Oh Brother

Let me tell you that I was SORE. I was sore ALL OVER in fact. Worse, I was in that state for several days. Why? We decided to put down a new floor.

In my earlier post I noted that Angela recently had rotor cuff surgery. This all happened a few weeks before that.

Angela's arm was beginning to give her some pain, but you already know that she can't be without a project for long, and I greatly appreciate that fact. So, since we'd been talking about replacing our aging linoleum floor for months, we decided to go ahead.

First, one must take up the old before putting down our new tile. I won't even go into the joy of trying to find that bit of ceramic bliss. Trust me when I say the choices for anything with any hint of gray in it was quite limited. Anyway, cutting through the layer of linoleum was easy, lifting it off the floor was less so, but still no strain for either of us. Then came the reason for my sore arms, body, and psyche: taking up the glue.
Lots of adhesive remained on the floor. Angela quickly discovered scraping away at it was too painful. Oh yes, we spent money on miracle removers, all guaranteed to turn the glue into liquid. Don't believe the hype. They all fall into the category of Buyer Beware. Save your money and just put down copious amounts of water, let it soak, and develope some muscle as you scrape away the gunk. Even so, Angela just couldn't do it. I quickly volunteered and made her go work on "something else." I had no idea four days of scraping that impossibly difficult to remove stuff from our cement foundation would leave me hardly able to lift my arms, much less anything else. Arnold the Swartz would have been sore; Hercules would have been sore; and I was beyond sore. Angela was most complimentary, or course, but I saw the twinkle in her eyes and the quiet chuckle that followed her "nice job, atta girl, and nice bicepts."

When I finished, she patiently set about cutting and laying the tile. It was my turn to say the same phrases along with the twinkle and chuckle. The tile wasn't so heavy that it hurt her arm, but she did have to get into a few awkward positions, so she had her share of Ouch moments.

Now we sit back and enjoy the new look of our pantry, laundry room, and third bathroom. A little shared pain never hurt any marriage.

Nurse Jonni again

Angela recently had day surgery. We arrived at 6 a.m. and returned home around 2 p.m. I've already confessed to not being the best nurse in the world. So, it's a good thing that Angela is not the type who requires anyone hovering over her. I'm great at checking in on her every hour, especially when she's sleeping. How easy is that. Unlike me, she doesn't get sick from anesthesia, so while I left a bucket close by just-in-case, there was no need for it. She doesn't want a drink brought to her, she prefers to get one after every trip to the potty. So, after surgery, in this case for some rotor cuff repair, she just slept from the moment we got home until dinner time. I expected her to be ravenous. Nope, she just wanted soup. Easy again. Oh, I tucked her in a couple of times as she slept, but I don't get any stars for being a good nurse or even a Nurse Ratchet. Oh well.

She's recovered now and doing her physical therapy. She's busy creating websites since she can't do any major projects for a few weeks. Believe me though, she has plenty lined up all ready. I'll keep you posted as they go along. I'm sure you can see that all this is just another case of The Best Thing About Being Married To A Transsexual.