Y: Yikes

Y_Yikes

Y is totally for Yikes! The answer to the previous X question: This is a model of the hip replacement gizmos that will be used in my upcoming procedure. Thank you for all your responses. I hope you’ve made a new friend in expression with haiku. Certificates of Distinctions available soonly.

There are three parts to the contraption: the long lower knife/cane/golf club grip that fits into my femur, a dense plastic faux cartilage, and the round pelvis-nested salad bowl.

(And yes, I was the only one at the surgery preparation class that was so awed as to take photos of these amazing devices.)

What I love the most is the coral reef/spaghetti-like parts to which my actual living bones will meld/grow into. I’ll pause here, and let you read that sentence again…
It’s all made of titanium, and yes, I will set off metal detectors.

So Y is also for Yes?

Yes, I’ll be needing to close down MMS+S for a few weeks while all the magic (and pain medication) happens, so if you’re thinking about ordering a kit or two, please do so in the next few days.

Albie_sunroom

Yes, I’ve not been getting out much, but reading a lot and appreciating the many comforts of home. This is a late-night surprise encounter of Albie (and his debris field), stretched out on the (unmade) single bed in the sun room.

the_light.jpg

And Yes, yes, wily Scarlett. As poet David Whyte suggests,

Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.

(From “Tobar Phadraic”, one of my many favorites from him.)

Yes. Yes. Yikes.

Nothing Beside Remains

This month’s very tardy nancyland splash page pays homage to two of my favorite things: Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandius” and beach cleanups.

I recently became site captain for Esplanade Beach volunteer cleanups organized by Pacifica Beach Coalition, and my experience is heartfelt and mind-expanding. The image on the splash page is a fishing buoy, possibly debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami, retrieved from the beach some sixty feet below:

esplanade_trail_051216

The part of the poem that most resonates with me:

“The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.