Medical status update: resting comfortably

Had my first followup appointment with Dr. McMillan today, and that went well; she says that all of my incision areas look great, and the skin seems to be a healthy color all over. It is strange to me to look down and see a chest that's closer to the right shape again; I'd just gotten used to seeing one big one and one missing. Now I've got one mid-sized one, and one that looks sort of lopsided but is at least in the ballpark.

I was able to lose two of the three remaining drains, which was a relief. Carrying three of those things around in a little fanny pack was quite annoying; it made me feel like a badly assembled android with parts and tubes hanging out. ("You has tubes!" solarbird said to me this morning. "I am the Internetz!" I replied.) Don't get me wrong. Intellectually I appreciate that medical science has advanced enough to send a patient home a couple of days after major surgery, loaded up on pain meds and antibiotics and drain thingies that can be managed by a loved one. That's all fabulous. It is also, however, annoying.

The remaining one is tucked into my bra, now that I have some things I can tuck it between. And the bra is helpful, too. I'm still quite swollen all over so my previous bras still fit; it'll be a bit before everything stabilizes and I'll have to think about buying new bras.

Overall I am doing fairly well. Lots of sleeping, with or without cats; lots of TV watching; some reading as attention and coherence permit. I've actually managed to work my way through two months' worth of balancing the checkbook, though it took me quite a bit longer than usual to pull that off. mamishka has been over a couple of times, which is always a pleasure, and got me caught up on True Blood, the new HBO series based on the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm liking it so far; more on this in another post. And I watched the disc of Agatha Christie's Poirot that janne sent me a while back; I enjoyed that quite a bit. Thanks again, Janne!

True Blood: thumbs up so far

I've been reading the Sookie Stackhouse books for quite a while now. As I've posted before, I kind of fizzled out a bit on them for fear that they were about to cross into the territory of too much sex, not enough story; I'm behind by three books at this point, I think.

However, now that I've seen the shiny new show True Blood, my affection for the earlier books may have been rekindled.

Here's the thing... the show gets the overall vibe right, not only of the books in general, but also of the South. I've seen complaints that the accents are too over the top, but, speaking as one who's lived among those accents, they really rather aren't. In fact, after mamishka showed me the first couple of episodes, my Kentucky came roaring back with a vengeance, so hard that it shoved me almost down to Tennessee. This quite startled poor solarbird, who jumps every time she hears a renewed drawl coming out of my mouth. *^_^*;; Even the credits seem to establish the proper mood. I like the overall look of them, and the song played over them works too.

But more importantly, characters and plot. Anna Paquin is pretty much nailing Sookie, and the gentlemen playing Bill and Sam and Jason are all solid. I've seen complaints that the guy playing Sam looks too young, but for Meems and me, after a while he actually doesn't--he's a little grizzled around the edges if you look closely enough. Tara is not a mouthy black chick in the books, but I'm liking her implementation so much in the show so far that I don't care. Grandma Stackhouse absolutely rocks.

There's more sex than I care for--but hey, it's HBO, so this hardly surprises me. And in actuality, there doesn't seem to be more sex in this version of the story than there is in the books; it's just that as a writer, Charlaine Harris tends to cut a lot of fade to blacks. Whereas on TV, it's all right on camera. I also note that the on-camera sex we've had so far all involves Sookie's brother, not Sookie herself, and it's actually contributing to the plot and the characterization of Jason (which is to say: horny little idiot ;) ). So I don't particularly mind this, so far.

I'm really appreciating that the show so far seems to be following the initial book fairly closely, taking its time to build the tension of what's going on. A different show might have tried to cram a lot more action into each episode, but for me, the way they're doing it really works. It gives them time to increase the atmosphere and the general creepiness of dealing with vampires. We as viewers are getting into it an inch at a time, right along with Sookie. And since this is yet another show about vampires, it helps a lot to remind people that OH YEAH THIS is why these creatures are scary.

Keep it coming, HBO. I'll be checking the site regularly now that I know the episodes are getting streamed up there. And I think I'll re-read the earlier books again, too.

PSA: Extra GBS ticket for 10/1 show available!

seattlesparks informs me that she has an extra ticket available to next week's Great Big Sea show at the Moore. If you're interested, contact her! (It's a very, very good seat: front row/front-of-pit!)

And for those of you who have tickets already, mamishka, casirafics, technoshaman, and I will see you there!