Girl Stuff

The ever popular and amusing apple hat makes an appearance since I am way, WAY behind in my baby gift knitting. Between the 2 hours in the hospital waiting room (more on that later) and the hours in front of the TV at my engineer's parents' home on Xmas Day, it was a breeze.

In fact, it was such an amusing F.O. that my sweetheart plonked it on his normally serious dad's head, and we all cracked up, providing the perfect photo op moment. Imagine tiny apple hat (see the wine glass below it here?) perched on top of the head of a dignified senior citizen. ;-)

And the plethora of sock yarn skeins was the result of my friend Ellen's bonding with my ballwinder all day as she held my hand (metaphorically speaking) after a follow up visit to the hospital (more details shortly, really) since my engineer had to be at work today (yes, there is a Scrooge, and he is headquartered in Omaha).

Speaking of the engineer's family, the picture to the left shows the various stages of the spiced peanut butter cookies [which used pureed chick peas!) that I made for my engineer's dad (yes, he of the apple hat). It tasted a wee bit spicy fresh off the cooling racks, due to the red pepper flakes but settled into a nicely nutty, not too sweet flavor (I used all natural peanut butter and not Skippy or Jif, thereby vastly lessening the sugar content) the next day.

As it turns out, it shouldn't have been his dad's approval I worried about, but his sister's: apparently she is allergic to something in the recipe -- no one knows what, since she usually only finds out the hard way. I was mortified and felt badly.

Speaking of trauma & drama, upon my annual visit to the "woman 's doctor" this month, she said the words no woman ever wants to hear: "I found a lump." It turns out to be early stage and relatively small (0.6 mm)

So yes, I have been becoming acquainted with the wonderful facilities (and they are indeed wonderful) of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital: X-rays (less painful pancake moment than expected, since the technician was excellent), ultrasound machines, and ultrasound needle biopsy. I find out the results on Tuesday or Wednesday (not quite the birthday present I would have liked) but regardless of the outcome, the doctor says, "Out it comes."

The doctor I was lucky enough to be assigned was fabulous and had a great bedside manner (she gave me her cellphone number, -- not the answering service number, and came in to check on me and hold my hand during the biopsy, which was performed by another doctor) and made me crack up the other day when she met me, "Oh you're the knitter!" since she had chatted with me in the inner waiting room (there is a more private, women-only waiting room after the patients change into the double "breasted" exam gowns -- why can't other places use this version which gives patients a little dignity?!) and seen me at work on the apple hat.

Regardless of the (mercifully arriving soon) results, I will soon get to meet another new doctor (a breast surgeon) who my very nice doctor recommended... well, once everyone comes back from the holidays. And I thought I would be mostly okay with everything today, especially since my sister and mother both had have cysts removed so this was not totally unexpected, but apparently I was a little more shaky than I thought.

So Ellen, who had offered to go to the hospital with me for the biopsy, came over with lunch and we knit and ate, and watched some of my TiVo backlog, and then eventually ordered dinner, unlike the chicken thighs braised in sherry-balsamic sauce (bonus: used some of the sherry I bought during my ill-fated trip to Spain a few years ago -- still can't face chorizo without grimacing) which I made for knitting night at my place on Tuesday night (the same night I was nervously baking cookies for B's dad) including Ellen, Marci, and Jackie.

Girlfriends rock.