It’s aliiiiiive!

Well ok after my cranky post-op post that won’t be much of a surprise, but it does make a fun title, and I get to post a pic of Elsa Lanchester.

I still have soreness on sore places I didn’t even know could get sore, and injection sites can bruise up in a lovely chiaroscuro, which is our Stylish Street word for the day. Go look it up. The IV site is also still a little lumpy, which I’m not sure it should be but expected because it was pretty painful on the day itself. Last time I had surgery they stuck the IV into the back of my hand — I am, apparently, a “hard stick” in nursing parlance and my hand veins are easier to tap — but this time they rooted around my forearm trying to pin the IV on the vein-pinata. Ouch.

The weekend brought some other rather surprising alterations in real life that need to be dealt with. The spousal unit finally had his own Network moment at work and jammed his keys up his boss’s nose, at least metaphorically. It’s scary since now we have a household with 0 full-time jobs, but it shouldn’t last long and it is, trust me, high bloody time. Life is too short to work for a bunch of shits, especially as we get ever closer to that three-score and ten mark, and I’m idealistic enough to believe we have a right to look for fulfilment in the work we do, even as wage-slaves.

Perversely but not at all surprisingly, my inability to sit long enough to actually play games is making me… want to play games. FreeCell just doesn’t cut it for long as an alternative, though the games are quicker than waiting for scenarios to pop. Last week I stopped by Half Price Books (without a supervisory adult! with my own credit card and funds! muahahahaha!) and walked out with half a dozen bargain-bin computer games, including Patrician III (Rise of the Hanse), some Caribbean pirates game (yarr! but not the Pirates), some Hollywood Mogul game, a CSI game, something called Sacred that looks like a Diablo clone — all of them priced at $5 or less, so for less than the price of an MMO-box we’ve ended up with 6 or 7 titles we can throw on the comps and try out. If only one of them is fun, it’s still money well-spent.

Sad thing is, I haven’t had a chance to try any of them yet. My cunning plan to spend my convalescence immersed neck-deep in computer games, massive and online or otherwise, had one tiny flaw: with surgery at the bottom of my back, I can’t sit down for very long. And playing computer games standing up just doesn’t quite cut it. Curses! Foiled again!

I have enough stamina to post now and then or to update my growing Nile Online empire (which takes maybe 90 seconds), but not enough to sit and learn these new games or to log in to old ones. Bah humbug.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Whatever you’re playing out there, have some fun for me. I’ll be the suture-nursing groaner in the corner watching whatever we DVRd last week. Oh, and KungFu Panda, which just arrived in the mail. That should be fun.