Aside from the glaring WARNING signs on the car, she was fine all the way from Griffith to Long Beach. I had minimum electrical components on. So, no radio, no heater. It was a cold, quiet ride home. But, the car is getting 49.3 MPG, which is really good!

It might be a math error...

Laura: Yay for shower!

After my hospital stay last fall, the ability to take a real shower in my own place was essential to my morale.

It's easy to think of being able to shower when you need to as a chore–until you can't.

I'm posting nekkid! And clean! Taking a break and watching Chris Hayes before getting dressed. I scrubbed my back good with gritty apricot scub stuff because it has been itching, no doubt from all the bed rest stuff. Ahhh, good stuff.

The hybrid aspect of my car is adding zeros to the cost of fixing the car. The hood, grill, side panels, and radiator not too scary expensive, but the air bags deploying ripped up my dashboard and steering wheel and that is mighty pricey. I told the body shop and DH to take their time searching for parts because I am not driving anyway.

Laura, I had bunion surgery on both feet (one at a time)- is that what you've had done? It was, um, an adventure. Never regretted it, though.

I finished watching other people change my oil, gardened for an hour or so, and now I'm sitting on the front porch with a pop. My cat is on his leash, hitched to a convenient spot on the porch. He can move around a bit, but he can't get into the parking lot (kinda the point of hitching him up). A squirrel just limped by in the lot, looking old and slow, practically wearing a "your snack, super fresh" sign. I think I could have caught him if I'd tried. The cat has a "This is quite the special hell, isn't it?" look on his face.

Yes, Zen. I looked for years for some other solution because of said chickenness, but apparently sledgehammering the foot is the only fix. Grateful it is only one foot. I have heard people doing both at the same time. I don't even know how you could.

It is encouraging that you didn't regret it. Did they leave pins in there? She said there are screws that remain forever. I can't wait to walk the dog!

Ha! That is some solid cat torture there, Calli.

Is bunion surgery elective, or do you have to have really extreme ones before they'll consider it?

Made it back from China this morning. I will post more fully when I get the chance. For the moment I will just say that Ryan did so very well with all the travel upheaval. We got up at 5:00 yesterday morning, had a ride in a fairly hot bus for over three hours to the airport, and then of course had two waits in airports and two flights to make it home, over 24 hours after we started. He was a real trooper.

I've also noticed that passersby stopping to wave and say hello to my little boy is apparently independent of culture. People everywhere find him irresistably adorable.

Laura, they did leave the screws in. No problem with most of them. I had one of them taken out a few years later because it was bothering me, but that was minor. I still have a little numbness and weird sort of pain in that area, but it's not a big deal; I rarely even notice it. Otherwise, I have no pain and no loss of mobility or ability. Just a couple scars, which, eh.

Sail, my surgery was elective in that I didn't HAVE to do it, but insurance covered it because the bunions were so bad. The doctor called his partner in to see my "Frankenstein feet" X-rays. He was impressed. They said they were the worst bunions they'd ever seen.