Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 59

Week Five

I think I’ve taken some pretty good pictures, but I’ve never been lucky when it comes to photographing my own pets.  Whenever any of our cats sees a strange object with a lens pointed at them, they tend to vanish over the horizon before I can snap the shutter. Fortunately our ragdoll Mocha was too sleepy to flee when I tried to get her picture the other day. It’s a decemnt picture of her, except that it fails to show the lovely blue of her eyes. I had my Week Five post-surgery evaluation tod...

From the Coffee Shop

Xfiniti, my phone company, dug up my ground line the other day, I assume by accident. I suspect malevolence, however.  My ground line now consists of nothing but splices.  The phone company has cut my phone line so many times that I have to assume it’s deliberate.  I mean, why would a public utility repeatedly expose their customers to incompetent service? I no longer have access to the Internet from my home.  I’m posting from the local coffee shop.  News will be spotty for, let us hope, only...

Hobbling to the Finish

I’m trying to finish the next Praxis book, which I hope to do in the next few days, so I’m spending even less time here than usual. In the meantime feel free to enjoy this interview with LD Colter, 2018 Taos Toolbox graduate and author of While Gods Sleep. PS: I continue to improve four weeks after surgery.  Pain is down, mobility is up, and I can hardly wait till I’m allowed to drive again.

Nesting

Behold a pair of eider ducks, possibly in the process of settling into a new home.  These were encountered just outside Reykjavik back in June. The female eider lines her nest with the down from her own breast, and this is collected for use in pillows or whatever.  The farmers do not, I am told, somehow trap the ducks and tear the down from their living breasts— the down is harvested after the chicks leave the nest. If your living depends on the eider duck, you don’t want to mistreat her, be...

Just Add Butter

So many thanks to my lovely wife Kathy for improving my recovery by making this taste from my childhood, Finnish pancakes. Finnish pancakes are wide as a frypan and thin, like crepes, except they’ve got way more butter and eggs in them.  My mom made them throughout my boyhood, but like all her recipes, she was never able to give a recipe to anyone.  She didn’t know measurements and portions, it was all in her head.  Of my family, no one else in my generation had a recipe, either, and for the...

Longing for the Hot Tub

This morning I went back to town to have 23 staples removed from my hip— remarkably painlessly, I should add.  I am hoping the staple removal will serve to accelerate healing and mobility.  I am now walking mostly with a cane. I’m still not allowed to use the hot tub, or in fact any tub.  I long for a hot tub beyond all reason. The hot tub in this photo is in Iceland, and was built by the great 13th Century poet and historian Snorri Sturluson, author of The Prose Edda and Heimskringla.  (A hi...

Getting Bored Now

I’ve been home now for eleven days after surgery.  I’m getting more mobile each day, though I often have trouble sleeping at night without the aid of pharmaceuticals.  There are only two positions I can sleep in, on my left side or flat on my back, and after a while my body, and most especially my leg, gets restless and/or painful.  Sometimes I think the best option would be for me to nap for an hour, eight times per day. In any case, the pharmaceuticals are now reserved for times when the pa...

Six Days

So.  Six days at home after completing surgery. Today I was able to take off the surgical dressing and view my eight-inch scar.  I don’t want any of you to faint, so I won’t post a picture, but it looks was if I sat down on last week’s centipede attacker and it was somehow fused with my hip.  Disturbing.  Maybe it will look better after the staples come out. I am learning the limitations of my training.  At the hospital they ran me through occupational therapy and such, teaching me how to get...

I Become Bionic

Behold my world for the next few days. Monday morning at 5:30am I reported to the hospital for total replacement of my right hip. Anesthesia came via a spinal, but I slept through the procedure anyway. The surgery was brief and trouble free, and I was alert and chatting in the recovery room, and on into my hospital room. The first physical therapy session was a few hours later, and I nailed it. I was in considerably less pain after the surgery than before it, although loads of painkillers mig...

Highway in the Sky

I’m going to be intensely occupied for the next few days— so totally unlike me, right?— so I’m going to leave you with this lovely picture of the Kerry countryside.