A Brush With Disaster

Grant is out of surgery, which was successful; he's feeling much better, despite a sore throat from all the fishing around in there, and he'll be home tomorrow. The culprit seems to have been a metal bristle from our grill brush.

Thank you, everyone, for all the good wishes. They mean more than you know.

Lingua Frantic

Grant is in the hospital.

Monday night, we’re eating dinner, and Grant bites into a piece of grilled endive, not normally considered one of your more hazardous foods. Next thing I know he is grimacing and spitting and trying to rid himself of something that just stuck him in some tender mouth part. He can’t do it, he can’t see anything, the urgent-care doc we eventually end up seeing an hour or so later can’t see anything. Go home, get a good night’s sleep, and if you don’t feel any better you can see an ENT guy tomorrow. Tuesday afternoon, ENT guy takes an X-ray and also does a visual inspection, can’t see anything. Last night (after we’d waited and wondered all day, natch) ENT guy calls back, says he thinks he sees some smallish foreign body on the X-ray but he’s not sure what, be at the hospital at 9 for a CAT-scan to be followed by surgery later in the day. The CAT-scan confirms that there’s something there, ENT guy assures Grant that he’ll have it out in two seconds, figures he just has to get some light on the subject, grab the end of the thing and pull. Only he has Grant there, a patient etherized upon a table, and he can't find it. Whatever it is is wedged horizontally across the back of Grant's tongue. The poor man has lost at least 5 pounds in 3 days. So ENT guy transfers Grant to a more specialized hospital for surgery tomorrow morning.

I am trying to concentrate on being able to play Linda Ronstadt at full volume (I love Linda Ronstadt. Grant hates Linda Ronstadt.) to avoid dealing with the fact that I am just this side of barking mad worried. I’d rather deal with 48 straight hours of Bartok at full volume (Grant loves Bartok. I hate Bartok.).

Name That Species!

How did I manage to have a great time at the Maine Fiber Frolic and not tell you about it? I haven't been blogging all that much lately, (mostly) by choice, but clearly I am slipping. Probably I am the last to know. Anyhow, I did have a great time at Fiber Frolic, and I didn't even buy any yarn. Really. It wasn't easy, either. I spent most of the day with the Three Evil Enablers.


There they are, a covey of Enabilatrix malefica in the wild. We spent quite a bit of time in just one booth...


admiring the wares of Nanney Kennedy, creator of Seacolors Yarn. She hand-dyes them in seawater, and she gets gorgeous, subtle blends of color. Only because I had just been through all my yarn again was I able to refrain from simply buying all of her stock and bringing it home with me. Lisa and Ginny, their resistance weakened by repeated contact, did succumb. I know I will run into Nanney again, and I know I won't be able to hold out forever.

I had planned to spend both days of Fiber Frolic weekend Frolicking, but having seen pretty much everything on Saturday, and knowing that with me resistance is, if not futile, at least not to be pushed too far, on Sunday I just hung out with my folks; it was a beautiful day (hard to remember now that early June before the monsoon hit was quite splendid), and we strolled down to the water. There was a biggish bird with several babies swimming around, and although I know enablers when I see them, with birds I have a tougher time.


Does any intrepid ornithologist out there know what this is?

Finally, it was time to leave. I had noticed on the way up that the roadsides were bordered by pink flowers I'd never seen before.


Is this the spiky invasive thing you were talking about, Lisa?