I had a quiet day at work after some students cancelled classes, so I got to do some of those niggling jobs that you put off - sorting through old student files, cleaning the toilet, refreshing room decorations.
At home - we dug up the potatoes that we grew from one of my student presents - we planted 3 and got....TWENTY!!! Ok, some of them very, very small...but a pretty good return for no effort. Next year I'll try more and cover them with larger domes of earth.
Simple pleasure - Yujiro and I and the cats at dusk in the garden potato hunting. (and from the photo I guess Harriet Potter also helped...).
And then....get this....Okaasan HELPED with the cooking!!!!!
It's a miracle.
She wandered through the kitchen just as I was scraping skin off the squid...and came over to have a look...then offered advice...and when I stepped back from the counter...took up the kitchen knife and set to herself to clean off the squid skin. Incredible. She hardly ever does anything on connection with dinner preparation, just sitting watching TV...and if we ask her something she offers vague answers and doesn't appear to want any involvement.
But last night she stood there for about 15 minutes fiddling around with the squid. Asking me several times what I was going to do with it. Telling me about 6 times about how her mother didn't have the time to clean squid skin.
Great. Very good brain/hand/family interaction for Okaasan. And saved me the fiddly thing with bloody bits of squid, eyeballs and guts.
Finally I cut it all up and put it together with tomatoes from the garden and made a delicious pasta sauce...and...this day was just getting better and better...Okaasan let slip an "Oishiii/Delicious" while eating it.....so rare for anything I cook, but I heard it I am sure.
And the cyst?
Well, here is a strange thing.
I think...sometimes...it is getting smaller.
Don't know if that is true. Or wishful thinking. Or the prayers of various Christian friends. Or Yujiro and Okaasan's "fasting/body will consume bad things" ideas....
Have no idea.
Maybe it isn't so. Maybe I am eating less to reduce the cyst and stomach fight for space in my body, so there is less body exapansion generally.
But it feels ok. I think I can make it to September 15th.
We go to hospital next Friday, Sept 3, to see the doctor and have lots of pre-op tests. I've read on my endless Internet trawling that smaller cysts can disappear into the body...but it would be incredible if something this size disappeared.
Anyway. I don't think it will....but I feel better than I did most of the time. Just fat. And a few pains.
Here's me in a maternity dress with the flowers that dad's ghost bought for me....my step-mum is pretty confused at the moment. She apparently told someone in the family that her BROTHER has a cyst and is going into hospital for an operation. By the time I have sent her this photo she'll be telling everyone that I am pregnant and gave birth to twins...kittens....
It's a Mad World! (Adam Lambert on YouTube..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyyESHqT9a4.)
You are looking very slim. Definitely not like a person with a cyst the size of an oversized eggplant in their body. Glad you are feeling a bit better - hope it is decreasing in size. Can't take any credit for religious offerings of any kind sorry and I don't think I'm good enough to get my white light sent all the way to Hokkaido to surround you but am thinking of you none the less.
ReplyDeleteAll the best for the 3rd.
And yay okaasan - hope you see some more of that.