Scattered thoughts

Several years ago (possibly when my age was still single digits!) I was given a book of poetry by my Auntie Lee for Christmas (or a Birthday) called "Where the Sidewalk Ends". It had some lovely poems in, many of which I am still very fond of.

I don't often think of them, but today on irc, someone mentioned this story on the BBC news in which "A counterfeiter who produced fake £1 coins with an estimated total value of £14m, has been jailed for five years." Apparently "at one stage he was making 10,000 to 12,000 coins per day and was paid about £2,000 in cash a week by the two men.". This seemed silly to the person who first posted it into irc as "selling 60,000 pound coins for just £2000 doesn't seem like a good deal", and that is what made me think of the poem.

I've decided to share it with you all, for your amusement :)

Smart
by Shel Silverstein

My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!

In other news, my hand is much better, as in much less owie. Ben and I took off last night's dressing and inspected it and it hasn't blistered, though in the worst place the skin doesn't look as healthy as it might. We've applied some antiseptic burn cream and redressed it and though it's still quite tender, it's not nearly as bad as it was. I'm leaving it open tonight so that it can air and then dressing it again tomorrow morning so it's protected while I do daytime stuff. Looks like I dodged a bullet there :) Once again, yay for cold water (lots of) and the first aid kit from the car :D

Christmas shopping tomorrow, and then we can relax for 10 days as stuff will have been done. Hurrah! :D

Today has been something of a chapter of accidents, all of them my own fault.

First I was making dinner and cut myself with a knife while slicing potatoes in a silly way. I shall not be doing that again. Sharp things are sharp.

Second, and most important, I burned myself on dinner, which was mince and potatoes and gravy which had been cooking for hours. I tipped my portion awkwardly and it went all over my right hand and right jean leg. No idea what I'll wear tomorrow now, those are my only decent pair of trousers. Anyway, it hurt, rather a lot. Ran it under a tap and stuff. Parts of it puckering up and tightening now. The worst bit still sore to the touch. Ben dressed and bandaged it - yay for first aid kit in car. Don't worry - it hurts but is not very bad, certainly not bad enough for hospital. I'm only really posting this because I am feeling very sorry for myself. The main trouble is I'm right handed. This could be very inconvenient. I suppose it gives me a chance to improve my left handed dexterity. Yay (or something). I am a bit of a hunt-and-peck typer right now because of the mobility in my right hand after it has been burned and dressed and bandaged. This is very frustrating.

The key moral here is clearly that I should never cook.

I'm off to bed now. Hopefully it'll feel much better in the morning :)

I am a muppet and as a result of this I am fed up today.

Last week, about Wednesday, my left knee which has been misbehaving for a while swelled up. The Dr gave me some anti inflammitories and I wnet into work on Thursday and it was worse, so I stayed home on Friday and did practically nothing all weekend except sit on the sofa (though there was a great excursion to Espression on Saturday with Rah and Claire to celebrate Claire's birthday). Because of this I got rather restless and when my knee had stayed normal size on Sunday I decided, late in the evening to take something out to the car.

At 10pm.

My right foot landed awkwardly on a pothole/dropped concrete hole. Over my ankle went. I may have screamed a bit (it hurt) and some people came from across the road to see what was wrong. They restored my faith in humanity - the lady was in her nightclothes! Got Andy to give me a lift to K&C because it hurt so much and was swelling up beautifully. According to the nice nurse at the K&C it's a bad sprain and she would have bandaged it except it was not policy to do that anymore. She sounded pissed off. I would guess the "policy" is due to budget restrictions - luckily I had some tubigrip at home and it's now strapped in one of those. Sue came out and gave us a lift home.

I can bear weight, but movement in any direction hurts and I didn't so much sleep last night as doze being woken up lots by me moving my ankle in my sleep.

Congratulations if you read all that: The important hilights are that foo^rah, andy^sue, Claire^Ben and my ben (and others!) all rock and I am in ouchy pain at the moment and it's my fault and ben told me so.

I'm fed up and off work again. Daytime TV is causing me to lose the will to live. Hopefully back to work tomorrow if only to save my sanity.

Finally - Happy birthday claire_tanner!

It's a...

quiz!


YOU ARE MARRIED TO A WoODCHUCK!!!


what's YOUR deepest secret?
brought to you by Quizilla

In other news I trod on a plug earlier and it really hurt. It still does. Apparently (I didn't look) I've lost a nice chunk of skin off the bottom of my foot.

Rar.

[edit] Ben says he's not a woodchuck. But that means the quiz is wrong, and the quiz can't be wrong. Can it?