Follow Up

My thanks to everyone who voiced their concern for me and for Miss. She’s doing much better, has her appetite back but is still a little foot sore and two of her legs are still a little swollen. This little episode pushed back once again the start date for Willow getting on her back, but I guess there’s no hurry. I’m just becoming a little impatient to ride my own horse. I do everything else except ride her! Willow is letting me ride on my own now and I’ve been riding my new friend Tommy, the flea-bitten gray I talked about before. He’s such a sweetheart, one of those bomb-proof horses supposedly, although he is half quarter horse and half Arabian, so he can sometimes spook at the little things (like small pigs).

Following up on some other questions that have come up in the comments lately:

DinoD and Thalia asked about my letting go of the infertile label. Honestly it doesn’t make me feel any better about our childlessness, but it does somehow make me feel better about myself. You would think it would be the other way around, if I kept the infertile label, that would have meant that it was “out of my hands”, whereas if I just waited too long, that was my decision. Go figure -- another paradox. As they say, living well is the best revenge, and I’m really trying to do that.

DinoD also asked about Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. First, let me say that the author did a wonderful job in getting the voice just right. The book is written in retrospect when the narrator is an 80 year-old woman, recounting her life in rural China in the 19th century. This was during the time of foot-binding and arranged marriages, and reading of the women’s inferior status even after marriage was difficult for me. A successful foot-binding resulted in a foot no more than 7 centimeters long, about the size of an average man’s thumb. A foot of 14 centimeters was considered big. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been to have all your toes broken underneath your foot and then be forced to walk on it for hours on end. Once married the women were expected to produce sons, and if they just had daughters, or even worse, no children at all, their lives were even more difficult. The one extravagance they indulged in was a secret language called nu shu, a way for the women to communicate without their husband’s knowledge. I’d recommend this book for its historical voice and insights into friendship and hardship.

I’m currently reading House of Sand and Fog but I’m not really enjoying it that much. The fact that it takes place in the Bay Area is a bit of a plus but I’m finding it pretty slow moving. D and I got gift cards from a national bookseller for Christmas and I already spent them both on 9 new books! Now I have to decide which one to read next.

Finally, Ramona indicated she could get behind only having 4 periods a year. For those of you who are interested in the prescription I'll be taking, you can get more information directly from the manufacturer here, or read more on this here blog.