Staying busy, although I slept in today

Two days till surgery and two days from five weeks since the last. I've officially shed all the water weight I had from swelling after the surgery... I'm down to 213 lbs from an original 328 3-4 years ago, so I've lost a total of 115 lbs. The incision is healing really well. Halfway through my leave, and I am not bored but am rested. Yesterday, I made time to study Latin both from my Wheelock text and from Mango via my library card. I am very rusty, and I used to be pretty proficient. I've done things I never make the time for, like that. A lot has been appointments and that range of motion bike, and we watch 'Desperate Housewives' at dinner every night but Friday (there's always some show; this is just the current one, because we'd been watching another Marc Cherry show prior, and I really enjoyed it, so I said I'd give it a try). Last night I was up to 3 AM updating the 'what to do if anything happens to me' document, not to be morbid, but to be practical, and I didn't manage to before the first surgery. With the exception of one piece of information I need to call on tomorrow, I'm finished. I'm also going to call the ROMTech rep back who left me a message during PT on Friday, as she thought she was delivering a device and I just need a new patient number and know how to put it in, since I already have one, from what I've been told. I did call Saturday and left a message, but I want to make sure she got it since the surgery is the next day. Not being able to do business today is making it harder... I had no clue about the holiday until it was mentioned at PT. My days all run together. But for those of you who have been working hard, enjoy your time off!!!

Sigh

It's been a long while. I've posted almost 12,000 times on this blog for over 20 years, but I haven't felt like writing for some time. That makes me sad. I've gotten caught up with life and I'd been relying mostly on my phone for Internet interaction, and it was just harder to do that, for one.  I have a laptop though now AND I just got a folding table big enough to write, read, do crafts, etc., on, rather than having a computer on a stool and being uncomfortable in my chair because I had to put a leg on either side.

I do post a lot on Facebook, and that's for people I'm friends with, and almost all of them are people I know personally, with the exception of a few librarians.  I guess I feel safer there in some ways than over-sharing to the great world beyond.  I know, that hasn't stopped me in the past. But I'm 55 now and a little wiser than when I started.

So let's see...I think I last wrote in February.  We got a puppy then and she was so tiny at 8 weeks that she could go between the slats of the picket fence.  Now she's nine months old, and she's nearly 50 lbs.  She finally has a big girl bark, is very tall and long and lanky, and generally is getting very big.  My roommate thinks she's part Lab (that part is obvious, as she has webbed toes and Labrador waterproofing) and part Doberman, much like the dog he had when I first met him over 30 years ago.  I'm leaning towards part Great Dane with her build, but he is probably right.  She's a joy, very enthusiastic, loving, and a good companion to the other dog, who is a Lab/Pit cross and now much smaller than her.

Healthwise I'm dealing with ageing.  I've lost 50 lbs. since early November and 28 of that was from late December on.  (I was put on a different diuretic in November and I swear 20 lbs. came off because I am a sponge.)  I'm on medicine now called Ozempic for my diabetes, but it helps with weight loss and I'm doing pretty well on it, despite early side effects.  I just went up to the maintenance dose.

I do need to lose weight because I have chondromalacia, which is a loss of cartilage in the joint.  My knees are to the point of being bone-on-bone and I need a bilateral knee replacement, but I need to lose another 40 or so pounds.  They'd like my BMI to be under 40, but 45 is a hard stop and I'm 48 now.  So I need to work harder because I'm in a lot of pain and it's very difficult to walk very far.  I do have an ADA placard for out in the community.  I had one at the university but they only gave me a temporary one as they couldn't read my GP's handwriting. I had him redo it and resubmitted it, but they denied my request.  I have a couple of weeks to submit records, which I've requested, and perhaps I can get one on appeal.  You can't just park in a spot on campus without their specific hangtag, you see...my state-issued placard doesn't do a thing.  And they're pretty tough.  One of my former co-workers used a prosthetic leg and they made him send over records, and he finally got it. I've had it all summer, though, and it's been a godsend.  Without it I'm going to have to walk probably a quarter of a mile from my car to the bus stop and back, and that is very difficult and painful.

I'm also most likely going to have my gall bladder out soon. I go to a surgery consult the first week of September.  They'd found gallstones on an MRI of my liver but I was asymptomatic until I had fried fish and was in extreme distress for a week.  I'm a little leery of this. Even with the weight loss, I weigh about 280 lbs., so lots of visceral fat and higher mortality chances with any abdominal surgery.  Hopefully, it will be laparoscopic, as I don't want to miss much work.

Next week will mark the five-year anniversary since I moved in with my roommate.  All in all it's gone very well, surprisingly well, actually. Neither of us were particularly sure about the move and living together.

At work, headquarters took over my surgery and outpatient visit authorisations, leaving me without a position, but my boss (who's only been here a few months) really went to bat for me, and they did a lateral move into a position I've had before that is technically a few rungs down, but because of the way they did it, I didn't lose my pay, although I'm on the high end of the scale for this one.  I'm back in checkout.  One day before I moved I had a panic attack, because when I did it before, I was alone for the better part of a year, did the phone and e-mails, and generally had trouble keeping up.  Now there are two people at checkout (although my work buddy, who is very bubbly, is moving to registration, so they're trying to hire someone for the checkout position that's open), and one person who's job is to schedule phone and e-mail requests, letting me focus on the patients and families for the most part.  So it's actually been nice.  Not as much pressure and I get to interact with families and see the improvements in patients' lives. I do, being an introvert, get drained by too much interaction, but I also find it satisfying in this case.  So everything's going much better than it could have.

I've been working every day on a series of exercises to help keep my mind sharp.  There's Wordle and Latin Wordle, plus I'm studying languages on Duolingo.  I'm trying to brush up on my rusty Spanish, German, and Latin, plus I'm taking Irish and Welsh.  I was going to try to learn Modern Hebrew (I've studied Biblical Hebrew), but that wasn't going well, as the characters were very small, and it just wasn't clicking. I'm going to take my Biblical Hebrew and do some work on that instead and then go back to the modern after I get a grip on the ancient language.  But I'm getting through the ones I've studied before pretty quickly and understand more than I thought.  My grammar is actually still pretty good, it's just the vocabulary that I'm having to pick up again.  German is extremely easy, even though I haven't had it since 1985.  Latin is my most-studied language (5 semesters, including Mediaeval as well as the normal Classical, plus a little Humanist), so it's going well, although there are a lot of angry parrots in this one. (To be fair, Hebrew had a dove that liked warm wine--you can see why I was having trouble).  I've already used a little Spanish to check a person out at work without having to use the video interpreter, and I asked one of the in-person interpreters what the word for 'stickers' is and put it on my bulletin board because the kids love those.

Okay, I guess I'll sign off for now. I'm on vacation. No plans, not going anywhere, but I took the week off between now and Labor Day.  I'm hoping to get some rest and work on some new hobbies and actually do some reading.

And for some reason my neighbours are setting off fireworks for no discernable reason.

I lament

Worked through a chapter in two cognitive behavioural therapy workbooks and read a chapter in a library book on orchids (the latter while I was at Tire Discounters). So that's three chapters of reading in one day, more than I've done in a while. Tomorrow I pick up a book from the library on soil amendments. I've got several psychology and gardening books out right now, and some CDs. My roommate insists I'm holding books hostage, but I do pretty well with the non-fiction. Unfortunately, fiction has been a struggle of late. I think my attention span has shrunk, and maybe my introvertism is not so strong as it once is. It's hard for me to choose to do things alone, like read, or watch something. I listen to music pretty readily, but that doesn't require much investment of effort. It's been like this for several years. They talk about writer's block, but I've heard of others who say they have reader's block. That's what it feels like. Even when it's a good story, I struggle. It's so bad for a librarian to struggle with reading. I feel strange because of it. I'm going to try to set a little time each night for reading, even if it's for half an hour, and maybe do some studying as well. My languages, for example, are so rusty, and I brought my Latin, Biblical Hebrew, and Ancient Greek books with me when I moved here. The Spanish and German may have to be something I work on with Duolingo or some such; those books are in storage.

I think the best description I've ever seen of what I'm going to can be found in the Stages of a Reader cartoon you may have seen on the Internet.

I do love Latin, but this is funny...

Although keep in mind it's Eddie Izzard and so be prepared for some vulgarity (and not of the Vulgar Latin variety). :)s

Tonight

I kept my friend company and helped out with onion chopping as he made the tomato sauce for tomorrow's lasagna and some apples and cabbage.  He wasn't feeling well and was in some pain, so he forgot to order the challah from the bakery, so I went to Kroger and found some brioche loaves that will work.  I also finally got around to getting various toiletries I needed, such as shampoo, toothpaste, and razors.

We talked about 'The Vicar of Dibley', along with ancient Carthage as a Phoenician colony, Latin, Hebrew, etc.  In other words, it was a fairly normal night.

I started out my day getting up early to go get gas, as the light was on, and it was payday. I'm still going to be behind on a couple of bills, but unfortunately, the next paycheque is probably going to go to car tyres.  The flat the other day is no doubt foreshadowing the doom that will happen if I don't. I'm very lucky the tyre went flat while sitting in a parking lot and not while I was driving.  I have to weigh being fiscally responsible and living to become more fiscally responsible another day.  I'm probably going to go to the same place I got the last ones six years ago as they offer a free alignment and I need that too, along with a cheaper synthetic oil change than Valvoline.  I'm hoping I can find a good deal on everything, but I'm figuring it to be about $600.  I'm just hoping the doughnut tyre and the others last till I can do it.  The doughnut is original to the car, which is 19 years old.  Granted, the car still only has 83,700 miles on it.  My grandmother and then mother didn't drive it much.  Six years ago when I bought it there were only 34,000 miles on it. :)  I'd like to keep it in good working order, as several people depend on it.

I'm finally becoming a bit sleepy.  I've been a bit tired (it was a very productive day at work) but I hadn't really been sleepy.  I took the trash to the kerb and did the litter boxes earlier, but YKWIA had already gone to bed when  I treated the animals to their nightly fare, cleaned up the dishes and counters, packed things for tomorrow's lunch and caffeine, straightened up a bit and played with the kitten till he sleepily went in to be with YKWIA.

Speaking of the kitten, the only succulents left in the house are the big aloe and a bit of red velvet Echevarria that is struggling to come back out after he gnawed on it.  But at least he's been leaving the orchids alone.

Okay, time for bed. It's after midnight, and I get up about 6:30 am.  Hope you have a good day tomorrow.

Veni, vidi, legi

Terence Tunberg was one of my professors at UK. I have his Latin translation of 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas'. I also have other translators' versions of 'Winnie the Pooh', 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone', and 'The Hobbit'. And yes, I can read them, albeit I may have to reach for a dictionary on occasion, as my Latin is a bit rusty.

 :) 

The Highbrow Struggles of Translating Modern Children’s Books Into Latin

Tunberg, who specializes in neo-Latin, or the use of Latin after the Romans were dead and gone, never planned on translating kids’ books, but was contacted by prominent Classics textbook publisher Bolchazy-Carducci, who had purchased the rights to some of Dr. Seuss’s works. Given his background with the language, and his interest in how Latin evolved after Rome, the prospect of translating these modern works was right up his alley. Of course, the real reasons for the project didn’t escape him.

“As a textbook publisher, they’re out to make money. They caught on to the idea that if they have very young children’s stories in Latin along with the regular books by Caesar and Cicero and all these other people, it would be a draw. And they were right. I still get royalties,” says Tunberg.

For Latin lovers who happen to be 'The Big Bang Theory' fans

I present the following, courtesy of YKWIA, who translated the song:

mollis cattus, calidum cattus,
parva sphera furis,
laetus cattus, somnolentus cattus,
murmurillum, murmurillum, murmurillum.

:)

Hot and tired

A friend cooked dinner tonight, I did what dishes wouldn't go in the dishwasher, and he sent me home with hard-boiled eggs and pumpernickel bread. We had a good time, but I'm tired, so I'm going to bed early and will try to get stuff done on the house tomorrow. I'm off from work, so that should help. I haven't gotten much done on that front this week, so tomorrow and Saturday I plan on working my butt off.

Physical Therapy is going well; we saw John Calipari go by with his wife there. That's the University of Kentucky basketball coach. My foot and ankle were a little uncomfortable today but my back is doing better and I'm off the pain medicine and muscle relaxants.

Work was all about getting stuff ready for my day off; I really had to work hard to get all my data entry sheets in.

Tomorrow I'm taking my friends to the doctor and working on the house. I also need to mail my mom's card for Mother's Day (yes it's a bit late, but she lives 35 miles away, so hopefully it will get there by Saturday), as well as some Robert Jordan books for Paperback Swap. (I never did make it through the series, and kind of tired of them after awhile. The Wheel of Time seemed to spin the same story over and over. But maybe others will enjoy them.) I ordered a book with my credit on how to insult people in Latin. :)

Look what I got today

What do you get someone who loves fantasy and dead languages?



HOBBITVS ILLE (The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien, translated into Latin by Mark Walker) and HARRIUS POTTER ET PHILOSOPHI LAPIS (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by JK Rowling, translated into Latin by Peter Needham). The faceplate of the train engine on the cover of the later says: 'Hamaxostichus rapidus Hogvartensis'. :) The Chamber of Secrets (CAMERA SECRETORUM) has also been translated. I haven't found it for any of the others in the series, although an ancient Greek translation of the first book is available from various booksellers for a much bigger price. :)

I got them because they're fun, because I do read Latin, both Classical and Mediaeval, and because my Latin is getting a bit rusty from disuse. So, hopefully these will help. I already had WINNIE ILLE PU (Winnie the Pooh and QUOMODO INVIDIOSULUS NOMINE GRINCHUS CHRISTI NATALEM ABROGAVERIT (How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the latter translated by a couple of my professors at the University of Kentucky).

A quiet Sunday

No game, of course, we're still waiting for me to get the go ahead to partially weight-bear, which I hope will come this week, along with the go ahead to take real showers rather than sponge and baby wipe baths. It's been so long--I am up to 58 days since the accident.

Today I actually watched TV. I'd hoped Brave was on Netflix but it wasn't, and I didn't feel like paying $5 to watch it on the cable's On Demand. So I watched figure skating instead. Javier Fernandez, although placing fourth at the Grand Prix finals, landed three quads, which hadn't been done since 2006, I think. He skated a beautiful programme. Later, I watched the nightly news and then of all things 'Dexter's Lab'. I always loved that cartoon.

I paid a couple of bills, but that was the only really 'important' thing I did. Tomorrow I am going to send out more holiday cards, pay more bills, check on one, and study a little ancient Greek and review some Latin. I feel like I've been letting my brain atrophy for awhile now since I've been out of school, and I am losing my languages.

I guess that's all for tonight. I just wanted to write a little before bed. Hope you had a good weekend.

I had a bit of an aquarium emergency this morning

but still got to work on time. I had not put water in it and it had gotten low enough that the pump was trying to get the water up but couldn't. I have one of those filters that has an intake valve, and the water goes through the filter and then falls back into the aquarium. So I filled up the tank, treating the water with both the anti-chlorine/chloramine stuff and with good nitrate-eating bacteria, and the fish are much happier. Their space just increased to double what it was. I am such a bad fish mom sometimes. I cleaned the algae off the glass as well, and now the water is happily tinkling down and the fish are swimming all about, and it's very relaxing to watch.

I started reviewing my Greek today (and I'm going to do some Latin before the night is over). I had five semesters of Latin (I have a Classical Civilisation degree, and one semester was Mediaeval Latin in the history graduate programme), but I dropped Greek in the first semester, about the time we got to the aorist. So I'm going to try to follow the adventures of Dikaiopolis and his family. I have both of the Athenaze books by Maurice Balme. They're standard at many universities and there are a lot of websites with exercises and supplemental material.

For Latin, I have a series of five small books called Ecce Romani! which follows the story of the Cornellii family, especially their children. I also have Wheelock's Latin Grammar (two different editions, the most recent I have being the 6th, on my Kindle. There is now a 7th out.)

I also just went through and downloaded several free Kindle books from Amazon. I'm getting back with my Kindle. For awhile there the tablet took precedence, as it was smaller (I have a Kindle 2, which is a behemoth compared to the newer ones, but by God it reads to me, and not all the new ones do), could be more easily packed, and I could read Kindle books on the tablet (but I don't really like to, I prefer eInk), so I've started taking it with me in my backpack.

Okay, I've paid some bills and gotten some things done on the computer. I think I'm going to go do a little studying and then maybe listen to some music. Bye for now.