Doctor's Visit

I went to visit the doctor today, and the verdict is that I have a strained hamstring. I'm supposed to put ice on it and to take lots and lots of ibruprofen. No concert (Bang! Bang!) because there will be no place to sit down and no fireworks because it will be too much walking. I really can't walk or stand on it that long without it hurting. On the other hand, I am gimping around on it much better than what I was yesterday so that must be a sign that it's getting better.

Really...I'm quite relieved. Knowing how my knees have traditionally been, it could have been a lot worse. I've had surgery done on both knees before. One for a cartilage tear and another one for a tear in my ACL and cartilage.

Other odds and ends

On Saturday, judygs, bmtstandard, doomsey, and I all went to see Mirror of the Invisible World at the Goodman Theater. This particular play was a Mary Zimmerman play about a man with seven wives from various different countries: Greece, Russia, Persia, Morocco, China, India, and Turkey. Each wife told a story and imparted some words of wisdom to her husband. Like most Mary Zimmerman plays, Mirror of the Invisible World was very excellent. Lots and lots of color and great acting. I do have to add that two actresses that had been in the original play at the Goodman Theater ten years ago were in this production as well. The Indian wife still looked the part, but the Chinese wife was way too old. She looked silly in some of the outfits they put her in too.

After the play, we went to Taquería Tayahua in Pilsen. If I remember correctly, the food was traditional Mexican food from the Zacatecas region. For an appetizer, we got quesadillas de nopales, which are quesadillas with cactus fruit in them. I had never had cactus before and I have to say that it was very good. I got the smoked pork chops and doomsey got red snapper in garlic sauce for dinner. The food was most excellent and I have a feeling we will be going back there.

Today I had really good timing. judygs and I got back from the doctor's office and the drugstore and, about two minutes after I got back, the Terminex guy came. He was a bit early, and it's a relief I made it there in time. He knocked down the wasps' nest. He claims that the nest was in our window and not the vent. What was in the vent was a stick of some sort. At any rate, he took that down too just to be certain. We also asked him to take a look at our house again because the carpenter ants had made a reappearance. He told us that the first person who came out made a mistake. This guy said that, if the ants weren't gone in two weeks, to call back. The next guy who came out said that the first guy was saying the wrong thing. It actually takes a month, and that if we still see them in a two more weeks, then we should call back and have them come out again...

Books I've read so far this year...

1. The human Christ: the search for the historical Jesus by Charlotte Allen. [I forget this one. Ancient history interests me, but I thought this one was a little on the dry side.]
2. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
3. Orientalism by Edward Said
4. I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb
5. The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon
6. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
7. Language death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect by Nancy C. Dorian
8. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
9. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Tranlated by Robert Pinsky.
10. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
11. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson -- Although this is classified as fiction, the events this book was based on (and many of the comments in quotation marks) are true. One man organized the the Chicago's World Fair, which opened in 1893, to celebrate Columbus' discovery of the Americas. His World's Fair was meant (and did) eclipse Paris' World Fair and the Eiffel Tower. A new structure, known as the Ferris Wheel, built by an engineer from Pennsylvania, was a part of the fair. While another man built a "White City," another man orchestrated the death of many, mostly unattached women, in a castle he constructed for this purpose in Englewood. The guy was obviously a sociopath since he had no feeling of remorse and he viewed people as things to use and dispose of at his whim...


[Note: Being a gimp sometimes has its advantages. Until I can walk better, I can sit around reading books and watching anime].