A Fortnight and a Day

Wake me when this mess of a winter is over. I really wish I could hibernate through this season. Having lived in Ohio for most of my life, I am accustomed to wide variances in weather. A 70 degree weekend in February is not impossible. I’ve also witnessed a two-inch snowfall in May. Still, recent weather has tested my endurance:

These brief reprieves of warmer temperatures make it hard to acclimate oneself to the spells of ridiculous cold. Our average January high and low should be 33° and 19°, respectively, but it seems we hardly ever have a winter day that represents that average.

At least the crazy weather has afforded my daughter a few snow days to work on switching back her nights and days.

In other news, we have found a second guinea pig, aptly named Buddy:

He is quite unlike our other guinea pig L’Orange in one way: he actually likes to snack on vegetables. I hope they do not develop a sibling rivalry with Buddy occupying the role of the child who better conforms parental exceptions whilst taunting his rival sibling in secret (btw, I was that sort of sibling when I was growing up).

It is too soon to tell how well the guinea pigs will get along. I’ve taken Buddy to the vet for assurance that he is not carrying infectious diseases, but I feel I should wait a bit longer to put them together in a large habitat. L’Orange just seems to be a mountain of a man compared to little Buddy. I did succumb to temptation and placed L’Orange in Buddy’s cage for a few minutes a couple days ago. What ensued was a comedy of errors wherein L’Orange literally dragged his ass around the cage while Buddy tried to make his elder a hobby horse. I suppose they can have another opportunity to sort out who’s the boss at a later date.

My vacation at home during the first week of the year was a misery of sciatic grade pain and frozen weather. I learned something important that week: spinal stenosis and sedentary living do not combine well. As much as I’d like to do so, it is a terrible idea for me to sit down and read for eight hours a day, no matter how engrossing the texts before me might be.

As for my back, it turns out that my L3/L4 disc is bulging to the point that it is impinging a root nerve that runs across my left hip, thigh, and knee. As a result, I have nerve pain along that pathway. I will be getting an epidural injection soon to help remedy this issue.

I had one of my periodic surgery follow-ups last week. It’s been ten months since my L4/L5 fusion, and my spine is fusing well:

If only my lumbar degeneration had been confined to the disc that was removed. If so, I would be fairly trouble-free at this point with orthopedic pain.

p.s. Of all the Golden Age mysteries I’ve read recently, I highly recommend Agatha Christie’s The Pale Horse. I think that Christie’s body of work explores a lot of the anxiety of coping with a changing modern world. This theme is very apparent in this novel.