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:

(more…)

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.