There is no picture of the socks whiling away the hours on a deck chair in the sun because..hey..I'm on vacation. I might take one later but it seems so wrong to have wool socks sitting around by me when it's sunny and 80 degrees. The weather is heavenly. Not a bad, rainy day in the bunch. Oh, it was a little cloudy the other afternoon but I made good use of that by doing a little shopping in the hotel gift store and then taking a little lie-down in my room. Heavenly as well.

I've done much more walking that I thought I would and the hip is holding up pretty well in it's torturous brace. It's when I take it off for a couple of hours in the evening just for a rest that it starts it's sliding around. Ick. We've hiked all over Lover's Key State Park...slowly...and even though I am tired as all get out from dragging my brace along with me it was still a lovely day. We geocached, we saw numerous flora and fauna, and even took a bumpy tram ride out to the beach. That's the only thing I don't like about Coconut Point and Bonita Beach. One has to take a tram or a pontoon to get to the beach. I can't hear the serene slap of the water against the shore without clambering onto a vehicle to get there.

I enjoyed this fabulous lunch at an outdoor eatery in Ft. Meyers Beach yesterday. Oh Man! It was the best meal I have eaten in a long time and I was sad when it was finished. I was stuffed and sad. Grilled french bread and garlic butter topped with 3 different cheeses, chopped onions, tomatos and green olives. To die for! I didn't even dip it in the maranaria sauce provided. Yum! The socks, however, remained back in the room.

There won't be any sock or sweater knitting today. It will have to wait until tomorrow on the plane. I might get one of the socks done on the flight home but the beautiful Listeme sweater hasn't been out of her bag. Poor thing hasn't seen the light of day or the blue of the Florida sky. She's a Minnesota warm and wooly project and I can't bear to drag her out and work on her. She might be kind of jealous now that the socks have been out and about and I don't want to piss her off even more and then have her drop stitches or lose her place in the pattern.

Oh, and the other nice thing about Florida besides the weather? I'm not the only one with some kind of medical device or cane.

I am so pleased to announce that I am not a lunatic. The specialist I saw on Tuesday told me that yes, I need a new hip and yes, the one I have been struggling with for the past 8 years was not put in correctly. I KNEW it! I just knew there was something not right. Seems the two plastic joint pieces are not quite facing each other. They face more towards the front hench the dislocations. And since the joint is now worn it can pop in and out with any little wrong move. Gak. I  have a CAT scan lined up for next week to see just how bad it is. Damn. I knew it!

This is the thing about some doctors: they don't believe what a person is telling them about their own body. Things just didn't feel right inside and I don't care how many times you look at an xray that looks right. It wasn't. It puts me in mind of the time, years ago, when a young school psychologist told me that no, my daughter didn't have learning problems because she didn't have behavior issues. She couldn't spell or take a test but no, there was no problem. She was such a good girl. You can scream in your head now if you wish. I knew there was something wrong then and I knew it now. Just please....listen to me. Don't tell me I'm wrong when I am right. Oh, I am wrong so much of the time about so many things that I feel kind of foolish saying I'm right but really....when I'm right, I'm right.

The specialist told me to go ahead and go to Florida but to wear my nasty hip brace and take good care not to bend in any weird way. So here I am. Laying on a chaise by the pool. Knitting and listening to a book on my MP3 player. I am relaxed. I am ready to have my hip replaced in a few weeks because I know that I will soon be able to get around better and not be so afraid all the time. Afraid of falling, dislocating and then screaming all manner of naughty words while also begging for morphine. I know I will be less afraid of everything. I am happy just to lay around and not do much because the weather is nice and there is no snow or ice to slip on. I can knit my brains out. I can read for as long as I want. I can watch other people just to see what kind of crazy getup they have decided to put on for the day. I feel no pressure to go out for a hike and sightsee. I can see the blue sky.

We might do a little gentle geocaching...like me pointing from the car where I think it is and hubby doing all the fun dirty work. But that's okay. I can take this hip trip because I will soon have a new shiney hip that will get me all over the place with no fear.

I had decided on New Year's Eve that I was going to have a good 2012. I was going to try to put a positive slant on everything that happens. I was going to not be so cranky. And I was going to finish up some big cleaning out projects, take care of my mom and also knit my brains out. And paint the living room.

Well, hell. It's not the end of January and things are sliding periously close to the edge of the abyss already. My hip is going south. Fast. I had a hip replacement 16 years ago that turned out great. I almost didn't know I had a fake hip joint so I started to tap dance. Yes, yes I did. I loved tap dancing and the fact that I was doing it with my three girls made it even more special. I tapped so much and for so long that I managed to crack that replaced hip joint and had to have what is known as a modified replacement 8 years ago. They don't have to saw your leg off again...they just replace the plastic joint. That replaced hip joint was bunk. I couldn't have tapped again if my life depended on it. The damn thing dislocated on the operating table, dislocated 6 weeks after the surgery and then dislocated again 4 years ago while I was taking care of my grandchildren. And then it partially dislocated last Friday.

The pain of dislocation is so intense that a morphine drip on full speed only helps a little bit. I would rather give birth to a 15 pound baby with no epidural while suffering an abcess tooth than have a dislocation again. The doc who did the 'modification' kept telling me that the x-rays looked good and that I should lose weight and not go over a 90 angle with my leg. I believe I asked him if he wanted to come over and clean my toenails for me. I kept telling him that the hip just felt loose. No, he kept saying, it's not loose. Sigh. It was loose. It had been sliding around in there like a little greased pig for years.

Friday night it slipped to the top of the socket and it took immense willpower from me to let it slide back down where it belonged. It hurt on Saturday and was so much better on Sunday that I went geocaching. During the night while I slept it partially dislocated. ARGHHHHH! I could barely walk. I could sit, I could stand but I couldn't walk. It was on fire and felt like I had an ice pick stuck in my ass. Hubby took me to the ER where the taking of the xray was awful but it showed that the joint is worn out on the top and bottom. They couldn't do anything about it because there was no one there who was a hip guy. I was told I needed to see a hip specialist and was sent on my way. Crying. When we got home and I had hobbled back into the house hubby went down the basement to find the good old hip brace I had saved from the last time this happened. He got it on me, I laid down on the bed and the hip slipped back into place. The hip was pretty good wearing the brace but I got cocky and took it off the other day. I moved sideways on a kitchen chair and bang! the thing went out again. I see the hip guy on Tuesday.

Trouble is I am supposed to be flying off to Florida on Wednesday after I take my mom to her ineffective doctor at the VA. For a week. And then 3 weeks after that I am supposed to fly off to Florida again and spend a week with my grandkids in the Happiest Place on Earth. And then there is work. Lots of work. Lots of sewing. How in the world am I going to schedule another hip modification with a 6 week recovery time in there? How am I going to keep my hip in place and not end up in another ER this time in the Sunshine State? How in the world am I going to geocache? The only thing I will be able to do with any success is knit and sometimes that isn't as successful as I would like.

And then let's add to this the diagnosis of macular degeneration in my right eye. I am trying to find the positive slant to all this. I am trying to be Pollyanna but I'm having a hard time. Lame and blind...that's all I can see right now. It is so not hip to get old.

My middle daughter introduced me to Words With Friends on Facebook the other day and I am now an addicted player with a voracious 4 letter word vocabulary. I tell ya, it doesn't take much to get me hooked on something like this...this and geocaching. I only have to play it once and then I think about it all day.

Rhinestones.....shiney....look...go...pick up.

The trouble is that I usually can only come up with a 4 letter word and it has to have an E in it. Or it's a curse word.  And I don't get to touch my letter tiles in order to move them around and around trying to come up with better words. The app will scramble them once and then move them back and that's it. No screwing around. It's fun though and I'm sure I'll either get better at using my letters or find way more and better 4 letter words.

Speaking of 4 letter words, my mom was tortured yesterday by a scam phone call guy who 'ordered' her to go get her checkbook and give him her account number. He also told her he didn't believe that she didn't have a credit card. He called her quite a few times and succeded in terrifying her enough that she called the police. The police, of course, can't do anything about this kind of stuff because the scammer usually has a blocked phone number or somehow makes it seem as though his phone number doesn't work when he is called back. My mom has caller ID but she just can't let the phone ring and not pick it up. I've tried over and over to get her to leave it to no avail. She's a lonely old woman who is being preyed on by these types of slimey individuals. 

 By persuing the Attorney General's website this morning I found out that I can call the phone company and get all kinds of things installed on mom's phone free of charge. A nice big anti scam bundle. Her name can be taken out of the phone book and put on a local Do Not Call list. She can get something by the name of Call Rejection which will not allow the call to come through and then something called No Solicitation. A person can have a list of phone numbers that they will allow to ring their phone. I'm elated and I'm calling the phone company today to have it set up.

These 4 letter word people who can think of so many ways to get an old person to give them the little bit of money they have left are the scum of the earth. The crap on the bottom of the shoe. The wad of gum in the hair of life. How is it that they are so smart about this but can't figure out how to make a living the right way? Why are they so relentless and how do they know where the old people live? I'm beginning to think that ARRP and The Senior Citiizens League are selling their mailing lists. As I am sadly discovering there is a whole big world of scammers out there who get up every morning with renewed vigor. They stretch, get a cup of coffee, perhaps play Words With Friends a little and then get on with their scummy life of trying to bilk the life savings out of the elderly. Shame on them.

I watched Midnight in Paris the other night as I tried to grind out the back piece to Listeme. What a beautiful movie it was! I enjoyed the story but mostly I loved the way the city itself was portrayed. Beautiful, mysterious, and full of the aching longing that is life. The whole movie was shot with glorious lighting and everyone in it appeared to glow as did the city itself. The story about wanting to live back in time because you weren't too satisfied with the way life was going now was nicely done. I would have preferred so see someone other than Owen Wilson take on the roll of the man being shoved into a life he didn't want and the fiance and her parents were painted with a pretty broad brush but it was the city really that the movie was about. I'll take Paris in the rain anyday.

While the movie entertained me the sweater I was knitting did not. Hell. It's the same old story...will it fit? Will I run out of yarn? I believe it might be yes on both counts. I keep laying the back piece down and measuring it. Over and over. This doesn't bode well. I've held it up to myself. I've measured it against sweaters I have that fit. I've eyed up the yarn I have to knit it with. None of it is good yet I keep going. I not only keep going but I've been perusing Ravelry to see if I can find another sweater to knit after I finish this one. I'm a pathetic creature obsessed with knitting and forging ahead with something that I know in my heart won't work. I feel like Owen Wilson in Paris.

Hell on Wheels is the name of my new favorite TV show. I love the old west and I love stories about building a railroad. I don't like what happens to many of the people involved in the building of the Union Pacific but I sure wish that I had the character of the lead actor who can stop a fight with a cold stare or stomp into a bar with a gun and clean out all the trouble that stands in the way of progress. If only I could swing up on a horse and gallop off to fight the Indians. Now, I realize that a lot of things portrayed should never have happened and that people should not go around toting guns to help them solve problems but today I feel like I should be granted one day to do just that.

I'm not a violent person. I don't like violent movies or shows and I avert my eyes when I sense that the blood spurt is coming. However....the stuff that is happening to my aging mother makes me so angry that I would love to jump up on my horse and ride into the fray with guns blazing. My telephone really doesn't seem to have the same power to get things done that a grizzled angry man with a chip on his shoulder does. TV Guide makes me want a scalp. Reader's Digest makes me want to push someone off a train. I am so tired of dealing with these two idiot companies that I want to stomp into both places and demand some satisfaction. And no, I do not want to be put on hold.

My 89 year old mother, who has dementia, has a TV Guide subscription until the year 2022. She also has so much crap from Reader's Digest that it makes my head spin. Neither company can satisfy my request to stop sending her renewal pleas that appear to be bills to be paid or any kind of dumb book they decide she needs to have. Here's what I don't get about that: this is the computer age. Click a key and remove her name. Oh, but it's never that easy. It takes months and months, they say, to remove a person's name from the mailing list from hell.  How in the world is this possible? We can put a man on the moon but we can't remove a person's name from a mailing list? It makes my spurs quiver.

Never mind all the junk mail mom gets that confounds the hell out of her and makes her feel as though she needs to stick $20 bills into return postage paid envelopes and send them off. The marketing calls beat all that. I believe now that my mom is on an 'old lady who is confused' list that is being passed around like a hot potato and has been kicked overseas a few times as well. Why does someone who requests money to be sent to the Netherlands know my mom's telephone number? How many people are out there trying to scam my mom out of what little money she has left? Why is there even a company who portrays themselves as one who promises to get your name off all these lists and then requires $400 to do so? I am confounded my own self and it makes me want to jump on my horse and ride out to have a little talk with all these companies. These companies who first get a credit card number and then keep charging and charging on said number.

And then there is the bank. The good old bank. The bank who says to an old woman sure you can have the money from the equity in your house. All you want. Just take it and don't worry about it. Spend it on whatever nonsense you want. Don't even bother to think about how it's going to be paid back or what will happen when the note comes due. Just as long as you keep paying your property taxes you're fine. Until you can't pay your property taxes anymore. Then we take the house. Reverse mortage to fix the mess we are in now? Sure. No problem even though your house isn't nearly worth what it was when we gave you all that money in the first place. Where is that firiggin' spitoon!

I plan to be Hell on Wheels today. I want to get as much trouble to clear out of town as I can. I want to give someone an ear blistering, spit flying talking to. I am going to try my best and when I'm done all that will be left will be a pouff of smoke and the sound of my spurs as I walk away.

Hubby gave me a Wii for Christmas and I loved the way we went about it. First he found a reconditioned one at a store called Gamestop which was so much cheaper than buying a new one. Then he hid clues all over the house that I followed until I found the gift under my pillow...hadn't I just made my bed? It was a blast to find it in that manner and I was terribly excited for it to be hooked up so we could all play. The grandchildren brought some of their games because they knew this fabulous event was going to happen. It was hooked up by the two sons-in-law in record time. Fun, fun and more fun.

The family played sports and danced for most of the day and only stopped during the turkey dinner. I mainly watched because I had a nasty case of the puking flu coming on and didn't feel my best. I perused the two games that had come with the gift and thought how fun they would be to play later on. When I had some strength. I watched how the hand held deals were being used and learned what the nunchuck was although I thought there could be a better name for it. The day progressed and I became sicker and sicker until I nunchucked the whole day of food into the toilet. So much for my Wii experience.

Later, when I could stand without my knees wobbling, hubby and I decided to try the Wii out for ourselves. He bought me the Survivor game because I love that dang show and the thing I enjoy the most about it is the challenges. We loaded it and commenced to play. The Survivor game is cartoon-like, has a funny looking Jeff Probst, and one has to pick a character already on the island to be. I chose to be Linda, a tough looking chick who, I imagined, could kick some serious Survivor butt. Well, Linda was tough but I was not. I couldn't manage to get Linda into the lead in any of the challenges. I couldn't work the control deals with any success. Linda was always last and in serious jeopardy of being voted off the island. And the worst thing about it? Good ol' cartoon Jeff Probst and the cartoon person who won the challenge would stand at the finish line and talk about Linda and how slow she was. They would talk, laugh, and turn their heads back to look at the serious mess that Linda was in.

Of course, hubby had to jump in and tell me what I was doing wrong. I appreciated it but also wondered how he knew what was what seeing as though we are both over the age of knowing how to play any type of video game. He helped me to at least get Linda to the actual end of a challenge. Last place, but there. Surprisingly, Linda did not get voted off. We went back for a try at a different challenge and the same thing happened. The cartoon from the other team beat the pants off Linda and then talked about us with Jeff. What the hell? My wrists were killing me from all the strange movements I had been making and still Linda was a loser. A talked about loser.

I decided that, in the future, I am going to have to practice my hand movements and maybe lift a few light weights before I go back to the island with Linda. It was hard to get over the humiliation. Hubby loaded in another game and we did some skiing, some skating and some bobsledding and I did better at that. At least nobody talked about me.

Things were going along pretty well on one of my second socks. I finished the foot and had then changed yarn for the toe decreases. I should say here that these socks, which are for me, are black and white striped with a red heel and toe. Extra cute and fabulous. I got in about 3 rounds of red the other night before my eyes started to cross and I had to take myself off to bed. I, of course, didn't clean up my little nest. Needles, scissors, yarn balls and pattern pages cluttered up my end of the couch. I imagine there was a pencil hanging around the vicinity, too. And probably a candy wrapper. I should be shot.

I got up yesterday morning and toddled off to work not even giving my mess a thought because I planned on coming home early, fixing dinner and then cleaning up my mess after cranking out the darling red toe. These were the best laid plans but during the day daughter # 3 phoned and asked if she and the grandson could come over after work and perhaps go out for Friday dinner with us. Hubby and I usually go out to eat on Friday but this Friday we had decided to eat sandwiches and lay on the couch. It had been a week of work frenzy for both of us. However....having the grandboy come over for a visit precedes any tiredness I might feel so I said yes. Who am I kidding here? I never say no.

I wasn't in the door 5 minutes and was in the kitchen fixing myself a cup of after-work tea when they got here. The grandboy showed me some of his special art work that he had done in preschool, allowed me to kiss him on the head and then went off to play with the cat.  The daughter and I sat in the kitchen and talked while we waited for hubby to come home. The next thing I knew, grandboy was standing next to me with a ball of yarn and a pair of scissors asking me if he could use this yarn to play with the cat. Gulp. It was my red toe yarn and there wasn't a sock attached to it. I blinked a couple of times and tried to remember if there had been another small ball of red yarn laying around somewhere. There wasn't. He always asks me if he can use whatever yarn ball he lays his hands on but he has never cut a ball off of a working project before. I just sat and stared at the end of the yarn hanging from the ball cupped in his little hand.

As a young mom I would have probably yelled my head off. As a grandma I have an infinite amount of patience and the wherewithall to realize that I should have cleaned up my nest the night before. I held my breath as I tried not to run out to assess the damage and let out a huge sigh of relief when I discovered that there was a good foot of yarn left and nothing else had been cut. Grandboy and I had a nice little talk about cutting yarn, I got a quick kiss in and before we knew it we were in the car going out to Friday dinner. Afterwards, when I was in my jammies finishing up the red toe and weaving in my ends, I realized that it was just a sock. One of a few second socks for me to finish but, in the end, just a sock. And I can't get so worked up over socks. I have that other second sock to start and then the darling sweater but really.....I would rather have a kiss from the grandboy.

I've been working my stinger off in the new year. Things are hoppin' at work and I'm either at the machine, the ironing board or the dressmaker's dummy trying to figure out if this kind of sleeve is going to fit that kind of armhole.

We, at work, are trying to get things ready for a photo shoot on Saturday. Dresses not only have to be finished up but then have to be 'styled'. And area has to be set up. Lights have to be brought in. Model has to be fit. Photographer...camera....talking...pinning...more talking....maybe a dress being run over to the machine to take a little tuck somewhere. It's a busy time, a fun time but also a little exhausting. This is my way of saying that I don't have much knitting to show for the New Year. When I get home from a long day of hand sewing my eyes just don't want to focus on what is on my size one needles and I feel as though I have just buzzed from thing to thing without rest. And even though I go back to the hive to get my jammies on without much inclination to knit I still think about what's next in the lineup. Never mind those pesky unfinished second socks. They are both staring at me but I just look away.

I give you Listeme. She is a darling sweater, no? She is my next project. I even have the yarn. It is from my jacked up Oak Leaf Cardigan which wasn't a cardigan at all but a giant blanket with sleeve holes. And bad pocket placement. It has all been undone, rolled into balls and sits waiting for me to do something with it while I languish on the couch watching bad TV. Sh-h-h--h. I'm casting on in my mind. 

I love the look of this sweater. I love the little seed stitch ribbons that weave up the front. I love the classic lines. I love the color. The only problem I see is that the description of the sweater says it's 'a trim ladylike cardigan'. Ha! I am neither trim nor ladylike. Nor will I pair it with a pencil skirt. When I have the wherewithall to actually cast on, knit, finish and wear the sweater I will pull on a pair of jeans and then swear like the naughty seamstress I am.