Friday, March 23, 2007

For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile you will note the change in format. Blogspot has been updated and I finally broke down and transferred my blog over to the new style. Not much has changed other than the left side. It is also easier to scroll through old posts as you can click on older posts at the end of the current ones and it will take you back a set. The text seems to be smaller, which is a bit of a pain on these old eyes, but it works. I thought about changing the orange heading, but it wakes me up in the morning so I left it alone. :-)

My poor thumb has pretty much healed after being burned badly by a plastic mug in flames. I know that seems pretty weird, but it really happened. I had been heating up tea in the mug in microwave at the Embassy Suites with no problem. We moved in the corporate apt. and that changed! Who would think to look first to make sure a plastic mug is not in flames and melting when you reach in for it. I got molten plastic on my right thumb and immediately stuck it under the cold water. Rather than screaming because it hurt so bad I think I was in a bit of shock and calmly told Steve I had burned my thumb and the mug was in flames in the microwave. At first he didn't believe me until I sternly said that I wasn't kidding. There really was a mug on fire in the microwave! I took two Tylenol PM and wrapped my thumb in a baggie of ice cubes and tried to sleep. When the blister popped the burn was various layers deep so it is healing slowly. I had no idea how much I used that thumb for - including opening my essential Diet Cokes! So I can add that scar to the one from the nasty deep cut on my middle right finger from tripping on the stairs and jamming my finger into a shard of glass from a broken bowl that was in the box I was taking to the dumpster. Steve cleaned the blood of the door the next day. Gross!! My poor right hand has had its share of "owies" lately! Almost afraid to reach for a knife or scissors!

I read Francesca Lia Block's Psyche in a Dress. A very quick read, but an unsettling read. It is written in verse and is a modern retelling of the Greek myth. I often feel like I have entered an urban fantasy draped in mystifying fog when I read Block's books - well at least most of them. Psyche is the daughter of a movie director who uses her in his films but shows her no warmth or attention. Eros comes to her in the dead of night to comfort her in her bed but her lack of self esteem causes her to push him away. She turns to Hades because she believes he is all she deserves and is "saved" for a time by her mother who had deserted her husband and daughter years before. A child enters the picture as happens in many of Block's books - the need for innocence and unconditional love. I will re-read this 116 page head-trip because the writing is so beautiful and because I know I didn't absorb it all in my first reading. Block's books are meant to be reread. To me, that is a sign of a great book - I don't want to just set it aside and move on to the next one. I want to think about it and go back to it after my initial thoughts have settled a bit. Oh my - what Block can do with so few words!

On to less fun stuff for the day!