The All-New Bunrab

One of the things I enjoy about visiting with my dad is that he and I can talk rats. That is, we feel the same way about discussing lovable pet rodents, and comparative anatomy, and what's our favorite exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, and other random zoology-related nonsense, including how cute pet rodents are. Neither of us happens to own rats at the moment, but that's besides the point. It's just a comfort level of sitting on a sofa and discussing the size of guinea pig ears vs. the size of chinchilla ears, and pets we've had with odd numbers of toes or even odd numbers of feet, that I don't have with anyone else. I have friends who own pets, even pet rodents, but we don't have the years and years of history going back, where even mentioning a late pet's name brings back a flood of memories. Murray the tailless rat, Oglethorpe the Belgian hare, Plumpin Pumpernickel the beagle, etc.

squirrel_magnet and I watched the Reduced Shakespeare Company DVD this evening.

If anybody's wondering, we're doing absolutely nothing for New Year's Eve.

Whee!

The audience loved my piece!!! One woman - not related to any of us, a genuine independent audience member - asked if there was a recording of it anywhere, so she could buy it!! Wheeeeee!! It's not sophisticated music, it's just shameless audience pandering, but it's apparently successful audience pandering, and people want to hear it again!! EEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

The three days spent at the "Stitches" knitting conference were totally exhausting; I slept 18 hours straight last night. I cannot do 8 hour days several days in a row any more, and this was proof of that. I even slept through a couple of meals. I did have lots of fun at the conference, and learned several new tricks. And bought a whole bunch more yarn; several vendors whom I had purchased a bunch from last July, at the Knit and Crochet show in PA, recognized me this time around - hey, I know a bargain when I see it, so I looked for the same vendors, why not! I treated my niece H to a day of classes again this time, and she now knows how to use double-pointed needles and knit in the round; she got about halfway through a hat in her class, and expects to finish the hat to give to a baby at said baby's christening party next weekend.

My dad's in the hospital; of the quintuple bypass that he had last fall, three of the arteries are completely blocked up already, so he needs another bypass. It's scheduled for Wednesday. We're going to go visit him at the hospital on Monday. A lot easier to visit him in DE than up in Maine!! He's in good spirits (it's difficult to picture my dad in other than good spirits; he is incredibly good-natured, especially considering how much assorted crap he's had to put up with over the years) but the surgery WILL be serious.

Now to go catch up on all of you; I haven't read anyone's posts for four days now.

ETA: the concert was recorded by the venue it was in (The Hebrew Home of Greater Washington), but whether we will be able to get ahold of a copy of that recording is still up in the air, since it's not a professional recording nor an organization that exists for the purposes of distributing recordings. If they do allow the band to get copies of the recording, never fear, you will all be forced to listen.

as there's a young lady with homework to do who would like to use the computer next.
Dad's recovering by leaps and bounds, or at least enthusiastic shuffles. He'll probably be discharged Wednesday, right when I leave, to a rehab center, where he'll then be for about 2 weeks, learning to get more exercise and eat right, and giving his sternum more time to heal. It takes about 8 weeks for it to totally heal up after being opened up for heart surgery.

The hospital food really is yukkie. I've found some low-sodium, no-fat veggie snacks, and a nice box of raspberries, and some finger bananas, and those plus the big bag of grapes I got yesterday, are disappearing a lot faster than the cardboard macaroni and cheese.

And I found a yarn shop. Is anyone surprised?

Travel, part 1. Last weekend, we drove to Shepherdstown, WV, which is about 75 miles from here. We went to the Harvest Festival/Open House at PIGS, a potbellied pig rescue/sanctuary that I've supported for years. Now that we're 75 miles from them, instead of 1500, we can do that! We got to pet about 75 pigs, and lots of other critters that seem to be taking advantage of those good folks. Some foliage along the way, but not that much. It may be peak peek week in New England, but it comes a little later here; our peak foliage will probably be right at the end of this month. On the way home, we passed a roadside stand, or rather, we stopped at a roadside stand. They were making popcorn in huge kettles - the kind you see in cartoons of cannibals roasting missionaries - right there. We bought a large, LARGE jug of cherry cider, a couple jars of preserves, some roasted unsalted pumpkin seeds (finding unsalted munchies is always a challenge) and, bad for us but there we were, a bag of freshly made caramel corn. Well, we finished nearly the whole bag before we arrived home. Bad BunRab!! Yummy.

Travel, part 2. My dad had a heart attack last week, and they did surgery today - turned out to be a QUINTUPLE bypass. I am flying up there (hospital in Portland, ME) Saturday. My dad will be in the hospital at least a week, and their home is 100 miles away and my stepmom has been driving back and forth! My youngest brother Gene is up there right now, keeping dad and my stepmom company, but he has to fly home again, because he has a wife and stepson (he's the one who got married in July, just a few days after we got to the northeast), and he also travels a lot in his career, and has to fly somewhere else on Monday. And my youngest sister is 8 months pregnant and already has 4 kids - she can NOT drop everything to go up there. So, my turn. I get to fly, whee, hand patdown for security because of the pacemaker. Turns out to be waaaaay cheaper to take Southwest into Manchester NH, rent a car for several days, and drive the 95 miles to Portland, than to try to fly directly into Portland. Anyway, I'm going to try to get a hotel room with internet access, but no guarantees. I will be bringing a whole stack of science fiction magazines for my dad to read, and a bunch of yarn and wood/plastic crochet hooks and knitting needles, and the computer. Since I'll be renting a car, I'll even be able to find a craft shop if I run out of yarn! Anyway, if I don't get a room with internet access, I'll be offline for a few days. I'm hoping to return on Wednesday, in time to go to band rehearsal. (I'll miss Monday night, but I'm not the only tenor sax there; Wednesday night I am the only bari sax plus the tenors need help desperately so I'm playing some tenor cues as well. I have discovered I can't actually switch between the two horns in the same hour - there are too many individual quirks to each instrument, and I can't make the adjustments mentally fast enough.)

As y'all know, I'm a rabid atheist, so clearly I'm not asking anyone to pray for my dad, but I won't stop you if you try to anyway, and he's a Catholic, so he won't mind. If you want to do something more practical, use this as a wake-up call to get your cholesterol and blood pressure checked, get some exercise, and donate money to medical research funds; that would be the atheist equivalent of prayer.

Damn, wish the weather forecast didn't include rain and wish I already had put 1000 miles on the new bike so that I was used to it, so I could use this as an excuse for a major road trip. Riding the bike through New England during foliage season? Yes!!! But 515 miles right now would be a bit much, especially alone. (S's bike isn't running yet, plus SOMEONE has to stay home to feed the critters!)

Wish I knew where my recorders and music were in all these boxes. Sally wants me to learn more jig tunes to play on the recorder accompanying her on the fiddle - the recorders being a pretty good stand-in for penny whistles. And I own O'Niell's - somewhere in the 200+ as yet not unpacked boxes. I could bring them along and practice... maybe I will spend tomorrow doing some serious digging into boxes, along with getting a flu shot.