So surgery this  morning was kind of fun. Strange word choice, I know (in part because who thinks something like that is fun and you probably expected a big word from me that you may or may not actually know off the top of your head--ha, I think so highly of my own vocabulary). So here's your play by play:

The morning started off with collecting my first urine of the day. You bet, I actually wrote that in this here public blog. The surgery center, as I spoke with them on the phone to get instructions yesterday, told me to "bring in your first urine of the day in a sealed container." How sterile is that? And they don't have bathrooms and urine cups there? I guess we're saving on overhead costs. Hope my insurance appreciated that. So what would you use for your container with a lid? Of course since I work at ARUP where we have an onsite health clinic, I just went down there on Wednesday and picked up a sealed, sterile urine cup. I hope they appreciated that. I can't imagine what other people brought their first urines in. What if I had brought in the second urine of the day? Would I have died? C'mon, it's possible that I may have peed twice by the time I was supposed to be there: 7:45 a.m.

My dad graciously took me to the center and we arrived a few minutes early, checked in and were ushered to a little room with a bed, some lockers, a separate little bathroom (possibly perfect for first urines of the day), and a couple of chairs. Oh yeah, and it had a fresh gown, robe and slippers for me. I felt like a queen with a robe and slippers, not just an open-in-the-back cotton shirt. After I changed and let Dad back in, we chatted about how much he thinks I should start my own comic strip and what my niche could be. I think we waited for about 20 minutes before a podiatrist resident named Randy, with a BYU scrub cap on his head, came in. He marked my right foot: "YES." (See the middle pic below.) No accidentally cutting into anything on the left foot, thank you very much.

Then the anesthesiologist came in. I don't remember his name, but he was a small, middle-eastern man with a strong accent who got blood on my gown after inserting part of the IV. While he was doing that, Dr. Lowe came in and said we're ready to go. I kind of felt like my dad was doing my surgery for me because Dr. Lowe's known me my whole life--lived two houses away until my parents moved an entire half-block when I was in kindergarten and of course I never moved outside of the ward boundaries. His kids are the same age as me and my siblings (Matt's the closest to me... two years older). I remember him teaching me when I was in preschool how very bad it could be if I rode my bike barefoot through the neighborhood. I never even rode in sandals after that.

So in the surgery, the anesthesia was local and then they used a combination of Versed and some other drugs that don't put me under, but also kept me from remembering the surgery afterwards. According to my dad (Dr. Lowe told him this after), I sat up when he was doing the sutures cuz I really wanted to watch that part.

After surgery, I woke up in a group recovery room as Randy the Resident was putting on my sexy surgical boot. "Look at that tan I have," I told him. "Yes, it's a spray-on." (My foot was yellow from the iodine and I was so funny cracking jokes and all.) The nurses gave me some apple juice and I sat around staring at them while they took care of the other patients who were moaning or in other states of confusion. After about five minutes, they came over and told me I didn't have to stay in here anymore.

I went back to my little locker room where a nurse helped me get dressed again and we talked about how nice my bra (from Victoria's Secret) was. She then wheeled me to a waiting room with reclining, cushioned seats to wait for about 20 minutes with my dad before I could go home.

And that was it: in and out in about two hours. Now, I'm laying on my back with my foot up and taking Lortab and ibuprofen. Oh yeah, in the surgery, they cut open my toe, sawed off a little bit of bone and the joint went back down. It took about 20 minutes. Here's some pictures. I realize that I haven't painted my toe nails to match the sutures yet. Also, the pics are small because the sutures are kind of gross so only click on it for a bigger pic if you think your stomach can handle it.

In about nine hours, I'm going in for toe surgery. Fun!
So as I've been searching the internet for random  info about toe surgery I've realized two things:

• Feet are ugly. I suddenly realized, though, that mine aren't so bad... mostly cuz they're straight and without bunions. Seriously, why exactly would a doctor really choose to be a podiatrist? I have a great one (Dr. Lowe), who is also a family friend that has known me my entire life. But I still don't know why he wanted to take care of people's feet. He did teach me not to ride my bike barefoot when I was in kindergarten. And now he'll cut open my poor ol' toe and fix up those ligaments. How nice.
• My surgery is very minor. That was kind of a given, since it's just for a dislocation that won't go back where it's supposed to. But if you look up on google images "toe surgery" there are some nasty procedures. Well, the procedures aren't nasty, but the problems they're fixing sure are. This, of course, relates back to my first point that feet are ugly.

Also, I have the perfect color to paint my nails to match the sutures after tomorrow's slice and dice... it's an OPI polish called Lincoln Park After Dark.

Check out the rockin' picture Kirk took of us and posted on his blog... approximately 20 minutes before I puked up pastrami, burger, fries, etc. But on a happy note, it tastes about the same coming up; chalk it up to all the sodium in the food, perhaps.
Even with the queasy stomach, the conversation still cracked me up. Good times at the ol' Crown Burger.
P.S. Kirk, you could always come back to Utah this weekend and bring seasons 2 & 3... I know you're really tempted, but we have tried to warm things up to nearly 50 degrees. (Two thumbs way up!)

Just as the weather starts to warm up a bit and give me spring fever, I find out that I'm going to be down and out for 6-8 weeks recuperating from toe surgery. Who has toe surgery?

Unbelievable. Turns out that my toe chose not to stay fixed and I was in great pain because the joint had slipped out again, the toe wanted to swell up to compensate and the wrap wouldn't allow it. Once I took off the wrap, the toe felt better and I finally slept through a night (last Friday), but things weren't all hunky-dory in dedos del pie land.

If you're looking for a good reason to buy me a get well gift, now is your chance. Thursday, I'm scheduled for surgery (which most likely includes some ligament rearranging as well as some bone sawing), with recuperating at home on Friday and Saturday. I spent last weekend resting my foot to get the swelling to go down and I about went nuts sitting for so long. If you happen to stumble across seasons 2 & 3 of Arrested Development at your place and want to bring it by for me to watch, I don't think I'd complain too much. If I did, then it's probably just the lortab talking. Mmm, narcotics...

See the pretty picture? It really is looking improved, although the color today is worse than in that pic. I briefly thought about painting my toe nails so these pictures actually looked a little bit like a female's foot and then I realized, now that's just silly. Why get your nails all done and then go in for surgery? I'll paint them post-op to match the sutures. Cool!

I'm wondering if it's possible to be in such constant pain that you can't keep food down... Karen?
I went to dinner tonight at the mighty Crown Burger with Kirk and his friend, David. When I lived in Pennsylvania and even my years spent in Provo, I used to crave a crown burger so I was definitely looking forward to one for dinner tonight. Most of the day today, I had to eat small meals as I was feeling nauseous. I thought, after a nice hour-long massage after work, I was feeling better. Well, my crown burger, fries and sprite only stayed down long enough for me to chat at the table with the guys for about 30 minutes. As soon as we stood up, I just about had to run to the bathroom on the other side of the restaurant. I didn't even have time to say anything more than, "Gotta run to the bathroom." As I raced into the women's, I heard David's farewell: "Nice to meet you." I would have liked to have said, "Same here," and walked out to the car, etc, but instead, I was spending time on the floor of the Crown Burger's bathroom.
P.S. If you can avoid it, don't dislocate your toe. Somehow I'm sure the toe is at fault for the splashed, spewed up bits of burger and such on my glasses as I was leaning over a nice, white, public toilet. Yum.

So the official word is in from my podiatrist, Dr. Lowe. I dislocated my toe. Hooray, it's not broken, right?

Here's the sad news: I can't play soccer or do other activities where I might hit my toe (basketball, most cardio, capoeira, even my leg workout at the gym) for at least three weeks. Then, if it's still in the joint properly when I go back to him, we can talk about playing again.

And the weather's just starting to get nice, too where I could run outside instead of attempt to go for longer than five minutes on a treadmill.

Okay, I'm done complaining... at least here on my blog. Here are before and after pictures. (My foot is so sexy.)

I know all my massive numbers of blog readers are just dying to hear about what I'm actually doing in my life, not what I think you should do with yours, politically. So here now for your reading pleasure is a rundown of my holiday weekend, starting with the cutesiest holiday ever, Valentine's Day.

I ducked and dodged my way out of almost everything dating related for the day. However, an unexpected Valentine showed up the day before. My nieces and nephews enjoyed the chocolates; my kitten kept on knocking over the vase of flowers; and I promised my coworkers to bring the CD to work so they can hear the song that was written for me. As for the giver of the gift, like that's any of your business. On Valentine's Day itself, I celebrated by hitting up this year's big blockbuster, Step Up 2: The Streets. It's a must see, especially the supremely cheesy happy ending (oh shoot, I gave it away). After the movie, Maren, James and I made cookies at her house and pretended that we knew how to dance like they did in the movie. (Shoot, I and my siblings are the bomb dot com.)

On to the holiday weekend: I slept in. I slept in on Saturday. I slept in on Sunday (which I took for granted pre-RSP days, but thankfully didn't have any meetings before church this week). I slept in on Monday. Other than sleeping, there was also quite a bit of eating that took place including Litza's Pizza on Friday night, Leatherby's on Saturday (after Jumper, which I don't give nearly as many stars to as Step Up 2), Mom's home cooking on Sunday, and Market Street on Monday. I think I gained five pounds over this holiday. Who knew that Presidents' Day was so fattening?

I did play a soccer game on Saturday to help burn a few of the massive amounts of calories consumed. (I have a black and blue toe to prove it... we'll see if the doc thinks it's actually broken or not this afternoon.) Other highlights from the weekend include several loads of laundry, waiting in the line at the car wash, watching almost the entire first season of Arrested Development, and sipping on an Italian Soda with Joel at a coffee shop.

And there you have it... a little, precious glimpse into the life of Larrie. It's riveting, I know.

I don't know if you've felt like me since Mitt Romney suspended his campaign, but I'm in a quagmire. (I'm not talking about Family Guy.) Do I now put my support behind McCain? Do I turn to the Democrats just to spite the GOPs? Do I throw my vote out by choosing an independent or third party? They all seem like pretty hopeless choices to me. (I suppose if Clinton was on the ticket that would be an easy decision... vote for anyone BUT her. No more secretive health care meetings, mid-term tax hikes or sealed FBI files randomly showing up in the White House; yes, I equate Bill's years in office with everything Hillary represents.) As I was driving around running errands today, I was listening to Enid Greene on KSL radio and she promised to tell her listeners that had supported Romney what they can do now. She came back, while I was waiting in line for the car wash, and offered a suggestion. I'll tell you what she said and I'll tell you that you should do exactly that.
First, Enid gave some good descriptions of the character of Huckabee, in particular citing his sly remarks to the New York Times about Romney believing that the devil and Jesus are brothers. She compared that move (playing the religious card) to the Clinton's disgusting political moves to play the race card on Obama. She also explained why Huckabee is still in this race: to get more delegates than Romney (who currently has 278 with Huckabee at 195, according to msnbc.com) for the selfish purpose of a chance at the Vice Presidency. (If you listened to Romney's speech when he suspended his campaign, you have to honor and respect his character and feel that the Republicans voted for the wrong candidates.) So what did Enid say that us Romney supporters can do now?
Don't give a dime of financial support to McCain if Huckabee is his Vice Presidential candidate. *And tell him that this is your stance.*
Send him an email from his website informing him that you won't offer your support if he chooses Huckabee as his running mate. I've already sent my email. Your turn.
What in the world would I do if the ticket in November was McCain/Huckabee?

While I never went ice skating in Central Park (weep) or made it to FAO Schwartz, here's something I wish I could have seen or even better, participated in, when I went to NYC:
 

After going to the gym last night, I saw on the couch in the basement with my brother and consumed a bowl of ice cream (with a banana in it so I was being healthy, really). I was watching with my younger brother, James... he's 18 (and still not registered to vote, silly boy). He had control of the remote and to the surprise of some, we weren't watching SportsCenter. Instead, he was flipping back and forth between the cable news channels broadcasting the depressing outcomes of Super Tuesday.

Were all of the sensible Americans too busy partying it up on Fat Tuesday that they forgot to vote yesterday?

McCain is now a shoe-in for the Republican nomination... leaving conservatives with a rather tough choice (regardless of Obama or Clinton on the Dem ticket): would you rather get stabbed to death or be shot point blank? Either way you die, but you have to choose one.

Sadly, it's looking more and more like my prediction will ring true. (Did I ever write it on this blog? I've told plenty of folks at work.) Here's what I think will happen come November: McCain will run against Clinton... and Bloomberg will enter the race as an independent, stealing away many of the Dem votes, landing the ancient, liberal senator from Arizona in the Oval Office.

That was my prediction, but Glenn Beck has a poll up on his website about how you will cope with the lack of choice in the likely ballot this November. So far, the votes are telling me that conservatives would rather vote for Bloomberg (or Nader), or not vote at all than cast a ballot for McCain.

America should repent this Ash Wednesday for their voting follies on Fat/Super Tuesday yesterday. Shame on you.

Say it like meeeen-yo... the more you say my new kitty's name, they more you'll like it. And then say it with the accent over the last syllable: min-YO. It's about time we had an animal in my family with a Korean name. We've had and still have Russian: Coboka the long lost poodle, and Koshka, the siamese cat that lives on to spite Mick; there have been and still is Hungarian: Matsi the Vizsla puppy, and Kisci the black cat who Salsa abhors; I guess we haven't had any animals with a tagalog name, but nobody has yet owned a Tarsier.

Here's the background on my new kitten. Every now and then, I look around online for bengal kittens and am always appalled by how expensive they have become ($800 and up!), which makes me sad that I'll have to find me some sugar daddy in order to replace Nappy cat. Well, the other week, I decided that I needed some retail therapy after some emotional ups and downs (well, mostly downs). I found just what I needed online in the form of a bengal kitten a little older than the usual age to sell her, which meant a little more affordable. (I also did some therapy in the form of a new haircut, some new clothes, a few CDs and a DVD... I feel much better now.)

Minyo's pictures really don't do her justice as she is the absolutely softest cat I have ever pet (and I've pet thousands, I'm sure... we have owned 17 before her in my lifetime as a Campbell). But here are a few pics anyway... enjoy!