Skip to main content

Whole New Outlook

So now on day two of limited mobility, I have not yet struck knitting nirvana.  The Tylenol 3 helps with pain but it also makes me sleepy/dopey, and knitting is just not yet very appealing.  In the meantime I have gotten an interesting new outlook about our home.

The swelling is down on the left foot, but it is still much bigger than the right.
Let me start by saying I really love our home here in British Columbia.  It is built on a mountain, overlooks beautiful Burrard Inlet, a body of salt water that is 13 kilometres (about 8 miles) from the ocean, making the inlet more a fjord than lake.  Our view is always good rain or shine, and I remain mesmerized by that view still after having spent 20 years of looking over the flat prairies of North Dakota.  The key characteristic in my current, barely mobile stage is we live on a mountain.  That means lots, and I mean lots of stairs.
Never knew 14 steps could cause so much anxiety.

Right now, a daunting view for me.

These are photographs of the stairs to get into the main living area from the garage.  The top photo is looking up towards the garage and the second is a view looking down.  There are a total of 14 steps that need to be navigated here; I know because I have now had ample time to count them.  (Before the incident, as it will continue to be called, I would not have been able to give you an exact number.) The little curve is another mini-trap when you're trying to navigate with crutches.  Add the very helpful Mike, the cat, to the scene and I'm sure if someone were videotaping my travels up or down, the tape would make some silly video show or YouTube.  Both the assent or descent are slow, filled with a certain amount of grunting/groaning, and if not so painful, I'm sure are very entertaining scenes indeed for others.   For me right now they seem something akin to climbing or descending Mt. Everest.

Last night Chris, a colleague of mine, was kind enough to bring me dinner against my protestations there was no need.  Lucky for Mike he did, because Mike's food bowl is down these steps and it was nearly empty.

To the lower level where Mike's paraphernalia lives 
Had Chris not mentioned it, Mike would have gone hungry.  Or knowing Mike, he would have bothered me enough to cause me to decide to slide down those stairs, feed him and then crawl back up.  Don't know if I'd have ventured that trek or not, and luckily I didn't have to decide.  Both Mike and I were grateful Chris was thinking clearly when he came to drop off the meal because he took care of feeding both of us at the same time.

So, I've developed a whole new outlook on my home.  It is wonderful except when you suffer from mobility problems.  Luckily I can for now, eat, sleep and entertain myself all on one floor.  Additionally I know the exact number of stairs that need to be climbed to get from point A to point B in my house.  It really shouldn't take two broken feet to figure that one out, except if you're me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
2 comments
Read more

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned ou...
1 comment
Read more

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or h...
1 comment
Read more