt of some silliness I made for my Dad while he was in the hospital.

Happy Friday!

Dad is doing GREAT!

Saw his family doc this afternoon, who was surprised at how well he was doing. He tires easily, he’s still sore, and he’s lost a lot of weight (more than 40 pounds since summer) but in the grand scheme of things he’s doing great!

I won’t need to take any time off next week, because he’s perfectly fine to be home alone.

This is all a huge relief, and makes the chaos and panic of Christmas almost worth it, since this seems to have solved the problems he was having, and for the first time in awhile he seems back to himself, which is nice to see and hear.

Some people (who shall remain named Nathan) have repeatedly mocked me for complaining about the traffic in Morgantown.

Lets first clarify a few things.

The population of Morgantown proper (and I live in the city) is 29,361 (up from 25,879 in 1990).

The population of Monongalia county is 87,516 (up from 75,509 in 1990).

(As a note, the population of WV is 1,814,468. All data from US census site.)

The full-time enrollment of WVU is 29,721. Even discounting townies who are also students, that’s pretty much the population of Morgantown. Many of which who have cars (this is why I see almost as many out-of-state license plates as I do in-state).

During the work week, we have an influx of more than 15k people. That’s half again the population of the city.

The capacity of Mountaineer field (in Morgantown proper) is 60,000. That’s more than twice the population of the city.

Although there has been some small effort in recent years to alleviate the congestion, you have to understand that most of the city proper is filled with two and three lane roads, (heck, I think I can probably name all the multi-lane roads [that aren't one way] in Morgantown: South University, Beechhurst, Patterson Drive, VanVhooris, Chestnut Ridge Road, 705, The Mileground east of 705. Did I miss any? Maybe a mile section of the Kingwood Pike?) and even though there are back streets to take, those are not always an option when there is bad weather, due to the hills.

In other words, the current roads would be all well and good, if we didn’t have a regular major influx of population. Unfortunately, we do have that influx, and it’s like pulling teeth to get anything done about it.

ADDENDUM the First:
Here’s the terrain of Morgantown.

View Larger Map

Taken on my laptop camera:

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Kim asked, and as I just made two batches, here’s the recipe.

Potato Soup
4 cups of hot broth (vegetable, chicken, or turkey)
4 or 5 medium red potatoes, cubed
1 or 2 leeks, minced
3 tbsp olive oil
kosher salt
fresh ground pepper

Slice/mince the whites of the leeks. Greens can be saved for stock. Wash the red potatoes and cube them. Do NOT peel. Potato skins are healthy and yummy.

Heat olive oil in soup pot over medium heat. Saute leeks until soft. Add salt and pepper until it smells nice. Add potatoes and continue to saute until you’re tired of stirring. Add 4 cups of hot broth. Cook over medium heat until potatoes are kind of soft/it starts to smell like soup.

Puree the soup in the blender.

Add more pepper to taste, if necessary.

Serve with bread and butter.

——-

Michael hates my recipes.

Looks like I’m going to be making soup to take out to my Dad, while I’m waiting for roads to clear enough for me to get out to my parent’s house.

I’m definitely going to make potato soup, and I’m also thinking corn chowder. Maybe a loaf of whole wheat bread while I’m at it.

I’ll let you know.

Happy Year of the Ox!

Dad is still doing well. He got put on a liquid diet today, so that’s a step up. They also removed his Foley Catheter and his epidural.

He was delighted they removed the catheter (as were well, but for a different reason) and although he was glad to have one less tube sticking into him, once they removed the epidural, he started to feel a lot more discomfort than he had previously.

Yesterday he was talking about going home Monday. After they took out the epidural, less talk of going home.

Also, since he has not yet eaten solid food, not too sure about him getting sent him.

So, we’ll see. I know Mom will be glad to get out of the hotel she’s in, and Brian, Michael and I will be glad to not have to drive to Wheeling, but I’d rather he stay in longer than go home too soon.

Dad was in good spirits yesterday–partially due to the fact he’s still getting an epidural.

He hoped to have liquids for breakfast this morning, at which point we’ll see how his innards are really doing, and if there will be any “seepage” in his small intestines.

We played several games of Oh Hell, which was made all the more fun since Dad was kinda loopy, “the Queen of Spades is thirteen points, right?” No.

Michael and I forced Mom to go out to dinner, and plan to do the same today and tomorrow.

Although the hospital has wireless, there is none available anywhere but the lobby, so no Internet access while we’re at the hospital. Which is ok because we were mostly too busy playing cards and laughing at Dad being loopy. (And yes, we have video.)

So we’re back to Wheeling today. And tomorrow. And I’ll be going up for however long he’s in the hospital (at which point I’ll be switching to caffeine, since I get dazed on the Internet, which is no good.)

So, to put things all in one place, things went well yesterday.

The surgery was very late getting started (scheduled 11:30, started ~2:30), and only two visitors were allowed in the surgery prep area at a time, so my brother and I took turns, while Michael sat in the waiting room reading this books, playing with his phone, and after we switched to the main waiting room, playing on my Netbook.

An hour before surgery they gave him an antibiotic, as well as something to “relax” him. For my mom, I used my phone to take video of Dad unable to operate a newspaper.

While he was in surgery we all took turns with the netbook (Erin, my mom thinks Lana is adorable), I read some of the magazines I brought, and we ate lots of string cheese and clementines (Clementines! Yum!).

He came through the surgery fine–in fact, once we finally got to see him in recovery, he was more coherent than he’d been after the relaxant.

The doctor was able to do most of the surgery laproscopicly, but had to make an incision to remove the tumor–he said the tumor was about the size of his fist (and he had a large fist). The tumor had apparently been growing for several years, and was embedded in a portion of Dad’s small intestines, so they also removed about a foot of small intestines.

To doctor believes he was able to remove the tumor without harming or damaging the structures around the tumor (excluding of course the removal of part of the small intestines), so the only concern is to make sure that the small intestines were completely closed and aren’t leaking–we should know within five to six days if that happened.

There is a chance the tumor might come back, but it would again take years and years to grow, so it’s not really a concern.

The important thing is that this tumor is not cancerous, so there is no chance of it spreading, although it could return. The surgery went well, and although it will take several days for his bowels to wake up and get moving again, all is well, and we are extremely relieved.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and good will. It’s nice to be able to spread the worry.

If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll remember that today is my Dad’s surgery.

We’re off to Wheeling, where I may or may not be without Internet access for the next several days. I’m taking my new netbook, and I have hopes for at least getting access through Michael’s phone, but at the very least I’ll have my cell phone, so I’ll be twittering (however, unless I have Internet access, I won’t be seeing what anyone else says for awhile.)

So I’ve got a bag full of magazines, a netbook, and a cell phone. So I should be plenty distracted.

I hope.

Here are some cat pictures combined with pictures of my new netbook, to give you some perspective on the size of the netbook of course. (Why did I get the “Pearl” colored netbook? Because it was $10 cheaper, and I didn’t care enough to spend $10 for black (now if cobalt blue had been a choice…)

Here are Kit and the Netbook. Since Kit’s a relatively small cat (at least compared to Kat) it doesn’t seem all that impressive.

Perhaps this gives a little better perspective?

Or this?

And finally a cat free comparison:

Laptop, netbook, cellphone.

I got nothing.

So that means it’s time for a game of word association. Remember, to get around the spam rules, old word = new word.

snow

Somehow–and although I know how it happened, it still doesn’t make any sense–we ended up watching the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball. (Let’s just say it was Grandmom’s fault and leave it at that.)

I saw quite shocked by the song that was selected for President and Mrs. Obama to dance to: “At Last.” This was the song that Michael and I had our first dance to at our reception.

So what? you say. Lots of people choose, “At Last” as the song for their first dance. True. But how many also choose to have “Simple Gifts” played at the wedding?

“Simple Gifts” was the only song I actually selected to be played at our wedding. (Seriously, I don’t have any idea what else was played–I didn’t care.)

If you aren’t familiar with “Simple Gifts” it’s a Quaker song, and Aaron Copland based “Appalachian Springs” upon the song (and if you’re not familiar with “Appalachian Springs” then you quite obviously are not from West Virginia.)

Thus, I was quite surprised to hear the two most important song from my wedding day played today for the Inauguration.

But for those of you who don’t know the song, or would just like a reminder, here are the lyrics to “Simple Gifts.”

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where you ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain’d,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d,

To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

May we all come round right.

I got loot from Anne today!

No, I didn’t take pictures yet. Grandmom has been watching Inaguration stuff all day, and I can’t do anything while TV is on. (In fact, it’s taken my about 15 minutes to write this pathetic post.)

…and it makes me happy every time I read it.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

I would like to point out that eight years ago, the depths and horror of the Bush administration were predicted in “Bush: ‘Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over’“.

But today we can begin the reversal of the losses of our civil liberties.

Today we are taking the first step in the right direction to turn the country from the darkness of the Bush administration, an administration that allowed banks to run a muck by placing profit in front of the security of investors and investments. An administration that violated civil liberties after Bush declared that the terrorists hated us for our freedoms (obviously the solution was to curtail those freedoms, so the terrorists would no longer hate us). An administration that believed the environment existed solely for the extraction of natural resource. An administration that fought advances is medical research.

Today we turn the page on that dark past and start the hard work of moving forward. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s not going to be pretty, but we can do it.

Yes we can.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
–Abraham Lincoln

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
— Benjamin Franklin

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
— William Faulkner

Today is penguin awareness day!

…
Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus, and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters of life. At points he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew and throw him off base….
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Michael is an enabler.

I mean, he actually allowed me to convince him that I needed a netbook before my Dad’s surgery on Friday.

After all, I need something to distract me while I’m waiting, right?

And not only is it running Linux (which I really want to become comfortable with, so I can get away from Windows), it also has Open Office, and bluetooth, so I can use Michael’s phone to access the internet.

Wheeee!

And I had a couple Amazon reward certificates hanging around, so that makes it all better, right?

Michael made some comment about, “our new computer.” Sure thing, dear. Keep believing that.

Books went out today. So if you’re a recipient, keep an eye out.

I still, however, have plenty of books in the basement, so if you want more, here’s what’s left:
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The Monday before Christmas, in a long and convoluted manner, doctors discovered a mass in my father’s abdomen. It was relatively quickly determined to be outside the alimentary canal, but behind the source of his digestive distress for the past six months. After a whole bunch of tests, they have finally scheduled his surgery.

Friday the 23rd he goes in for surgery; the difficulty of the surgery and the length of his recovery will be determined partially by the amount of scar tissue in his abdomen from his prostate surgery a decade ago, and his radiation therapy last summer.

Although I hope the surgery is fast and has a quick recovery, the procession of events leading up to this point has been chaotic to say the least, so I am expecting a difficult surgery (for the surgeon–Dad will be out through the process) and a lot of time spent in the hospital waiting for his bowels to wake up.

For my own sanity, I’ll be twittering from the hospital, so you can check my twitter feed to see when he comes out of surgery, but I won’t actually get twitter updates on my phone, so if you’ll want to reach me you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way and either txt or e-mail. :)

So if I’m not around much, check my twitter feed (conveniently located in my sidebar) if you’re curious what’s going on.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got a week’s worth of posts to come up with. :)

So…

I modified my css to run the following:

#content a {
margin-top:-9em;
padding-top:9em;
}

#content a:link {
margin-top:0em;
padding-top:0em;
}
#content a:visited {
margin-top:0em;
padding-top:0em;
}
#content a:active {
margin-top:0em;
padding-top:0em;
}
#content a:hover {
margin-top:0em;
padding-top:0em;
}

To work in Firefox and Seamonkey, but not Opera or Safari. (Have I mentioned that I dislike both opera and safari? Why is it so hard to find things like “clear the cache”? Grr!)

IE 6 & 7 work because they aren’t using the fixed positioning or CSS menus.

I’ve got some other things I’d like to try though, and we’ll see from there. I’m still trying css first, because I really don’t want to change all the pages that use those style sheets (and there are a lot of ‘em).

ADDENDUM the First:

Found a different fix for Firefox that doesn’t work in Opera and Safari.

<a name=”A” class=”anchor” id=”A”></a>
with
.anchor {
margin-top:-9em;
padding-top:9em;
}

in the style sheet.