Sunday, January 25th, 2009 10:30 pm
Robbie Burns 250th Birthday
Overcast, - 20ºC (-3ºF)
Sunset today was 5:00 pm. The days are getting longer. And that is about the only good thing that I know about today. The majority of it was dismal.
My knee is still giving me a lot of trouble; as I sit here writing this diary entry it is aching fiercely and I have had to get up and walk around twice. This has now been going on since the third week in December and I am getting very, very bored with it. Here I am with lovely new Christmas present snowshoes, my pool back in service and a new treadmill but most things I do just tease the joint and I end up limping. Yesterday I did a half hour walk on the treadmill and danced twice at the Burns' night party and I spent the last half of the night awake, propping the knee with pillows, getting up and walking around and generally getting no sleep at all. And so today I am dismal and projecting my tiredness and crankiness on everything around me.
Grumble, grouch. I overcooked the salmon at supper time. I missed a phone call from the YD. I have been running up and down stairs to do the laundry and that means I can't really settle to anything else. I finished my book and am out of new things to read. My husband went out snowshoeing without me and found all sorts of fun tracks to follow. There is a little black cloud hanging over my head and it's raining on me.
It's amazing how writing all this down makes it trivial, how the good things pop up like Whackamoles as I list all the grumpy ones. This time last year my husband was in the hospital having just had complete knee replacement surgery and he was groggy and hurting. Today he was out on snowshoes. What a difference a year can make!
I tried out my new mask and snorkel in the pool this afternoon and it is the best mask I have ever owned; far superior to the one I lost sometime last summer. Lighter, more comfortable, with a thing called a 'splash baffle' on the snorkel tube that prevents the standing wave from slopping down it when I am doing breast stroke. And I did get a good twenty minutes in swimming this afternoon, knee or no knee. And all the laundry done except for the cold water trousers load.
And the book was interesting -- Orson Scott Card's Ender in Exile. It's a pot boiler of the first order, filling in a hole in the Ender tapestry. What is interesting is the way he does it, so carefully picking up all the threads and colours. He knows he is contradicting some of the original Ender book and in a postscript he tells the reader that he has revised the relevant chapter to fit this new piece in and gives directions for reading the revision. The Ender aficionados will have nothing to grumble about. Hm. I think I should put the Ender books into my library thing.
Well, I've almost talked myself into a more reasonable frame of mind and that is, after all, one of the main purposes of a diary, isn't it? After a record of the weather. It's a good thing no one will read this.
It is 11:00 pm. I am going to make the bed and crawl into it.
very nice. i love to see what other people write about in their diaries... they are a bit different than blogs. ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, I ate an entire litre tub of ice cream and wandered around the house feeling sorry for myself because I really shouldn't get a puppy. Or a dog. Or a cat. Or anything that will require a commitment on my part to take care of it. Ah well.
ReplyDeletePlease, please go make an appointment for physio for your knee ... who knows, maybe it will help? At the very least, go for a luxurious massage.
love!
Oh, dear. I feel like I've been intruding! (Now I find myself wondering if I ever tried to sneak a read in someone else's diary. I actually don't think so.)
ReplyDeleteSorry about the knee. Hope tomorrow is better for it.
I sympathize. I'm not even allowed to lift anything, and thanks to complications, no exerting myself. So, no dog walking, snowshoeing, laundry (which would seem like a good thing, until you start running out of clothing). It gets tiresome.
ReplyDeleteHaven't read Ender in Exile yet. Usually, I'm the first one at any new Ender book, but I read some dreadful reviews (saying it was socially conservative sexist drivel, and this from Ender fans), and so have held off so far.
Sometimes a bit of moaning and whinging is just what you need - sort of exorcise all the grumpiness in one go! Hope your knee feels better soon.
ReplyDeleteTry Vikas Swarup's "Q & A". It's my new favourited recommendation for anyone searching for something interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteoooh sooo cold! How do you endure a canadian winter? Snowshoeing sounds great-hope the knee gets better before the snow is gone. My hubby and I also scuba and snorkel. I love "Ender", I'll have to check out the new book, thanks for the tip.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious if you've read much about Orson Scott Card? I ask only because I read the Ender books years ago and really liked them... and then found out more about OSC and was so thoroughly disgusted that I can't bare to think of picking up anything he had a hand in. I can't disconnect the man from his writing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm pretty well aware of his political and social views.
ReplyDeleteThere's a fair scattering of sci.fi writers that have a fairly skewed world view in my opinion. Heinlein, for instance.
What the writer thinks and does isn't relevant to how I read the fiction; I see the core of the Ender series as sorrow for the necessity of war and a huge tolerance of sentient frailty.
Frankly, I don't read what I don't like and that means the bulk of Card's obsessions are not on my radar.
Long way to a short answer; I do disconnect the person and the writing unless I think I am being manipulated.
It's intriguing to see how you wove all the threads together in your diary entry, and then you used the metaphor of weaving a tapestry in your review of the Ender book. I found myself smiling at that. (I am ever the creative writing teacher, I know!)
ReplyDelete