Take a little (more) off the top
Sorry to have been so quiet, but it's been a busy couple of weeks. I'll try to get up-to-date with a few posts.
- First, I returned to my doctor to have the stitches removed from my nose. That went well, and the incision really has healed up nicely. Unfortunately, I'll have to go back at the end of February for another procedure. The "nothing" little bump turned out to biopsy as basal cell skin cancer. This is a relatively minor form of skin cancer, and pretty thoroughly treatable, so I remain optimistic about the whole thing. I'm not the first in my family to get this diagnosis, and its all worked out well for the others. In all, I'm not letting it bother me.
- Secondly, we celebrated Chinese New Year with a couple of days at Amy's brother's home. As the eldest son, he gets the job of hosting these events, and like previous years, it was a lot of fun. The kids spent most of the time playing Guitar Hero World Tour, and I even belted out a classic rock tune or two with them. I like the band game better than the guitar-only version we have at home. Both days involved lots of food - Sunday being a seafood feast, and Monday a vegetarian feast. Yummy stuff. So I wish everyone Gung Xi Fat Choi for the Year of the Ox.
- We had an odd happening surrounding Chinese New Year. A couple of months ago, Amy lost a crystal Buddah pendant down the bathtub drain. Despite my best efforts to retrieve it from the drain and the main pipe in the basement, it was gone. She'd had this pendant since she was a child, and was very upset about it. Now, among the traditions of Chinese New Year is the belief that one's ancestors return to share the meal with the family. Amy's parents have both been gone for 15 years. When we came home from the first night of celebrations near midnight, we noticed a problem with all of our drains. None of them would drain - not the toilets, not the tub, not the sinks. I went into the basement to check the main trap leading to the street, and discovered that it was blocked by a clot of detergent. I cleared it, and we started the process of flushing all the drains. As I was about to finish up, I had this nagging feeling that I had to open up the check-valve on the main waste line. Now, this is not a task I'd ever engage in lightly, or at such a late hour. The check-valve cover is old and the bolts rusty, and it takes quite a bit of elbow grease to open, always at the risk of sheering off the bolts. Still, I could not bring myself to go up to bed until I'd checked the check-valve. When I got it open, there was Amy's pendant, hung up on the valve flap. With some judicious application of alcohol and cleaning with a toothbrush, the pendant looks like new.
Now, I've admitted in the past that I have a certain level of belief in spirits, and this event does nothing to change my mind. There really was nothing more unlikely than my opening that particular section of pipe under the best of circumstances, but someone got me to do it under the least likely of circumstances. While I doubt that my in-laws follow my LJ, I have to thank them for helping me restore this item to Amy.
- Austin came down sick this weekend, so we didn't get to go to the Superbowl party as we'd hoped. However, we learned on Saturday evening that the party was cancelled, as the hostess had come down sick, so we watched at home. Austin's happy with the outcome of the game (I, having grown up a Dallas fan during the heyday of the Dallas/Pittsburgh rivalry simply couldn't root for Pitt). It was an exciting game, even if the Cardinals seem to have taken turns going out for snacks in the middle of the game. I don't know how else to explain their lackluster first half. The commercials were OK, though I noticed a bunch of older commercials being used in prime spots. Springsteen and band were terrific (though I could have done without the snippet of new song he stuck in there).