Tuesday, June 05, 2007

KNITTING CONTENT! Eeeee!


I've done a full pattern repeat since Sunday, which is quite a lot once you've joined up the sleeves and have a huge number of stitches every round. You decrease them away gradually, and the rounds gradually get faster, but still, you've got the whole sweater on your lap by that time and are heaving it around as you knit. (The one drawback to seamless sweaters - one I am happy to deal with in exchange for not sewing anything up but the hems.) When I'm done with writing here, I'm going to fire up the DVR and watch Star Trek: Enterprise and knit some more.

We got the DVR (like TiVo - you can record shows onto what is essentially a hard drive in the cable box) about a month ago now. The advertising jingle is, it will change the way you watch TV. And though it galls me to admit it, the advertising is true. No more staying up late to watch something, or squabbling over who watches what show. You can set it to record one show while watching another, or to record every showing of a series, or all sorts of other options. I hate when the advertising is right, but damn, have they made things easier at my house. Of course it has also underlined what television-addicted geeks we are, but we suspected that anyway.

Earlier today I went to the post office on base. It's wonderfully marked (a white-on-brown sign about two feet high saying "Post Office" with no US Postal Service logo on it), and no parking. However, there were no lines inside. So I'll probably go back, especially now that I've found it. Anyway, the guy working inside is from the Cross County Road post office (the one who shredded up all that yarn in April, and lost two boxes), and recognized me, and asked where I'd been. So I told him why I hadn't been back to that post office, and wouldn't be. He pointed out, politely, that all mail goes through that post office, so I'm still not really avoiding them, and I replied that at least now I wasn't standing in line for an hour for the privilege of having my mail shredded. I kind of let him have it, though I didn't swear or raise my voice. I even felt sorry about it for maybe a minute after. Okay, maybe thirty seconds.

Maybe.

The working out is going swimmingly. It's playing hell with my hand problems, but in a physical therapy kind of way, not an injured myself kind of way. Hand specialists and orthopedists have been after me for eight or nine years now to do 'weight bearing exercise' and I haven't done it because it hurt. Well, I'm doing it now, and it's good for me, but it still hurts. It's also doing weird, oddly funny things to the nerve damage; signals aren't getting through. I'd been dropping stuff a lot more often, but last night I went to pick up an egg in my hand and crushed it by accident. Whoops. Nerve weirdness. Always an adventure. Next up: I win a fight with the Terminator.

That's the excitement from my house. I was gonna do some book discussion, but it appears I've rambled on plenty long without it. Maybe tomorrow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi --

i had similar hand weirdness (computer-related) about a decade ago. nothing cleared it up until i got steroid shots in one hand. within 48 hours, it was normal again. i had to wait a month to get shots in the other hand -- to be sure the improvement would last. (assweasel doctor! did he think i needed only one working hand to do a computer-based job and raise two kids?!?!)

in the interim, i had to put rubber bands around my coffee cups, glasses, etc.,,so they didn't suddenly leave my hands, and had to wrap rubber bands around pens and pencils to form a `'grip" so i could write.

i'm not a doctor -- don't even play one on tv -- just saying what works for me . . . and hoping yours isn't that bad. another time, i wound up sleeping in fingertip-to-elbow splints on both arms for months. VERY romantic. not why i'm no longer married, but . . .

anyway, good luck and if things don't clear up soon, take a break of 2 or 3 wks in which you do nada but essential home-and-baby stuff, read and watch tube. we'll survive w/o your blog better than you'll survive w/serious hand issues, i promise you.

ellen in indy

Bells said...

the jacket is looking awesome. Can't wait til I'm that far along. Guess I will have to.

Keep going with the strengthening weight bearing exercises. I'm sure it'll do you good. And let us know when the terminator fight is on.

roxie said...

Which Terminator? Arnie, or the silver dude?

The sweater is stunning!

Obviously Sekmet knows that the computer use is hard on your hands and is doing her best to gently discourae you. Good luck with the PT!

Amy Lane said...

Wow--the sweater really is awesome...and I'm so glad to hear we weren't the only ones who liked Enterprise... (I understand there's a family in New Jersey as well...) I warned you, right, about the DVR? Awesome machine...absolutely awesome...