A weekend with Starlius

]I haven't written an update for a while. There are reasons.

First, the big news is that my foot and ankle are still attached to my body. Yes, it is still hurting, though not as much. No, I haven't been putting ice on it. I know I should, but I've been a bit of a baby about that. We have one of those cold wraps in the fridge, and I've used it a few times on the ankle and the top of the foot. The thing of it is--it's cold! Really! So I can stand it for a while, and then I put it away.

Rest? Ha! My ankle gets rest when I can rest. And I can't rest. Not ever. Well, I did for a while on Saturday. I never visited my mom on Saturday--that's one thing I'm doing today. So on Saturday, I just sat around home most of the day. On Sunday, more of the same. I had to run around and do some errands, but most of the time I was off my feet. I even took a nap Saturday afternoon!

[B]I have started wearing[/B] a sandal on that (left) foot. I can get the foot in a shoe, but the side of the shoe rubs too much on the bruised part of my ankle and foot, so I finally got the bright idea of wearing a sandal on that foot. It's working for now. I covered the football game last Friday--another 2+ hours on my feet, walking up and down the sidelines--and it survived pretty well.

The inflammation and bruising is still there, at my ankle and the top of my foot, and I should have used that cold wrap last night. But I didn't. And I also haven't been taking Tylenols as often as maybe I should. I've just been taking them when it's really bothering me. A macho thing, you know.

After visiting my mom today, I have to cover a volleyball match. When I get back, I'll put the cold wrap on it again for a while. I promise.

[B]The distractions came[/B] in a box from Amazon that arrived on Friday. It included a couple books on open relationships, a book about the 1908 major league baseball season (one of the closest ever) and -- ta-daah! -- Spore. Yes, I "invested" in the new "god game" Spore, so after my game Friday night and on and off over the weekend I worked on a purple and green quadruped that has gone through some evolutions as I make my way through the game. I am in the "creature" phase now. Maybe about 2/3rds of the way through that. But there are other phases to come.

He's cute ... in an ugly sort of a way. I named him "Starlius." You can see him at spore.com by doing a [URL="http://www.spore.com/sporepedia#qry=srch-Starlius"]search on Starliu[/URL]s. He's among nearly 20 million critters created in the week or so since the game came out. I described him as "a weird-looking blue thing," and that is still accurate. But he's cute ... if your idea of cute includes a narwhal-like horn, a gator-like snout, eyestalks and odd colors. They have a thing where you can take a picture of him. Maybe Starlius can be my new avatar!

I can blame Starlius for distracting me from the books that I really wanted to study. In fact, I have been reading one, but late at night, just before bed, as my brain is shutting down. Then my wife puts her book away and Charlie hops up and wants to start chasing toes. My toes. Time to turn off the light.

[B]The other thing[/B] that happened over the weekend is that we had a rainstorm move through Saturday evening. Not from the remnants of Hurricane Ike that passed through other parts of the Midwest with vat quantities of rain, but it was raining hard for a while. Anyway, I was upstairs, busy with Starlius, when I heard some dripping. Yep. The spare bedroom.

We had our roof replaced about 10 years ago, but there seems to be a bad shingle there, and it drips into the attic and from there into the spare bedroom when it's raining heavily. Bad foot/ankle and all, I (and my wife) climbed upstairs to set out buckets to manage things for the time being.

Just too much excitement and exertion for my ankle, which was aching afterwards. Get out the cold wrap.

[B]The highlight of today's[/B] visit to my mom is getting her rings, which she wanted resized. Her fingers are so thin now that the rings can just slip right off, so I took them to ajeweler to make them smaller. My wife said the jeweler called Monday--they're ready. I also have to stop at the store to get some cat food (for the cats), some Tums (for her) and some Vitamin B and D (also for her).

I'm also going to look for a blouse I saw at the store last week. It's a dark, long-sleeved blouse with sort of semi-transparent stripes on it. For my wife. As a gift. Maybe she'll wear it for me. Maybe not. I'll try. Can't blame a guy for trying.

From there, off to a volleyball match at North Dickinson and then home. My wife is with the quilters today; we won't be able to eat together, but I should be home the rest of the week, and the football game on Friday is right here in town.