Well, I took Wed. off to hang out with Sam and got sick, throwing up sick that lasted until 4:00pm on Thanksgiving Day. So about 6:00pm, Sam and I headed over to Grandma's. By now I had kept Gatorade and chicken noodle soup down. The good news was Grandma, Aunt Neat, Neal, Uncle Robert and Aunt Debbie had not eaten yet. So I got to eat a feast after two days of barfing! I was glad to be with Grandma and crew. Gradama has a really bad ass balcony with reflection pool and we sat outside after dinner. I was also excited to see Uncle Robert. He had the same surgery I might have, so he out my fears to rest. He injured himself on his honeymoon, so you know that probably sucked. I also got to know Debbie more and I really like her. She was great. I am glad, in the end, I got to spend Thanksgving with family even if it was not the immediate family.

By Friday, I was tired so I skipped the British movie marathon for another time. Maybe around Chrsitmas.

This is my friend Sue's new baby. Alexander. Soo tiny and sweet.

Well, I went to the doctor today and it turns out I might also have a fracture in my knee. So I need a bone scan to figure that out to see if it suddenly happened or is it just indicative of my JRA. If I do have a fracture then I will need a stronger cast, physical therapy, and a super long time on crutches. Fixing the fracture could heal the tear, possibly. Depending if it is a fracture or what is up with the fracture then I may or may not have to get the surgery They did not have a copy of the MRI so they are working on getting that. None of this will even get going until after Thanksgiving. Of course I need permission from my Primary Care Physician to get the bone scan. The orthopedist will have to send the notation to them, which he has someone type up because he talks into tape recorders. None of this will happen before Thanksgiving since they close early.

So I just finished watching It Happened One Night with Clark Gable. It was on Turner Classic movies and they always have some announcer guy sharing interesting facts about the movie. Well, in this movie there is a scene where Clark gets undressed and he is talking about how a man undresses. Well first he takes off his hat, then his coat, then his suspenders, then his dress shirt and he is just bare chested underneath the dress shirt. Now, usually, men would have on undershirts under their dress shirts, but Clark is chattering constantly in this scene and he found it hard to do his lines, while taking off an undershirt. The director decided he could leave the undershirt out of the scene. Well, after this movie men just stopped wearing undershirts all together. This movie revolutionized fashion! In fact the men's underwear industry took such a hit financially, from men not buying undershirts, that they tried to sue Colombia Pictures! Evidently, things were bad for men's underwear for a long time until Marlon Brando revitalized the undershirt in Streetcar Named Desire. Then the men' s undershirt industry was back on top again~

Classic. I love little movie tidbits like that!

So I went to bed early last night, since I had a headache and pretty much slept through the night only to wake up once. So this morning I was up early; read Newsweek and then Sam and Jeff came home with a giant HDTV. I watched The Others on it; you know just to make sure it worked. Then we went over to the Slocum's for Thanksgiving. They are having it this weekend because Joe has the kids this weekend. Well Sam told his mom that he had the game at 5:00pm, so if they could make Thanksgiving early. Well she forgot, so we arrived early and just had dinner with the parents. The rest of the family and friends showed up after we left. It was still nice just to chat with his parents. The cool picture of the praying mantis was taken on the Slocum's front door. Nature RULES! After that we went back to our house and Sam's friends came over. We played Munkin Bites! and Illumanti. Both are card type games that make fun of role playing games. We played until about 10:00pm. Then everyone left, except for Clayton. Sam, Clayton and I played a video game until about 1:00am. It is called Call of Cathulu after the Lovecraft stories. You are a detective figuring out clues. It is from your perspective, so you run into scary thing and it kinda creeps you out because the video game is kinda real feeling. The controller even shakes when you get "nervous." Sam bought an X Box and some games with the money that he was going to use on the NYC trip. Hooray for used stuff on EBay. I will just put my London money away in savings, so I can use it for the NYC trip in March. Hopefully, I will go to NYC if I can find someone to go with my students on their spring break trip. Well all in all it was a good day.

Oh excitement~! The living room is clean now and looks great. Both cognac chairs are downstairs now. The house is shaping up.

Well is turns out I have a major tear in my knee. The ligaments and cartlidge are jacked up. I need surgery, but the arthoscopic out patient kind. I have an appointment with the orthopedic on Monday. So then he will schedule the surgery. The good news is that it is repairable. The bad news is I can't go to London with the family. So I am stuck here at home. Sam canceled his NYC trip to stay with me in case they do the surgery. So at least Sam and I are together for Thanksgiving. Grandma is out of the hospital now. She has high blood pressure and something is going on with her heart vale but nothing major. So they will just watch it. So I can spend Thanksgiving with grandma, Aunt Neat and Neal. So at least I am with family.

WTF! Well it turns out I am on crutches. Evidently, I twisted the ligaments in my knee, according to the ER. So for a while I could not get up the stairs now; I can. Been on these 'ole crutches a week and a half. Yesterday did an MRI. Still waiting on an orthopedic guy to read it. HMOs take their sweet ass time in helping you.

Turns out I will be spend Thanksgiving in London in a wheel chair. This way I can get around without the crutches since they tire me out quickly. So I was kinda sad and depressed about the crutches thing and loosing the independence of being able to drive but then.....


Sam gave me a sweet teddy bear to cheer me up and all was well

Another cute link:


http://www.burstofbeaden.com/annai_hi.mov

All,

Check out this link:

http://www.wordcount.org/

It is interesting....and very distracting. It kinda says something about what we value as a society. For example:

love has 384 counts
hate has 3107 counts

Happy Halloween! I carved this pumpkin myself!

On Thursday, we helped Sam's friend, Sean, built a haunted house in his yard. It was made of cardboard boxes and was a maze that you crawl through. You meet things along the way like, fake spiders and webs and remote controlled rat. After you crawl through and arrive at the porch, a head (mask) with glowing eyes jumps out of a trash can. People scream everytime. After all that, you get candy. So basically you have to be tricked before the treat! Kat, Sean's wife, made finger cookies and eyeball punch. Anyway, it was fun!