So, last weekend was sort of domestically recovering from the week before (I hadn’t even unpacked from Provincetown yet when I found myself in the hospital): laundry, emails, paperwork and so on. Letting people know what was going on, and (unfortunately) removing myself from my performing commitments.

I’m not allowed to lift heavy things for a while, so I’m either buying groceries in small batches or, as I did last weekend, placing a Fresh Direct order. In C’s last year, we’d gotten in the habit of buying some of FD’s prepared, but uncooked, entrees, so I bought the kofta sticks and the jalapeno chicken rollups, plus chili makings and some other stuff I needed.

So the week was about working from home, very simple cooking (and eating leftovers – my friend Anne, the one who was supposed to be my houseguest last week, came out to Queens for lunch with me at the Jackson Diner, and reminded me why I should eat Indian food more often). I made a pretty great frittata. I made the chili, although I did an experiment that I won’t repeat – I had these cans of tomato paste in the cabinet from the before-times, and decided to use them instead of the called-for sofrito sauce. As I suspected, it made the chili very thick and gummy (and it’s possible the paste was past its prime anyway) – but I think I can improve the leftovers just by adding more water. Then, yesterday, I decided I was going to have those chicken rollups for lunch, with soup… except I’d decimated my soup supply. But… I had a lot of baby carrots and I was like, how hard could it be to make carrot-ginger soup? Turns out, not that hard, although I sort of bounced around 3 different recipes and got the proportions wrong and should have blended it more. But I also, for the first time, took our Vita-Mix 3600 out for a drive – C used to use that pretty much weekly to make soup from leftover vegetables. Worked great, and I gathered from online comments, this machine is really a treasure and I should not get rid of it and in fact should explore its many uses, including making ice cream and bread.

A bit of a weird crisis while I was doing all this yesterday, walked into the kitchen while the dishwasher was running and there was water all over the floor! Then, upon investigation, water under the sink as well (C got us in the habit of keeping roasting pans under the sink, which we then put all the soaps and stuff into, which means that leaks get caught in the pans if you notice them in time.) So I emptied all that stuff out and put in a new towel and then a paper towel on top of that to make it really obvious if there was a leak. Since then, I’ve been checking that paper towel every time I use the sink, and now I’m running the dishwasher again and checking, and so far so good. So I think that was just a one-off – maybe something got stuck in the dishwasher in a weird way. I don’t want to have deal with a plumbing issue – although, guess what, Eric, you’re a BIG HOMO-ner now, and that’s part of your job.

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Recovery is going, I guess. My bandages are still on, and I still have ouchiness around the surgery site, but it’s negligible. I thought I’d feel more normal by now, but still feel kinda weird. I had a phone call with a nurse from the insurance company, and she wants me to get some way to track my heart rate. We used to own a blood pressure machine and I could have sworn I put it in a box for recycling and it’s still in the house, but I haven’t found it. I should just buy another one – although I’m not sure I need a blood pressure machine, just something that shows the heart rate. I’ll have to see what the options are.

I have a doctor’s appointment with my GP on Wednesday, so if anything is not healing according to plan, I assume he’ll catch it. Maybe I should just ask him what I should get. But I have another followup with the nurse on Thursday.

(In case you’re wondering, I have not started to see bills from this hospital experience yet. I suspect they’ll show up just in time for Halloween. Eek!)

Today: starting the exercise routine again (such as it is) – powerwalk, delicious breakfast sandwich from the local coffee place, trip to the farmer’s market, and then mostly paperwork. I’ll probably uninstall the portable air conditioners – which basically just means taking the pipes out of the windows and cleaning the filters. The ACs themselves are going stay where they are for now, as they are heavy to move. (They are giant cylinders, and do have wheels, but they’re unwieldy.)

Yep, so that’s the plan. Also buying more tickets to more shows that friends of mine are doing. I need to re-look at the weekends through the end of the year.

Oh, and it’s C’s birthday on Friday. Will probably get together with his two best friends for dinner – that’s what we did last year.

Enjoy the week!