Red scabby patches

For the past couple of years I've had a couple of red scabby patches on my hand.  Well, one was just a dry flaky patch, if we're honest, but the other one was bigger and was like a graze that never healed.  So when I had my yearly physical (mandated by insurance) a few weeks ago I asked about them and the doctor said they could be frozen off if I wanted. It would be the work of a moment, he said.  I could do it now, he said, only I'm not allowed to do it at the physical - you have to schedule another appointment and come back in and pay a co-pay.  American healthcare - the best system in the world!  Anyway, since Winter break is my time for getting stuff burnt off or cut out, I made an appointment.  It was indeed the work of a moment, but it bloody hurt! ("It may sting a little" my arse!)  Not so bad now, but it's supposed to turn into big blood blisters.  I'll keep you posted.

(Was it cancer?  Probably not, but it doesn't matter if you freeze it off, says the doctor.  If only that worked for all my problems.)

As promised, an update (later that same day):

Bipolar weather

You can see exactly how far the sun comes into the back yard

Secret nest

I didn't know they even knew about the garage

Doesn't look like December in Michigan

More like December in Somerset

Mince Pi...zza

I managed to track down some mincemeat (no mean feat in Flint, MI) and was determined to try to make some mince-related delicacy, restricted somewhat by not being able to use wheat, rice, corn or potato flour or dairy products.  So I tried a version of the three-layer (pastry, mince, sponge) thingy, with the pastry being arrowroot flour and coconut oil and the sponge part being my usual "bread" of almond and tapioca flour.  Here's what I came up with:

"It'll look better when it's baked," I thought.  Well... you be the judge:

Let's see what a slice looks like:

Well, let's just say after sampling it, Jami reassured me that I would get no competition for the rest of it.  The main problem is the arrowroot "pastry".  It's frankly gummy.  And that flour was bought by Granny and probably not on her most recent visit.  Still, _I_ like it:

Yuletide Haul

Another Christmas, another pile of presents.

Simon loves Christmas.

Thomas managed to stumble out of bed to open presents.

Frederick was very happy about his books, movies and new clothes.

Everyone got specially designed and made blankets from Frederick.  All the fabric came from Joanne's, the best store in the whole world (says Frederick).  Simon's blanket featured basketballs.

That's me opening my blanket, which has hedgehogs on it (Hedge Hog How-dee-doo reference).

Frederick really loves opening presents--even more than getting the presents.

Thomas is plumb tuckered out.

We have to take a break from present opening to eat so as to get energy to open more presents.

Christmas again?!

Unbelievably, it is that time of year again. I got the tree yesterday and let it "rest" during the night so we could see its inner shape. It didn't change at all. (Though perhaps the cats drinking all its water in the night, and then vomiting copiously, had something to do with that.) So, Frederick and I spent the morning decorating it. Most of the ornaments are ones Frederick has made for Christmasses past. I am sure he remembers each and every one but they are always a surprise to me.

Not one flake of snow on the ground and none on the horizon, so this isn't going to be a white Christmas--the first since living in Flint--but that's ok, I'm kind of sick of dealing with snow winter in and winter out. The thrill is gone.

Chickens finally kick into gear

This morning I found these in the pink (older) coop:

The weird thing is, though, that they were there when I released the chickens for the morning, and only two chickens were in that coop during the night. The blue coop, with the nine younger chickens, had only this to show for their work:

So how did two chickens lay 7 eggs? Well, however they managed it, they were hungry this morning.

Eye Surgery

So the day finally rolled around for me to get the surgery to get rid of the floaters in my eyes (AKA vitrectomy, performed by Dr. Carmelina Gordon).  Well, actually just one, because you need the other to get around with while you recover.  As Jami had to watch Frederick and Thomas is off in Chicago, we got our friend and colleague Ade to be my ride for the 60+ miles each way to Jackson, MI.
Here's the view from the waiting room of the surgery place:

I was whisked in as soon as I'd signed about 500 consent forms saying that it's not their fault if I go blind and if my insurance won't pay they get to come and take the house - you know, the usual.
Anyway, they slapped me on a cot, made me repeat twenty times which eye it was (and they wrote letters on my forehead in felt pen above the relevant eye) and then the anaesthesiologist (who had one of those droning voices that made it sound like he sampled his own wares) came and explained that they were going to first "numb your brain a little" so that I would pass out as they set up and then numb the eye, and then wake me up for the operation.  But not to worry, because they were going to give me something so that I wouldn't care what they were doing to my eye (presumably some kind of anti-anxiety medication).  The reason he gave for why I was awake while they operated was that they didn't want me snoring and jiggling the eye as they were slicing into it.  I do have vague memories of the operation, mostly just weird flashing lights.  Ade said the whole thing took about 2 hours but I swear I checked the time before and after and it was only 30 minutes.  I think he was just bored being the only non-octogenarian in the waiting room (and definitely the only one with dreadlocks).  This is what I looked like in the car afterwards:

Lovely, eh?  The next day (today) I had to drive BACK to Jackson, one-eyed (and to make matters worse, in thick mist and driving rain) to have them remove the patch and check that they had not, in fact, blinded me.  Here's the office:

And here's the before and after shots from my visit today:

I have to put two sets of drops in it 4 times a day for about a month and I'm not allowed to wear contacts for a week at least.  I go back in week to check things are progressing nicely.  I think I'll put off the other one till Summer...
(Turns out that the Doctor who saw me today had taken a class from me back in 2010 or so.  Small world.)

The Chickens are a Disappointment

I know they were my [Jami's] idea, so I am taking full responsibility. They wreck the yard, escape and roam the neighbors' property daily, and crap everywhere all the time. And of the 9 new chickens, only one seems to have laid a single egg:

It's an amusing little number, sort of teal blue, and about the size of an apricot (a small apricot).
[Simon edit: this is an exaggeration.  We get about 4 eggs a day now, and at most two of those come from the two remaining older chickens.  But the teal ones are surprising.  Apparently they're laid by the mutton-chop (i.e., bristly Victorian sideburns) ones and they're called "easter eggs" because they tend to be pastel.]

Instead of laying eggs, they also spend their days eating. Always eating.

Goodbye Filmstruck!

Jami gave me a subscription to Filmstruck for my birthday.  It was a combination of the films of the Criterion Collection (or some of them) and classic old Hollywood films (as shown on TCM).  We watched quite a few, but not a film a night by any means until the beginning of November when they suddenly announced it would end November 29th.  From that point we watched a film a night until it finally ended last night.  I know I'll forget what films we (*re)watched, so I'm making a record of the ones I can remember here.

The Thin Man films (with William Powell and Myrna Loy)
The Thin Man (1934)
After the Thin Man (1936)
Another Thin Man (1939)
Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1944)
Song of the Thin Man (1947) (With Dean Stockwell as their son)

Cary Grant Films:
Sylvia Scarlett (with Katherine Hepburn, set in England (1935).  Both have been better)
Bringing Up Baby
My Favorite Wife
The Philadelphia Story
Mr. Lucky
The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer
Monkey Business

Films of Billy Wilder:
Ninotchka
The Major and the Minor
Stalag 17

Films of Ernst Lubitsch (see also Ninotchka):
The Shop Around the Corner (a much superior Jimmy Stewart Xmas movie to you-know-what)
Heaven Can Wait

Humphrey Bogart Films:
Crime School
*The Maltese Falcon
All Through the Night (very entertaining oddity: set in New York in the 40s: Bogey is "Gloves," a boxing promoter who uncovers a plot involving German fifth columnists.  Great cast includes Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt and, in a small role, Phil Silvers)
*The Big Sleep
Dark Passage

Melvyn Douglas films (see also Ninotchka):
The Vampire Bat (where the phrase "Dog-faced Hermans" originates)
Fast Company
Tell No Tales
Third Finger, Left Hand
The Americanization of Emily (strangely underseen film starring James Garner and Julie Andrews (and Joyce Grenfell as her mother).  Set in London in WWII, Garner plays an unrepentant coward who gives several biting anti-war speeches.  Think a rom-com version of Catch-22. Also features a much older Melvyn Douglas.)

Miscellaneous:
The Late Show (odd, very 70s, semi-mystery with Art Carney as an aging PI and a young Lily Tomlin as a flakey hippy type)
Hopscotch (Walter Matthau!  Glenda Jackson!)
The Odd Couple (Walter Matthau!  Jack Lemmon!)
The Mackintosh Man (it's got Paul Newman and it's directed by John Huston, but neither is at his best)
Hobson's Choice - starring and written by Alec Guinness.  He plays an underappreciated (and sort of obnoxious) artist called Gulley Jimson.  Has some very good lines. Features a young Joan Hickson in a small role.
The Wicked Lady (1945) Margaret Rutherford (of The Lady Vanishes) and James Mason.  Scandalous!
The Spy in Black (excellent early Michael Powell, starring Conrad Veidt)
The Four Feathers (1939)
I See a Dark Stranger (1946) - Trevor Howard!  Deborah Kerr!  A weirdly comedic IRA romantic drama
Kidnapped (1948) - Roddy McDowall!
The Drum (Sabu!)
Black Narcissus (Sabu again - Deborah Kerr as a nun.  Lush!)
The Return of Bulldog Drummond (starring Ralph Richardson)
Bachelor Mother (David Niven, 1939)
Out of the Past (great film noir - Robert Michum)
The Asphalt Jungle (another great noir, Sterling Hayden)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
*Local Hero
*Withnail and I
 Innerspace (the cheesiest film on this list)

Foreign Films:
Zazie Dans La Metro (Louis Malle, 1960 - very surreal.)
Big Deal on Madonna Street (great fun Italian comedy/heist film with an atypical Marcello Mastroianni and a very young Claudia Cardinale)
The Fireman's Ball (Milos Forman)
Stolen Kisses (Truffaut)
A Man Escaped, Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge (Melville)
Amarcord (Fellini)
Yi Yi (Edward Yang - voted the greatest film of the 21st century so far)
Man Bites Dog - a Belgian film that starts out funny (it's about a documentary crew following a serial murderer around) and gets really dark.  

And there are many I've forgotten.  We finished up with Walkabout.  I certainly got value out of my birthday present.

Here and Gone

This morning Jami dropped Thomas back on the train to Chicago after his whirlwind Thanksgiving visit.  As Thomas is a shy woodland creature (prone to yelling at me to "DELETE THAT FROM YOUR PHONE NOW!") there is very little photographic evidence that he was ever here...

Thomas is coming home - quick, clean up his room!

Martha, Sylvester and Simon spend the sunny afternoons (increasingly infrequent)in Thomas's blue room. Since he is expected home for a holiday in a matter of hours (!) we have to quickly get it ready for him. Most importantly, we have to find some warm blankets because Thomas's room gets COLD in winter. (And by "cold" I'm talking "Ice on the inside of the windows" cold.)

Yeah, that's not Thomas's stuff...

X-Mas Jollity Already

Last year Simon and I spent quite a bit of time out in the cold air putting up Christmas lights and ornaments on the outside tree. I thought I was being clever by leaving them there, so that we could just roll right into this winter in style with no effort. However, all the ornaments blew away during the many tornadoes this summer and most the lights were broken by the rainstorms. So, a few days ago I stood in arctic winds and pulled out the dead light strings and hung up new ones. I also put up new giant ornaments (Frederick picked the medium ones out at Home Depot) and tinsel. It looks ok now, but I am sure it will all blow away the first storm we get.

Frederick really likes the purple ornaments.

Indoors, where is it blessedly warmer, we started to set up Christmas art projects from years past.  Frederick really likes nut crackers.  And snow globes.  Let's just say Frederick likes Christmas decorations a LOT.

We haven't started on the tree yet.  I've finally learned that they turn to tinder in seconds inside our house, with the fire going all the time and I am sick of being punctured by needle sharp fir tree needles every time I get near the tree.

Another Dentist Visit

This time for X-Rays (we like to space things out, so Frederick doesn't have to endure too much at once).  That means a walk up to the reservoir just outside Ann Arbor - only this time it was COLD.