Recovering from Boxing Day

direct from the perch:

Yesterday, upon awakening, I was informed by the FSM that the Spaz was in a good mood because it was her favorite holiday-- Boxing Day. This is understandable for a joey. We celebrated with leftos and a long walk along the beach. The beach always puts Kaz to sleep.

Funny conversation with K's hubby, who doesn't like the sea. I would like to live long enough to get him in the kayak some day. When you've swum since before you remember yourself, as we say here, and you feel like the sea is better than the sidewalk, it's strange to meet someone who doesn't even want to get his feet wet! The sibs and I can't wait to wash the heat away and race into the water. At the Preveza "Dog Beach" (thus named because I let the dog swim there), I swam in my underwear because I couldn't resist, and the Dapster pulled her skirt up as high as decency allowed and waded around. Kazzie starts swimming lessons next month and we believe she'll take to the water, too, so with so much pressure, maybe her Baba will give in and give it a try on waveless days.

I spoke of leftos. What did we have left over, you wonder? Well, here are some images of the Christmas prep. Nick oversaw the lamb, of course.

G made old village-recipe white bread and several loaves of whole wheat with flour from the water mill. He also drove out to this crazy spring and got the famous spring water which comes straight from Mt Helmos and used this in the recipes. The potatoes also went into the outside oven.
And whoever wasn't on a ton of medication or breastfeeding imbibed spirits from our local organic winery.

Later, Kazzie opened her (monogrammed!) stocking, which Dap and I had ordered from the UK. So, of course, we chose the name! Here she is checking out her teddy bear, which Grandpa Nick hadn't noticed says Sakis Rouvas on the tshirt! K fears Kazzie may enter the mainstream way too soon with such toys. So much for making the poor little thing listen to Kosmos Radio all the time, Mummy.

Our Christmas-day walk to the source of the life-giving smell did not produce the smell, but was otherwise wonderful. The Spaz and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. BIL/Baba pushed us far up and down hills and got a crazy holiday workout. Until somebody had to shove my inert self up and down those inclines/declines, I never realized how many there were on that walk!

Tomorrow the men hit the city so George can meet with his surgeon. We will update you if appropriate. The ladies remain on the perch to hold down the fort and protect it from GYPSIES!!! (coming soon)

The ambivalent eye

On the perch, it's hard to tell it's Christmas Eve.

Things keep happening to set us back. First of all, I already mentioned that I got out of the hospital on Saturday. I needed five whole blood transfusions and two platelet ones, as well as a bunch of white cell jabs, a hematocrit jab and a course of powerful antibiotics. Thank the powers that be for the "collar bone mega multi-mainline", which prevented me from having to have a little annoying catheter in my arm to worry about having break. My poor veins are sick of being insulted, too. How would the docs like to be called slippery, weak, nonexistent, collapsed or, worst of all, too small???

Anyhoo, the morning I was told I could go, G called the Dapster from the rat's nest and told her he had a fever with chills so the two of them decided that he'd spend a couple more days in the capital while she and I proceeded to the country, namely the perch. He could accompany K and the Spaz on Tue morning. That way there would be no danger of me catching anything, which could take me ages to get over. Well, the flu kept getting worse, K delivered chicken broth and staples, then the cough started. WHICH WAS SO BAD THAT IT CAUSED A HERNIA TO POP OUT. WHICH IS NOW THREE HERNIAS! So G is basically over the flu, but a residual cough remains, and he has to have surgery (not immediately, but) sooner rather than later. He's supposed to take it easy-- can't lift or stretch or do anything that could make the situation worse. I blame the pumpkins, but he may blame the fact that he recently had to carry me down a flight of stairs and into the car.

So, on the perch you've got: useless me, who just creates more work for everybody, a handicapped handyman who has to keep being reminded not to do stuff, the mother of a joey who is going through a clingy and fussy stage, therefore severely limiting Mama's mobility, and two senior citizens who deserved to get a little respite this holiday season, but who have ended up doing most of the work. Also a small, spazzie joey. Tomorrow when the B.I.L. arrives, he's probably going to get assigned a few tasks...

Anyone would think we had been gazed down upon by the hugest evil eye ever to open. HOWEVER, at yesterday's bloodtest I was allowed to go home for Christmas instead of being kept in the ospedale. George is going to work with the wonderful Dr. D, a good friend who is going to perform perfectionist surgery and keep the cost as low as possible in the city's newest hospital. Kazzie is allowed to be fussy sometimes because she brightens up our days and provides me with life-giving energy and a reason to keep fighting. K loves the Spaz even when she's being an insane crankypants, so no worries there. The (grand)parents may stay fit and young-at-heart if they have to work hard...

As long as he doesn't fling himself about Top-Chef style, G can cook. Tomorrow's menu includes lamb on the spit, overseen by Nick, of course, fresh bread in the outdoor oven, lettuce and cabbage (salads) from the garden, twice-baked potatoes and pumpkin pie with Nick's pumpkin. K and the Spaz managed to fit in a recipe of mellow-macks yesterday while the rest of us were in the city for my tests.

Also tomorrow Kazzie and I will take our Christmas constitutional in my new wheelchair. I finally gave in and rented one so that I can take long "walks". Right now my legs can get me to the bathroom and back. In the chair the possibilities are endless! In order to keep the style as slim and mobile as possible, we got the kind you can't push yourself. So, I will sit regally in the chair with Kazzie in my lap. We will gaze about at the scenery. Someone will push us along. If this person is moving too slowly, we will call out, "Faster!" If we want to turn left or right, we can simply indicate it with the wave of a hand. Tomorrow our destination is the source of the life-giving smell, towards Katholiko village. Today we practiced on the balcony.
Tomorrow we won't be wearing pj's, that's for sure. And because it's been a while since we've graced you with a Kazzie/Auntie's thighs shot:

Kazzie and I are considering switching our dog choice to Newfie, the gentle giant, for a number of reasons. Of course, the purchase of a car will have to accompany such an adoption, because I don't think they allow 70-kilo dogs on PT. So the financial aspect will have to be worked out. All assuming I get well, right?

I've decided that my upcoming controversial post will be about gypsies. I'm sure there will be a good number of you who will disagree with my opinions. Some of you will be driven to comment.

Well, I wish all celebrants a merry Christmas and let's hope I get another one next year to wish you the same! Be well, be good to each other, do good and selfless deeds, smell the roses!!!

BITE ME!

Actually, Dec 17
Hi, it's me, Barney, that annoying, huge purple beast that toddlers love and parents want to kill. I know you think I was arrested for child inappropriacy or some such disgraceful situation, but no, I write from the ospedale, resplendent in my purple coat. "But, Barney, aren't you supposed to be jolly and fully porpherus, rather than a grouchy, pitiful sicky with huge violet patches up and down your flabby arms and legs?" "Bite me."

Dear Dr P:
You are a sweet guy. You are knowledgeable and attentive. You don't mean to test my pain threshold on a daily basis and cover me in ginormous purple bruises. You certainly don't mean to break my veins and subject me to weird thrombosis treatments including aluminum water (?!?) held in by a giant diaper. However, this is what you do. I politely request, with all due respect, and with your needle at a distance, that you BITE ME.

My niece sends a spazzy threat and a two-middle-finger salute (half the peace sign, as G would call it) to the next person to treat me rotten. So there!


When do you officially become a certified vromyar? If your nose is partly clogged, and you can't smell yourself, does it count? If you're visually tidy, but bodily stinky, does it count? If your family is too nice to tell you you're reeky, does it count? Just wondering for academic reasons...

I will spare you the details of last week, when I sat about the perch with what turned out to be a hematocrit of 12. Are you familiar with those rubbery, jelly-like, amorphous toys sold by the Pakis in Monast? You slam 'em on the ground and they spread out with a plop? 'Twas I. Also, almost no platelets (cause of 2-day (!!) nosebleed of which you really don't want the details), almost no whites. Turns out the mustard is eviler than we thought.

The handyman has agreed to do some guest blogging as soon as he thinks of a good topic. Hopefully he will also address the existence of photos such as the following:

Is this just an innocent fitness planning chat, or is it part of the attempt to usurp my favored status and stage a coup de direction that will shake the very foundations of the KAS? Attention au grisby, Tonton Pierre! Attention au grisby!

may be getting out tomorrow...

18 Dec
Update: got out. Todo bi. On the way to the perch. Περαστικά, G, join us soon. Bring sis and Precious P.

Greetings from the perch

From the perch, on the new mobile internet stick, which is a bit slow, but it's pay-as-you-go, so the best solution for now...

The walls of the rat's nest were starting to close in on me. It's sunny for at least part of every day here, but the sun isn't hot enough to come through the awning, and if we raise the awning I feel very exposed, because the building that used to block the view of my balcony from the next street got torn down and replaced with a parking lot. So I decided to escape to the perch for a few days, to be joined by the handyman, K and the Spaz on Tuesday.

In other news,
'twas with great pride that I listened to the super-duper tile guy praise the tiles I had gotten for the bathroom floor and walls. Porcelain tiles (white on the back instead of ceramic-colored), great quality, from the discount tile place. (Also, the rat's nest bathroom is really small, so in any case, nothing would have broken the bank.) (Except these amazing little ones made of real stones with a few glass ones, costing close to 500euros a square meter.) So apparently one of the reasons these tiles are so great is that they're really hard, which was proved when I broke every single one of my drill bits trying to put up the towel rack. Oh! Also proved Thursday night BY MY FACE!

One a.m. I was writing a delicate email and really wanted to finish while I was inspired. Mom, however, had gone to sleep. The Princess of the Fake Orgasm started up. She had been active throughout the rest of the day (including common silence time (siesta)), but I had decided that I wouldn't do anything unless she actually woke me up. But it really pissed me off that she would wake up my mom, so I got up from the couch and headed to the kitchen to get a frying pan to bang on the wall. Head rush, dizziness, jelly legs, face crashing into the bathroom floor (hadn't made the turn into the kitchen yet, but that "mosaic" marble is probably not much softer than porcelain.) Question: When other people fall, why do they catch themselves with their hands, while I fall, quite literally, flat on my face? Actually, a little more to the left, because that is where the forehead and chin goose eggs are, as well as the dark purple bruises that make me look like I have an off-center BLACK goatee.

I know that you think, especially those of you who have known me a long time, that I exaggerate here, because I want to make a good story. I am capable of exaggeration, but here I am not exaggerating. No amount of concealer is going to cover this up, and with only around 2,000 whites, I will be extra freakish for a while. Maybe on Friday, when I have to go to the city for my blood tests, I'll wear a mask. That way, I'll look like I'm being cautious, and will not get chastised by the docs. I'll already be in trouble because I was supposed to tell them if I got a fever, but I knew they'd check me in if I told them I have had a low-grade fever every day since Wednesday. I don't care because I sometimes have to feel like I have a little control over my life. If I had real control, of course, I would kick my blood's ass and make it do my bidding! I am missing my scheduled chemeo because of my low platelet count. I was supposed to have my next therapy tomorrow, but now it'll be next Monday at the earliest.

In other news,
Kazzie is gifted. Besides knowing how to instill people with healing Kazzie power, she can now roll over! The fact that she can roll over on K and B's mushy-gushy padded mattress means that on a nice firm mattress (like mine on the perch and in the rat's nest) she should be able to do cartwheels. Also, she can speak! If you can't understand her magical language, that's your problem, but she has become quite vocal.


I hope you're not friends with K on fb, because she seems to have gotten a jump on me with this news!!! With the same picture! That day at the rat's nest, Dap also got a pic of K and the Spaz, with me in the corner, stuffing my face with pickled peppers! I'm glad K didn't post that one, and I'm sure not going to! Here the Kaz is mesmerized by a papier maché cat, gifted to me years ago by fantastic student, Lina Banana. I am holding her and absorbing Kazzie healing power and anti-fever power! This may be the last pic I post from the perch because it took about 30 min to upload with the new stick. A bit slow, you see.

Starting with a piece of open correspondence
from the
Rat's Nest
to
my new neighbor,
who gives new meaning to the word, garçonnière
or, rather, revives its true meaning with a feminist twist.

Dear Princess of the fake orgasm,
In case you care, the wall that separates my slumbering head from your ear-splitting cries is exactly one brick, two licks of plaster and two layers of paint thick. Actually, I think you might have just a touch of the exhibitionist in you, so you probably don't care. What about this: despite his ugly, ill-fitting-jeans swagger, loverboy (I won't say boyfriend because when the two of you aren't having the loudest sex in the neighborhood, you're fighting at top volume) must be a tad inexperienced, because he thinks he's actually bringing on your repeated, bad-porn-flic-inspired, perfectly-synchronized-with-his orgasms.

I do not care what you do in the privacy of your own home, but waking up a poor, pitiful sickie 4 times a night is RUDE. I will not complain about what you do during the day, which seems to be fun or funny, because your cross-between-Janice-from-Friends-and-Nanny-Fine laugh (this is absolutely NO exaggeration or misrepresentation) echoes through your flat and bounces over the balcony divider to make my ears ring. But party on with that.
Yours truly.

Friends, I hope you know that I am not a prude. The young woman who lived in that flat previously was in a committed relationship the whole time she lived there, and I only overheard intimacy a handful of times. This is understandable in an apartment building with the kind of walls I described above. The new chick is out of control. Last night I slept with a big wooden spoon next to me so I could bang on the wall if they woke me up again. Luckily, I didn't have to use it. Loverboy also smokes in the hallway and the elevator, which really bites.

I told my mom they're going to have to tell me their safe word, too. I'm not really joking about this because the first time they woke me up the other night, she was screaming, I don't want to, I don't want to. In my slumberly confusion, I imagined myself going over there and offering to take her to the hospital to get her rape kit done and then to the police station to file the complaint. The follow-up sounds convinced me that this would not be necessary, but I did have a little scare.

[Confidential to Zo if you're out there: I should send her to your place for a couple of days to really blow that ground-floor witch's mind. The old bat would seriously end up in the loony bin και θα ησυχάζατε εσείς επιτέλους.]

In other news, I had my first outing in months and months yesterday, when Jiora came in the big black SUV to rescue me from the confines of the rat's nest and take me for a cup of coffee on the beach. Brilliant waves, bright sun! Don't be jealous, Chicagoans-- at one point I did need to put on my cotton cardigan to keep warm because it was a little windy. I should have taken some pics but totally forgot. Anyway, they would have been on my old mobile, which doesn't have good resolution, nor do I know where the cord is to upload them to my computer, so it's all moot, I guess, or mute, as Dappy's favorite coworker used to say.

Sickie update is that although they have put me on the 28- rather than the 21-day program for the new mustardy chemo, doing my next dose on time would put my tanking, bad-blood days right in the Christmas holidays. Since I am planning on being on the perch and, even if I were in the city, staffing in the ospedale will not be up to its full complement, we are scooting me up to this Wednesday (rather than the following Monday) as long as my blood work is good on Tuesday.

The biggest things I have to complain about these days are, in order of annoyingness:
* jelly legs/no power
* bad cough
* hoarseness/no voice
The latter two are probably because of the pressure of the tumor on various internal organs and workings. The top one is probably left over from the summer's Vincristine, not helped by the cortizone.

I struggle a lot with the ideas of optimism and hope and positive attitude. Everyone says that it helps to be positive and believe you're going to get well. I was like this the first time, before my relapse. But I have been disappointed so many times that now I wonder if it's worse to be hopeful and get let down than it is to be realistic and objective until I get some hard facts and results. On Friday I asked one of the residents on my team if they had seen anything on my previous (4 days before) x-ray to explain the cough, or if there was fluid in the lung or anything like that, because the cough really is annoying. He said there was nothing worrisome (cough-related, because obviously my big-ass tumor is front and center on all my chest x-rays), but added with great caution and reserve (and admonitions of "don't get your hopes up") that the film seemed to show that the tumor seemed to be stable and maybe just a bit gathered-up since the last x-ray. Of course, the impression docs get from an x-ray in my situation is about a hundred times less clear and measurable than a CT, but still...what do I do with this info? Do I let myself cheer up a bit or do I say, hold on, the higher you rise, the harder you fall?

[MAUVIE GUILT TRIP ALERT:] I haven't seen the Spaz in ages (since Thursday), which is probably why I'm settling into a bit of a funk, despite happy pills. If you're friends with K on fb, you will see a brilliant new pic of Kazzie, as joey, featuring my forearms. If not, wait till my next post, when I will hopefully have fresh material.

Speaking of K, she did me a steady (Is that an expression? I think it might be.) on Saturday morning! She and B took Kazzie down to the modern-day agora (as they do every Saturday morning), and, along with their shopping, picked me up some sausage! From a reliable butcher! (Don't ask too many questions.) Apparently the kind with the orange peel, but without the orange peel, if that makes any sense. Now we await barby access to make, perhaps, sausage sandwiches piled high with grilled peppers. You know what I miss from the States? A nice, fresh kaiser roll, lightly toasted. It would be perfect for my sausage sandwich.

I also miss the fact that I know the exact pair of g.d. jeans I want but they are not available in Europe and ordering them from the US (for only 40 bucks--they are tried and true, style, fit, etc, I'll wear them every other day so totally worth it), even if I have them mailed to a friend's house in the States and ask them to ship them to me here, risks customs and I am never taking this chance again. Besides port customs (LIVING NIGHTMARE), airport customs is one of the worst bureaucratic experiences you can have here. Last time somebody sent us something and it got caught up in customs, we almost told them to keep it to spare us the trouble, but it was too good so we couldn't!

Not much else going on around the rat's nest. Happy birthday to Nick who's never going to read this all the way from the perch but I'll sign off and call him now before I forget!

Thoughts about shopping

First, a message from the rat's nest:

I hope all y'all United Statesians had a good Thanksgiving. Here we don't observe it, although I hear that some friends try to keep the tradition going on this side of the Atlantic! If we had been on the perch, we may have made more of it, but probably just for the food, not to celebrate pilgrims and Indians*. Nick has some great pumpkins just waiting to be turned into pie. I got a good recipe for pumpkin pita (pie with phyllo) where you use grated raw pumpkin instead of boiled or roasted. You sautee (actually, sauter) it with onion and add some liquid to soften it up, but also add some sugar and cinnamon. I think this would taste pretty good, especially since the plan is to bake it in the outdoor oven.

Ooh! Just remembered the handyman does fabulous pizzas in the outdoor oven. I will play the sickie card to get some this season. Notice I am not being too good about the salt thing. After 3 no-salt years I am on a salt binge and it isn't pretty. The other night at about two am I craved olives like crazy and downed a couple of dozen lickety split. Then I started feeling guilty and had to check how many calories they have because I don't want to fill up all my loose skin from lost muscle tone with gushiness. But they're not that bad-- less than ten calories each, if I recall, most of it fat but unsaturated. I also yearn for sausage, maybe the kind with orange rind in it, or the kind with leeks, but I don't want to be disappointed by it. I want somebody to tell me at what butcher shop it's clean (okay, I know, but relatively clean) and delicious. Then I will make Nick pop some on the grill (barby). Then I will squeeze tons of lemon on it...mmm...

UPDATE: Orange crop is starting! It's the beginning of months of huge, delicious, free organic oranges from a friend of the perch who no longer picks them for commercial gain. They fall off the trees unless we go pick crates and crates of them! Cannot wait for my first sample of the year!

Anyway, I wanted to share a few musings about shopping and consumerism. Some questions, too. I have often said that there are a lot of people I do not understand. I probably should have taken at least one psych course in college so I could be more in tune with the zeitgeist, or the pulse of the times, or whatever it's called.

So the puzzling thing I'll wonder about now is "Black Friday." Why is it called BF, because all those stupid fucks fighting each other to get into the Circuit City Superstore at 6am trample each other and some of them end up in the hospital, just to get a special deal on a TV two inches wider than the one they have now? So it's "black" because some die?

Huff Post featured some stupid cow who had set up her tent on Wednesday to be one of the first in line. Who was she planning her shopping for? Hopefully not her family, who she cares about enough to blow off Thanksgiving for. I guess she's raised her kids to think consumer products are more valuable than her company on what is perhaps the most important US family holiday.

What is the incentive to go shopping on Black Friday? Are the bargains that good? Maybe they are, and as usual I just don't know what I'm talking about. More likely, you go in for something specific that's a bargain but end up getting sucked into buying so much other stuff as part of the consumer fever, that you spend way more than you can afford and wind up with stuff you don't really want or need. Plus you get filled with rage at the crowds, the lines, people's behavior, the hassled sales assistants, the empty shelves when you finally find the thing you went for (or where it used to be).

Have you ever noticed how on the Super Nanny (Jo Frost US version), the families always live in these McMansions and the kids have rooms full to overflowing with toys? Lots of times the mountains of toys are so high that the kids can't even access the ones at the base and they forget they even have them. (I will not get into the fact that the kids are way more in need of a little attention and discipline than they are another action figure.) Why oh why do we keep buying STUFF? What empty holes does it fill, and for how long? Why do we need to be surrounded by this stuff? What does it symbolize? These days, when I see somebody walking down Ermou, laden with shopping bags, I just assume they've maxed out their credit cards, and certainly don't envy the fact that the lipstick will be long gone when they've paid off the 12th "interest-free installment".

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe we should live in undecorated hovels and wear crappy, torn clothes. But there are limits.

Another semi-related thing I want to mention about shopping, fashion and economics: Here, over the past few/several years, a lot of Chinese-owned discount clothing stores have cropped up. There are some issues regarding their legality, but since I don't know anything about this, I'll let it slide. Their clothing is very cheap in price; also in quality, but a lot of people shop there because they can't afford anything better. If you've ever been poor, you know that sometimes it feels good to have something new, even if it's not going to last very long. My beef is that all the styles LOOK cheap. Jeans with lots of writing on the back pockets and over-the-top "wear and tear" markings. Women's shirts with stupid and incorrect English sayings and sequins. Dresses with super ugly patterns (when you're dying a piece of fabric, it doesn't cost any more to use tasteful colors). Announcement: Just because somebody is poor and forced to shop at your store does not mean that they have no fashion-related discretion. As a result, however, I feel like the difference between social strata is quite obvious (at a glance!). Next Thanksgiving, give thanks if you live within fifty miles of a T.J. Maxx or a Ross Dress Best for Less. Never paid more than ten bucks for CK and BCBG jeans.

PS: Rest in peace VALUE CITY. I will never forget you. All the ignorant people who didn't shop at you and allowed you to go out of business can bite me.

*I know Thanksgiving is about being thankful, not just about sweet potato casserole and Indians and pilgrims. I am thankful that I am still alive because I was told a few months ago that I might not be. I am thankful that my new treatment seems at least to be stabilizing the tumor. I'm thankful that my family will be all together soon even if King Arfur, Prince Jimmy, Princess Kazzie and Sir Lou Reese have to declare martial law on the perch. I'm thankful for absolutely brilliant life-long friends, loving and supportive relatives, and doctors that give way more than a damn. I am thankful that living in this country means that every day includes some sunshine, despite our many problems.

Update from last post

the rat's nest updates,

not about the group spooning (this we can all please forget about now), but the spazzie fitness duo, G and the Kaz.

So I mentioned they are teaming up as workout buddies. I also mentioned the Kaz will kick some butt, especially in the boxing ring and leg "pedalling" events. Also, swimming lessons begin in two months and we are ready to go. She will not go to the snobby posh pool near her house, however. We cannot be a liberal, working class joey and swim in the snobby posh pool!

Do not let her girly appearance fool you in the following pic. This is misleading. It serves to put all competitors off the scent.
Instead, observe the uncensored spazzie gaze, the determined set of the mouth and the disciplined, GI Jane-like (albeit fuzzy wuzzy) hairstyle.

Now I don't mean to completely offend the handyman before his arrival, but it's probably relatively safe because I think he bought his ticket today so there's no going back. So here's a pic lifted from a newspaper (won't say which for reasons of self-protection), showing the pumpkin artist formerly known as Pierre, hard at work. I will say that he at least shaved before carving our president's face into this giant member of the squash family. (In collaboration with another artist/carver, I believe.) But look at that insane head of hair! Check out the generous sideburns! Does this scruffy dude look ready to take on the Spaz?
[Check out the whitehouse blog to see another pic of the finished product and a few more.]

(Also, G, no offense but that lame-o t-shirt does not hold a candle to the pumpkin crew sweatshirt you guys sent me last year.)

I know what you're all wondering: Why do I always pick on the sibs but let the Dapster fall through the cracks, avoiding my rapier nastiness? Well, don't forget that she keeps me fed and prevents the rat's nest from falling into vromyarness. She also deals with all the sickie-related bureaucracy, of which there is plenty. So you can understand that it is not in my best interest to alienate her through this medium. So I am forced to say something positive!

You may know that Dap's mother and sister had long careers as nurses. Dappy did not become a nurse due to chickenshitedness (mine did not come from nowhere, friends), and has sometimes expressed regret about this when we're sitting in the ospedale room and the cool, hardcore nurses come in and do their jobs. K learned to do my jabs (under the skin in the fleshy part of the gut) and has taken care of it, but lately it's so hard to go over to her place or make her drag the Spaz over here, just for the sake of the jab. D tried once but gave up when the medicine leaked back out after she removed the needle. (Needless to say, there is no way that my own well-developed and nurtured-over-the-years chickenshitedness would ever ever allow me to give myself a shot like those diabetes people.)

But yesterday she forced herself to try again and she gave me a painless jab, and repeated the procedure today. Smooth as you like. Perhaps she missed her calling after all. (Plus she likes those little white dresses and caps.)