I can't believe the Red Sox declined the option on Alex Gonzalez!  I had really taken a shine to the guy, and I thought he was doing a really nice job for us.   :::is all sadface:::

In other news, my ankle got REALLY sore after my last post; it was aching terribly (to the point of whimpering) even when I put no weight on it, which is a change from before.  I took a look at it and there's some redness and warmth.  There was a little bit of redness the day after I did it (the nurse practitioner commented on it), but the aching and warmth?  It reminded me of the way my "crankle" felt last year.  Now I'm wondering if I could possibly have a cellulitis on top of the sprain, or even a touch of arthritis or gout (both of which were mentioned as possibilities by my doctor during the crankle saga).  What I did for the short term was take half a Percocet (whiich knocked me for a loop as usual) and lie in bed with the leg propped.  I even napped a bit to whatever game was on MLBN, and although the pain is mostly gone I'm going to call for an appointment as soon as the office opens (even before I get to work) and have it looked at.  I'm also going to reschedule my two mental health appointments that I was supposed to have this week.  After all, both my therapist and my psychiatrist have offices on second floors of buildings with no elevators, and other than crawl up flights of stairs I don't think I can get there...

Time to bed:  11:20 and fell asleep immediately.

Time awoke with muscle spasms: 12:30.

Time finally fell back to sleep after taking several measures, including finally putting slipper on over cast to further immobilize foot:  Approximately 3:30.

Time finally woke up for good:  9:30.

So I managed to cobble together about 7 hours of sleep and am hoping to do even better tonight.  After all, I do have a long week of work to deal with.  I'm going to sleep with the slipper on again, or maybe even an athletic shoe, because the more my foot is forced to stay in place the less the spasms bother me.  I think in any case I'll be calling my neurologist tomorrow to see if there are any other measures I should be taking.  I'd like to avoid taking the maximum dose of my muscle relaxant, because my regular prescribed dose is 4 mg per night and I've been taking 6 mg and don't want to run out before my next fill date.

My foot is still very sore, so this will be another sedentary day for me.  I've got quiet stuff I can do on the computer, and small house chores that involve standing in one place (which doesn't hurt as much) or sitting.  This is going to get better, I swear it is.  Baby steps, as I like to say.

And now...brunch.

Well whaddya know, a positive post from me for a change!  I may be tired and sore, but I am EXTREMELY grateful to my mother, who made the drive up here today (she's just a half hour away, but she doesn't like to drive that far at her age) to help me out around the house.  We did the laundry, four washloads worth, then she fixed lunch, partly from my fridge, partly from stuff she had brought along, then afterwards she did the dishes.  She also cooked some asparagus for me to eat later.  Then she changed out my moldly shower curtain liner and vacuumed the part of the house that I live in day to day.  By then it was time for her to go home, because she won't drive after dark, but maaaaan, what a lot to get done.  I'm still pretty hobbled by my ankle, so needless to say her efforts were MUCH appreciated.  I tried to tell her I owe her one (or ten), and she said, "But that's what mommies are for!"  LOL...

Just puttering here for a while before bed.  I had trouble with foot spasms again last night, got maybe six hours of sleep, and am fervently hoping that tonight will be the charm.

Just had to send out congratulations to my favorite Muppetfaced Venezuelan (that would be Bobby Abreu) on being signed for two more years by the Angels.  There's a part of me that would have loved to see him in Boston if Jason Bay were not to return, but I also know that many Red Sox fans wouldn't be happy with that simply because he spent 2-1/2 years in pinstripes, so maybe it's for the best.

Based on all I've ever heard about Bobby, he's apparently a real student of the game, an excellent teacher, and oh yes, he's quite intelligent to boot.  A couple more years of being a role model for his teammates in Anaheim and he'll be 37 (turning 38 during Spring Training the following season), at which time I can absolutely see him moving into a coaching role.

Some Bobby trivia: Very early on, he played single-A ball right here in Asheville, I believe in 1992.  I went to plenty of Asheville Tourists games back then, and I'm pretty sure I remember him, mainly because I found his last name unusual.  I read a story some years ago about his season in Asheville.  It mentioned that the McCormick Field announcer thought his last name was "uh-BROO" and enjoyed saying it when he came up to bat, because it was fun to hear the "OO" echo against the ridges that surround the ballpark.  The story went on to say that at that point Bobby spoke virtually no English, so the season was nearly over before he was able to tell the announcer how his name was actually pronounced.   :D

I'm not and have never been the hatin' kind when it comes to being a baseball fan.  I already e-mailed my NYY fan cousins to congratulate them, and I'm hereby extending that congratulations to all the Yankees fans on my f-list.  I really was hoping for a Phillies miracle last night but alas, Matsui got in the way.  I must say, his homely self was very impressive.  I missed the last couple of innings because I was too tired to stay awake, but I did wake up during the postgame for just long enough to realize it was all over.  And now baseball is put to bed for the winter, and I am sad, but of course there'll be plenty of hot stove action and other related news to keep all of us going until Truck Day.  And doG knows I have enough other stuff to keep me busy anyway.
 

When it rains it pours, I swear.

Yesterday was very good up until round about suppertime.  The steroid nasties are nearly gone, and my mobility has improved, and I opted to walk around at work without my cane.  I did just fine, although I was limping some by late afternoon.  Came home and was in "kitchen stuff" mode and was THAT close to boiling up some whole wheat pasta, when I turned my left ankle under HARD.  Not sure if I heard a pop or it was just the shock to my system, but it didn't sound good.  I fell against the door to my furnace closet and knocked it off the hinges.  Then I started hollering, thinking I had probably broken something.  After a minute or two I was able to get up, not really able to bear weight on it, but I got myself onto my cane, opened the kitchen door, and started yelling for my neighbor Bob.  I started tottering across the yard, then dropped to the ground and started crawling towards Bob's apartment.  Thankfully, he heard me and came right outside, hoisted me up, and got me back in the house.  My first thought was that he needed to drive me to the ER, but when I called the doctor on call at my office, he said it sounded like I should wait for an x-ray at clinic this morning.  In the meantime he instructed me to take ibuprofen and some Percocet (I have a very few pills on hand from surgery two years ago), do ice baths, and prop it up.  So Bob went down the street to get a bag of ice, I called my office to tell them I'd be out today (AGAIN) because I needed to stay off my foot, and then Bob brought me some freshly stewed slow-cooker beef that was out of this world, and I stirred together some corn, beans, salsa, and sour cream that was intended for tacos, and that sufficed for dinner.  After that, I did the ice bath and went to bed, where I fell asleep during the 7th inning or thereabouts.

Damn ankle is swollen up like a goose egg.  I can bear weight, but I have to move v-e-r-y slowly and pay attention to how I place my foot.  I have an appointment for 11:30.  I thought Bob was going to drive me but it turns out that he can't.  I guess I'll take the back roads over there, because driving is going to be dicey at best, seeing as how I'm having trouble bending my ankle.

Oh, this is so much fun.  Not.

Sorry for the spam, y'all.  My decluttering efforts this evening involved sorting through some of my old cassette tapes (I have several hundred to go through, dating all the way back to the 1970s).  Prior to tonight I had been working on the noncommercial tapes that were unrelated to my many years as a fiddler; tonight I got started on a box of tapes recorded at festivals, parties, bar gigs, and of course a few commercial tapes put out by old friends over the years.  I had been dreading this with good reason.  I already knew that commercial tapes tend to disintegrate/mold/whatever more readily -- I guess the manufacturers use cheaper materials than what my my friends and I used for our private endeavors.  So tonight, as I had suspected, I had to throw out most of the stuff that my old pals recorded professionally, because the tapes were full of chalky white spots and fun stuff of that nature.  What upset me, though, was that a good percentage of the personal tapes were similarly ruined.  Not all of them, certainly, and there were some happy surprises, such as the pristine condition of the tape that I made the very first time I went to a bar gig by the band that literally changed my life.  That was back in 1980 and I recorded it on a freaking MEMOREX tape (!!!!), and it has held up all these years.  But for every "oh wow, it lives!" moment there was an "oh shit I have to throw this one out" moment.  So many memories...right into the trash.  It really sucks.
 

Y'all don't even want to KNOW how bad today was in terms of my steroid side effects.  Fortunately, I realized sometime in the wee hours this morning while struggling not to crawl out of my skin that it would *not* be a good idea to go to work today, seeing as how I had maybe four or five hours of sleep on top of extreme irritability.  I called in and told my supervisor straight up that I needed a mental health day; she was very understanding, thankfully.  I fixed myself a cream cheese omelet and home fries with cheddar and salsa (the high point of my day), and eventually got myself back to bed, where I proceeded to be too agitated to sleep, and too anxious to sleep as well, because I kept on having this irrational fear that if I *did* fall asleep, I wouldn't wake up again.  Just the medication hell talking, and I know it, but I spent the whole day fighting this battle.  I eventually called my neurologist's office and left a message asking for some reassurance that I wasn't going to die, as well as some sort of time frame as to when the worst of this will pass, but they never called me back, which sucks.

I've been listening to various ambient music for hours now to try to distract myself and stay calm.  I had a very light dinner, just raw red cabbage salad and a Clif bar (scaling back from the mountains of food I gorged on over the past few days, yet another lovely steroid side effect).  I've taken my evening psych meds.  I've talked to my mother on the phone.  I'm starting to come down off the ceiling now, I think, but whoooeeee, was this a hellacious experience.  Now I remember why I usually avoid heavy duty steroids all costs.

When I'm feeling a little more up to it I will share the very bizarre dream that I had during my brief period of sleep last night.  It's making me laugh now.  Last night?  I woke up panting, literally.  Obviously it was not nearly so funny at the time.

This is going to be a very early night for me, needless to say.  Hopefully I can actually fall asleep and stay asleep this time.

It's so nice to walk into that back room -- freshly vacuumed and aired out, then drenched in toasty warm scented candle smells for a couple of hours while I picked through bags of junk mail and sorted old cassette tapes -- and realize that it no longer smells bad in there.

It's also really nice to look around at what I still have left to do and realize that this hill is NOT insurmountable.

I am absolutely worn out right now, but it it is so worth it.

Up at 7:15 on a Saturday morning?  Me?  Really?  If anyone had told me a few months ago that I could even DO that I wouldn't have believed them.  But I did just that today so I'd be all fed and watered and ready to walk out the door after my neighbor stopped by at 9:30 to load a bunch of dead computer components into my car so I could take them to a special dropoff that the county recycling program was running this morning.  Afterwards I ran a couple of other errands, including bringing another chair to Goodwill...it's sturdy as hell but needs reupholstering because the [very ugly] fabric is very musty/dusty.  Someone'll be able to make use of it, I'm sure.

So here I am, just after 11:00 (when normally I would be fixing a late breakfast if I had even gotten that far), and my busy day most definitely does not end with this early flurry of activity.  In an hour or so I'll be heading over to the hospital for my final Solu-Medrol infusion, after which I will GRATEFULLY have the catheter apparatus removed from my arm.  Then I''ll get my oil changed and hopefully get home in time for the start of ALCS Game 6 (if the weather holds in New York), and do my exercises in front of the TV before using the game as background noise while I get my butt into the kitchen and start on the dishes and do some cooking prep.  Then I need to muster the energy to do my daily work in the back room -- it'll be sit-down stuff this time.  Going through papers and triaging them into "recycle" or "shred."  I suspect that the "keep" pile will be neglible.  And maybe, just maybe, I'll get some Internet time in before bed.  I owe e-mails to treasured old friends, and hopefully I can make a dent in that.  I also started a pretty fascinating book yesterday, but more on that later because I realize that I'm getting longwinded.  I'll probably read in bed for awhile, but tired as I'll be by tonight, that probably won't last long!

ETA: Ahaha...FAILHAT on the game time, yes?  And it got postponed to boot.  I've crossed off everything described above except for cooking, which I'm about to do.  That said, I am so utterly exhausted that my evening will probably consist of reading that book rather than trying to formulate thoughts and express them to my two closest childhood friends.  If I get up early again, with Game 6 not starting until 8:20, I have a big honking chunk of time in which to be productive again.  Me likey!

This courtesy of my cousin Danielle, who sent it to me, of her mom all bundled up during Game 2 last night (and she stayed for all 13 innings despite living a ways out on Long Island -- there's no telling what time she actually got home).

 

I'm squeaky clean here after a shower following 2-1/2 hours of kamikaze decluttering that cleared so much space that I think Raye will be very surprised when she comes here for a session on Wednesday.  A couple of boxes of junk are now totally gone to the garbage and the back seat of my car is full of stuff to take to Goodwill tomorrow, including a chair, a mirror, a magazine rack, a box of clothes, and a box of knickknacks.  I tossed the World War II vintage Army cot that my dad had passed on to me for festival use (and which I had never used).  I was sort of sad to do that, but it's too contaminated with mold and dust to give to a surplus store.

Late in the afternoon I found yet another box of books, most of which will probably get gone because they're no longer of interest to me (from a quick glance through them), but that's for another time, because right now I have to eat, do dishes, and deal with e-mails and such.  I'll be back later to answer comments from my earlier entry.

Just watched the latest press conference related to the "balloon boy" incident, and I've got to say, I think the authorities are overreacting a bit.  And no, that's not the cop-hater in me talking.  I was able to look at the individuals as they spoke without feeling revulsion or anger.  I just listened and tried to be objective, and after hearing everything they said, it baffles me that they want to press felony charges on these folks.  I do feel that they need to make restitution for leading the authorities and media on a wild goose chase, certainly, but "contributing to the delinquency of a minor" and a boatload of other potential charges?  You've got to be kidding me.  What do my readers think about this whole thing?  I'm just curious. 

And now the Red Sox are done too.  I'm too stunned to even find words right now.  I do know that I need some time to calm down before I head to the store to do my grocery shopping, though.  My eyes are too red to go out in public anyway.

At least the team that beat us is one that I enjoy watching -- lots of good players, and Bobby Abreu has been one of my favorites for years.  He may look like a Muppet, but he's just amazing.  Also, they're playing with a higher purpose right now, doing it for Nick, if you will.  So if they end up facing the Yankees in the ALCS I'll root for them.  But right now?  I want to slap the shit out of those guys.  Seeing my boys walk out of the dugout for the last time, seeing Tek sitting there watching as it all slipped away, seeing Pap sitting there after the meltdown.  Just...painful.

Well, I guess I'll be getting lots of decluttering done sooner rather than later, won't I?