MeSoFun Blog

Mmmm. Tastes like I'm back to work! My thesis for blogs is simple: Very few people are *that* interested in your life. So I'll keep this short and sweet. I had surgery last week on my right leg, very close to my knee. The surgery was to remove a 2-inch piece of bone that was growing off my femur. It was interfering with muscle movements. The pain was excruciating. WARNING: There is a slightly gross photo of the scar at the very bottom of this post. You'll have plenty of warning to look away. My thoughts on the last week: God Bless George Bush* Maybe it's Barbara Bush who is our benefactor, not her husband (who is rumored to be in very bad shape). It's certainly not Junior, but this isn't the place for that. Maine Medical Center rocks. I was impressed by multiple things. The waiting area, which had a few televisions, showing TW where I was in the process (pre-op, surgery or post-op); beepers to notify TW when she could come into my post-op room; excellent staff ...

The problem area. Dance, monkey, dance. That's this blog's motto. Starting Wednesday, the music will be turned off for a while. I can hear you complaining already. "But you just had a break, you stunningly handsome Maine resident you," the throng cries. In May, I needed a break after a long winter. I don't need a break now, but I am forced to take one, due to the knee thing. It's not, it turns out, a meniscus tear. It's a bone growth (right distal femur) that's quite large. It acts like, hurts like and resembles a torn meniscus. It's not a torn meniscus. In the long run, that's good news. There's no arthritis risk with this problem. I might even take up trail running later this summer. The prognosis for the next couple of weeks is fairly grim, though it's not like there's a huge risk of dying. I'll be given a general anesthetic, so there's that. There's a small chance the growth is cancerous, so there's that. I'm...

Sixteen years ago, I was just out of high school. It's a little strange to type that line, since I don't remember most of the last 16 years. Another byproduct of aging, I suppose. Ohmygd. My Dad is so annoying. That's Colldoll on the left. I needed a break from school. The grades were fine, it just wasn't any fun. Not even remotely fun. Rather than hang out in my parents' basement and work at McDonald's , I wanted to do something unique. At 4 a.m. on a random midweek day in July, my Dad and I hopped in the car. I was moving to Florida to live with my Aunt Flo (no, seriously) and Uncle Kevin. Flo and Kevin already had a daughter, Megdoll. Flo was 8.5 months pregnant with Colldoll when I arrived. My job duties would be varied. Some days, it was stripping electrical wire with my pet Exact-O knife. Others, I would do helper work for Kevin's electrical company. Almost every day, I did the duties of a live-in nanny. My name is Jim and I'm a male blogger. I use...

Two beers? Twice as nice. It's always a guy that asks. Someone figures out that TW is in Boston and I'm alone at home. "So, is it like being 22 again?" Most days, the answer is definitely not. I do laundry, buy groceries, cook, hike the dog and maybe play a little PlayStation. Tuesday, June 14, being alone was a lot like being 22. It was my (or around my) 34th birthday Tuesday. Eight Ball — our landlord's daughter, next door neighbor, and dear friend — turned 22 on Tuesday. I had Tuesday off. It was decided Eight Ball and I would celebrate Tuesday. Here's my hourly account of the events and drinks: Whiskey coffee and birthday cake. Nice of Eight Ball to dress up. 11 a.m. Beers consumed: 0. (and 1 shot of whiskey) The coffee maker is turned on. Not for coffee's sake. No, no. I'm 22, remember? We were having Irish coffee. That's how we roll. Eight Ball came over and the power went out. We drank a whiskey coffee and decided it was time to go to our f...

The tortoise does, in fact, beat the hare, in this photo. It was cuter and more reptilian than anticipated. I have done nothing in the past week. No grocery runs. No laundry. Until the last 12 hours, the most exciting thing ever was going to the park with Choco. We ran into a snapping turtle. She smelled it like it was a vacuum cleaner, then ran away like it was a vacuum cleaner. If you don't own a dog, you don't understand that reference. A hobble through the park a few days ago was what the doctor ordered. It was sunny and warm. It was cloudy with a high of 57 today. If it was possible, she would stay in this position while I go to work, shop for groceries or do anything. My days have been spent in the backyard, dog present. Sometimes, dog in my lap, stifling my breathing. She's 51.5 pounds now. When informed of this weight gain (up from 49), TW's text message response: "Noooooooooo!" Yes, it's summer in New England. There was an epic beer run. Then the ...

For years, I thought Dad's job at 3M was to operate the water fountain out front. Best parental lie ever. Dad was a 3M engineer. He did a bunch of things and refused multiple promotions because he didn't want the stress that comes from being in management. For a while, he was a teacher in their classroom facility, a building straight out of the 1960s, complete with windows that were 6-inch slats. It sat next to a Howard Johnson's, away from the main 3M campus a half mile away in St. Paul. For a while, he would take new engineers and train them in the 3M way. He also learned to deconstruct 3M's most complicated machines — he once worked on its laser imaging medical equipment — and write manuals on how to fix those machines. The other Green Monster. Mom and Dad had the best yard in the neighborhood for sports. With a third of an acre of land, there was just enough space for kids under the age of 12 to play football. The yard was and remains rectangular, with a ...

This is ridiculous. Pre-freaking out about school. One thing this blog is not about (in addition to raising children or how much the weather irritates me) is about the daily ups and downs of life. Perhaps I just don't think I'm that unique. Bear with me while I write something out. When I was a kid, my parents called me a hypochondriac. Medically speaking, TW tells me, this is inaccurate. I am excellent at worrying. In third grade, I worried so much about school and the MAG that I would throw up. It's important to note that I didn't "make" myself throw up in any physical sense. My stomach would just ache and nausea came along for the ride. Not much has changed in 25 years. Yesterday, I was told that I likely had a torn meniscus in my right knee. It seems inevitable that I will have arthroscopic surgery to fix it. I wouldn't mind trying alternative medicine, but I want this thing fixed and fixed now. I'll say this right up front: I know, in the grand s...

A couple months ago, I vowed to run a half-marathon every month this summer. And you might have noticed that I'm not blogging about all my successful half-marathon running. My right knee objected to that promise. I haven't been able to run in weeks. The right knee doesn't just hurt or throb, it's piercing pain. It actually feels like somebody is sticking a knife into my kneecap, very quickly. It comes on suddenly and goes away fairly quickly as well. I literally scream, grunt and yell when it hurts. It's that bad. You know it's really bad because I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I've had one doctor's appointment in the last five years, and that was for a routine physical. I know a number of medical professionals read this blog, so, closed-circuit to them, here's a description of the pain: The pain typically occurs when I'm going up or coming down stairs or inclines on trails. It's localized, non-radiating pain. It's a 10 on a 1...

The stream in Hallowell. Hiking in Maine — at least, in coastal Maine — would qualify as a gentle stroll in Utah. Elevation is measured in tens of feet here, not thousands. The biggest danger comes in the form of deer ticks, which can transfer Lyme Disease to unprepared hikers. This is not a recently built bridge. Just a guess. Hikes in Utah have a payoff. You work like an animal and crawl over boulders to earn your reward. You come up on a ledge and survey a vista. A river thousands of feet below. A town, out in the distance. A mountain valley, filled with flowers. Quite often, it's quite sublime. Coastal Maine doesn't have much for elevation. I can get to sea level from our house in about a mile. A downhill, mostly flat mile. What we do have, in spades, is water. And a dog who likes to chase squirrels. Over TW's recent break, we took an hourlong trip to Hallowell, Maine. It's a quaint little town (with a quaint little brewpub, of course) on the banks of a big river. T...

Duke, the first dog of my adult life, cost $100 and came from a shelter in southern Minnesota. For a time, I considered feeding him Ol' Roy from Wal-Mart, which is about $10 for 45 pounds of food. I'm pretty sure they put cats in it. Instead, he got Purina for a while. ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Eventually, thanks in small part to TW and the urging of veterinarians, he was upgraded to Science Diet and, even further down the road, a moderately expensive natural dog food. Daisy, our 1-year-old chocolate lab, is not Duke. Her adoption fee was $375. I had to drive to Tennessee to pick her up. After a couple of weeks in Maine, we noticed Daisy had troubles. A rash on her belly. An ear infection that would *not* go away. A constantly runny nose. She was diagnosed with a food allergy when we got her back to Maine. We put her on hypo-allergenic dog food. Mmmmmmmmmmm (one-letter caption day) Have you ever had to purchase hypo-allergenic dog food? A 27-pound bag was $110. That's slightl...

Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a historic old settlement, just across the Charles River from Boston. It's basically right across from Fenway. It's the home to Supreme Court Justin Stephen Breyer and a little school called Harvard. Another technical college, MIT, is along the shore of the Charles in Cambridge. If you're into this kind of thing. And, for the next five weeks or so, it's the home to one TW. After a sometimes-rocky, sometimes-nice two-plus weeks off, TW is back in school. Kind of. She's at Cambridge Hospital. Here's a map for you that probably won't work. She's about a mile from Harvard Square and the subway line that will help bring her back to Maine on weekends. She's about a half mile from Whole Foods. Eclectic shops and restaurants are everywhere. This doesn't sound like prime TW territory. It's new. It's foreign. It's something she's never experienced. Admittedly, her first day in Cambridge (yesterday) did not get ...