A moment, gone

So, for like an hour yesterday I had changed the blog background to this:

And after looking at it a couple of times decided that I really shouldn't be in the business of giving people the shivering jibblies when they come to NAY, so I changed it to the slightly better tie-dye background you see now. Too bad, really, because I do love the color combination, but something about it just screamed "50s kitchen," which really isn't what we're all about here, is it?

The appearance of this blog hasn't changed much in the last 18 months....which might be boring to most folks. I, however, do not care. I LIKE the banner, I like the layout, I like the little cocktail glass that starts all the posts, but I can't seem to help messing around with the background now that the first shark has been jumped. There was the clover on for March, the pastel-y one for April, and now this tie-dye thing for May. Oh, and let's not forget the devil girl background that was up for a while in honor of the 666th post. THAT one was pretty awesome, but it didn't render correctly on IE, and because IE is all I can use at work (damned administrators and their restrictions!) I got frustrated and....changed it.

Because I can.

I had toyed briefly with the idea of putting the spider-suit lady as my new background (oh, by the way, are you writing your wordsmiths story yet?), but I don't think I could bear looking at her pale soft oh-so-sexay body each and every time I check the blog to see if anybody's left comments (which happens about 20 times a day, because I'm always ready for a distraction)which I think you'll agree is far too much spider suit lady for any one person.

What is the recommended daily intake of spider suit lady viewings, anyhow?

Turning away from that matter for a moment, though I do reserve the right to return to it as the fancy takes me, I had a 3-month follow up visit with the vein doc (or, more correctly, the vein doc's nurse) this morning, and the reports are all good. I'm a very facile clotter, apparently. The big ol' greater saphenous is shrinky-dinking itself into near oblivion, which is a wonderful thing to hear if you WANT it to. If you didn't want your greater saphenous vein to shrink, I'm sure that bit of news would be the cause of some degree of concern, wouldn't it?

Here is a visual of the great saphenous vein, in case y'all were wondering what the hake I'm talking about:

That bit between the knee and groin was the bit that got blasted with the "laser," which by now you should know is only EVER said like Dr. Evil. Yep - the laser was threaded UP the vein from mah knee, up to the groinal area, then slowly withdrawn while laser light/energy/magic zipped around in there, blasting away the naughty great saphenous and it's varices of doom!


Lasers rock.


The bit around the knee area is where the doc spent most of her time, pulling loops of clumpy vein to the surface and snipping them out. Mmm, clumpy veins. As I think back on it now, this is about the time when I started sweating uncontrollably and clenching my teeth so hard I could have bent steel with my jaws if there's been any lying around. Then, once my pits were good n' soaking, she moved on down the leg, plucking still more loops of vein out, snipping, cutting, stitching, and occasionally (say, when I yelped in pain) having the nurse reinfiltrate the surgical area with ever more anaesthesia, which it seemed like I was pretty resistant to, what with all the FEELING I was doing.


When I look at that picture, it seems impossible to me that getting rid of the great saphenous and a fair number of its minor tributaries wouldn't cause some kind of problem with blood flow, but that's not at all the case. You dam up a stream, the water finds a way to flow, and the same is true of blood making its way back to the heart. Veins are everywhere, and losing one simply means that others are put into service with nary a bother. I should know, because it happened to me. And that is kind of cool, don't you think?


One last thing - Nibbler the puppy had a puppy friend come over to visit last night, during which visit we discovered that he is a fast little sucker. My goodness! They were chasing each other all over the backyard, zooming and zipping around the weeping willow, flopping all over each other, ploomping their front paws down in the butt-up 'come play with me' posture, then ass-tearing around the yard another eleventybillion times. It was good fun, I'll tell you, both for the puppies and the people watching them. It's good to see Nibbler have fun, and so his new puppy friend and he are going to get together soon. (in other Nibbler-related news, he's now big enough to get up on the furniture. I had thought the Things had put him up on the chair in the LR, but nope, he did it himself, as I witness this morning. It took him three tries, but by God he was determined to get up there and up he did get. He's willing to put out a little effort to reach peak comfort levels, it would appear)


So, anyhow, that's it from me for now. This is a post about nothing much, at which I threw a bunch of words just in case something good might come of it. So, tell me, did it?


Have a ducky day, y'all.