Just when you thought life was settling down it rises up and smacks you upside the head.

I came home from work today and noticed a few black specks in my right eye's vision. This is a bit frightening for me because that's the eye that just had a detached retina and I just had surgery to correct in July. At 2 follow up visits the doctors assured me it was healing beautifully, perfectly, I was the one who beat the odds and was going to get a full recovery.

Until tonight when I saw those specks. An hour later I suddenly saw a familiar shadow in my right eye's vision - that was it, game over. I knew that shape - it's the retina detaching again.

I did all the sensible things. Called the eye hospital A&E (emergency room for us Yanks). They said come down right now. So I grabbed a cab and went. Two hours and a lot of bright lights and eye drops, etc later, the eye doctor confirmed the retina was starting to detach again. So being a UK hospital they sent me home at 1 am. I have to be back at the hospital at 8 am in the morning when I'll find out if and when they'll re-operate. It's a queue here - who knows if they will take me right into surgery or make me wait days (while the eye gets worse).

I just can't believe this bad luck.

And just when I was going to post how life had settled down. Life was starting to go well. Work was going well, contract was going to be renewed. Who knows what will happen now.

Damn.

So it seems the world didn't end today ;)

Scientists fire up giant atom smasher
Deep beneath the border of France and Switzerland, scientists Wednesday fired up one of the most ambitious experiments ever conceived, firing protons around a 27-kilometer (17-mile) tunnel to try to unlock the secrets of the universe.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/10/lhc.collider/index.html

Go Science! CERN rocks!

So much for the idiot-brigade doomsayers. The sky is not yet falling.

Three weeks now since I expected my agency to deposit my paycheck. Arrgh, what complete incompetence. This is wrecking my budget. It doesn't matter how much you make if you can't rely on them to deposit your funds promptly and reliably.

Food Meme
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating..

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin - only once and it was disgusting. Never again
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips 61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill 76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare/Rabbit
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Tuesday was Alan and my 2nd anniversary. We talked about it and are pleasantly surprised at how well it's worked out. Yes, the usual snags and spats and complaints but we have been friends for so many years I guess we're used to that part by now. On the other hand, reflecting back over 2 years, we're still happy about our decision. We decided to celebrate with a long weekend somewhere in Sept - budget realities and my eye is still healing so this week was not a goer.

Slowly, slowly my eye is healing and recovering from surgery. Vision is still fuzzy. I'll know more when I see the consultant on Tuesday. I have a list of questions for him. But, so far, so good.

In other news it's miserably hot and humid here. So oppressive one wants to do nothing at all. Perhaps sip iced tea, take a shower but that's the limit of ambition.

Give credit where credit is due - the NHS has a few (miniscule but they are there) things right - the Moorfield Vitroretinal Emergency Clinic is one of them. It's absolutely no-frills, low comfort, no amenities BUT, and here is the diamond, the consultants are brilliant, the nurses are top notch, they actually have reasonably up-to-date equipment, and they class ALL retinal detachments are genuine emergencies which need same day surgery. Bravo them! (I'm bringing them a huge box of chocolates to say thank yoou when I go back next week for my 10 day progress assessment)

My eye is healing slowly but steadily. I've started driving locally. No idea how completely restored vision will be yet.

Tuesday I had surgery for a detached retina. Totally unexpected, unplanned.

Had some fuzziness in my right eye on Monday, went right to my optician after work. She spotted the problem immediately and made arrangements for me to be seen by a specialist that night. She insisted on my going then and there - well done! I would have waited till morning normally or gone to the local hospital which is next door to where we live. But she was insistent on my doing it right. Of course, that was the one night Alan wasn't coming straight home from work. He was over in east London sorting out some computer problem for a friend. I phoned him to let him know but being London, he was over 90 min minimum mass transit trip home - I would have to go on my own if I intended to see the doctor before closing time. So I managed to carefully drive home and park, call a taxi and wisk off to St George's Hospital.

The ophthalmologist at St George's confirmed a detached retina and arranged an appointment for me for 8am the next morning at Moorfield Eye Hospital for surgical evaluation. The trick with a detached retina is that it all happens fast so you need surgery immediately to halt further damage and hopefully repair what is already damaged.

Tuesday morning at 7:30 am Alan & I were at Moorfield at the emergency vitroretinal surgery clinic. By 8am a specialist Opthalmologist was confirming I needed immediate laser surgery and scheduling me for the first appointment that afternoon. Three hours later I had the surgery - under local anaesthetic - and by 3pm I was phoning Alan to let him know I was ready to go home. The actual surgery took less than 45 minutes.

So such is my merry week. My right eye will have distorted vision while it slowly heals. It sort of looks like seeing underwater. The itching drives me nuts at times. The 5 different kinds of eye drops used 4 times a day drives me nuts. The head positioning I need to keep in mind and conform to drives me crazy. Etc. But all worth it if I can come out of this with vision restored to normal.

Life's a bitch. And there's no viable alternative. Soldier on, there's nothing to see here, those aren't the droids you're looking for.

Everybody Hates Being Outvictimized

(Native American cop is arresting a black man)
Black man: Fuckin' discrimination, man! Leave me the fuck alone! I ain't done nothin wrong!
Native American Cop: Fuck you! We were oppressed first!
Black man: Apache motherfucker!

(Overheard in New York ---82nd St, Queens)

I passed the "Life in the UK" test today.

Yes, ladies and gents, that is a real, official UK gov't required test you must pass to get a resident visa/citizenship here.

They made me swear to secrecy about the questions. really. ( To protect the guilty, I suppose - I could have played Vegas with these questions and had them rolling in the aisles)

Conductor: This is 81st street. Get off here for the big museum of dead stuff.

--Uptown C Train

Just got an email that an old friend of Alan's has died. Funeral next week. We'll go to the memorial afterwards at the pub to toast her memory. I remember her as a rather nice, funny old woman. She was a local Councillor and stood for the environment in a very practical and sensible manner. She was a smoker, a fellow exile. (No she didn't die from smoking!)

Update on the burn. I've never had a burn like this before. Usually the skin gets a bit red or at worst, I get blisters, which usually break) and then it gets scabby and starts to heal. This time, no visible blisters. The skin is a dark reddish brown and swollen where it was burned and I suspect the blisters are deep below. It hurts. It hurts a hell of a lot.

So, deciding to take advantage of the much lauded NHS "free" medical care which I pay vast amounts of my tax money into, I stopped at the A&E walk in clinic. The so-called medical person who looked at my hand advised me, "that's burned innit?". No shit, Sherlock. So what did he propose to do about it? A nice perscription burn cream to take away the sting and pain? Oh no, he suggested "don't do anything rough with it" and "let nature take its course". And that I should take some paracetomol is the pain kept me from sleeping. Nothing else, not even some sensible advice like wash gently to keep it clean.

Waste of my time. This is a serious burn. The NHS can be good at times but sadly, most of the time they are little better than the witchdoctor.

It took over 5 hours of iced wraps and painkiller tablets to bring the burn pain down to function level. It's 9:30 pm now and the hand still hurts and is stiff. There aren't blisters yet but the skin is swollen in the pattern of the boiling water inpact.

damn, damn, damn! I burned my right hand this morning making coffee. Splashed boiling water all over the top of my hand.

I stayed calm and grabbed for the "cooling burn spray" we keep handy on the kitchen counter. What garbage! Useless and didn't work. I turned on the cold water and stuck my hand under the running water as fast as I could. Now that is relief. I don't know why the spray didn't work but it didn't. So here I am an hour later, after soaking the hand in bowls of ice and water to cool down the skin and prevent further damage. And it still hurts like hell.

And so tomorrow my little "vacation" comes to an end. Wednesday morning at 9am will find me at my new job. That's the good news. The bad news is that my agency has a monthly pay schedule. I know that a monthly pay cycle is the general rule in the UK, especially for higher level jobs, but I've been lucky in that, up till now my jobs paid on a weekly basis. The money is obviously exactly the same either way. The only difference is that I have to wait a l-o-n-g time for my first paycheck and have to budget a bit more carefully.

In other news, the time has come for me to make a decision on my name. Do I switch over to my married name completely or do I keep using my former name which most people know and use? If I intend to switch, I need to call the US Embassy tomorrow, sort out the details, and overnight my passport to them to replace. Then at the end of July, I will be able to renew my visa in my married name - the UK authorities will only issue a visa in the name on my passport.

Whatever I decide, July is going to be a very tight financial month and August only a little less so. In August I'll have the pleasure of paying the UK gov't £1000 (yes, one thousand pounds sterling) to issue me my new visa. All so that I can continue working and paying that same UK government my obscene taxes for which they provide amazingly little in return. (Other than the opportunity to loathe Gorden Brown.)

Despite Alan's ambitious plans for spending my salary, I plan to pay off my credit cards as fast as I can and do some serious saving to create a reasonable safety cushion. I've already made a mark in the sand on IBgames. I'm not putting a single penny of my money into it. I know the annual company taxes/business license/whatever it is will soon be due. Last year, we paid half the cost because the claim was made that the company's income was only barely enough to cover its expenses and no funds were being used to pay the CEO a salary. This is bullshit. She is actually withdrawing a small but tidy amount every month. (An interesting point to me since ALL income in excess of the data center monthly charge were supposed to be divided evenly between the CEO, Alan, and me but I've never seen 1 penny out of it.) So I've informed Alan that when the bill arrives from the Isle of Man for the annual company accounts, the CEO will have to fund the £2-3,000 it runs. If she can't, then the company will have to dissolve or find some other source of funds.

Anyway, I had a lovely day in Calais with Asti on Saturday. We had lunch in a restaurant that I would happily recommend to anyone - La Sole Meuniere in Calais, old town near the yacht basin.

I start a new job on Wednesday as a project manager in Disaster Recovery at GlaxoSmithKline. The offices are a 5 minute drive from my house - astounding!

The night too quickly passes

And we are growing old,

So let us fill our glasses

And toast the Days of Gold;

When finds of wondrous treasure

Set all the South ablaze,

And you and I were faithful mates all through the Roaring Days.

Henry Lawson, "The Roaring Days"

How can they not have cottage cheese?

So here I am trying to move to a healthier diet. More fruit and vegetables, less bread and pasta, you know the drill. So I was shopping at Tesco's and for crying out loud, they don't sell plain cottage cheese.

They sell disgusting low-fat cottage cheese with it's plastic texture and taste. They sell plain low fat cottage cheese, low-fat cottage cheese with cheddar, with pineapple (and lots of pineapple juice to make it a soggy goo), with alien vegetable combos, and with corn and tuna and sweet chili - I can't even begin to describe how revolting that sounds to me. And yes, they do sell one variety of regular cottage cheese - with added creme fraiche - which makes it a loose, liquidy, creamy strangeness, tasting like you are eating lumpy cream, forget the cotage cheese.

Ugh! All I wanted was some plain regular cottage cheese to provide protein for my lunches.

But no, not in 3rd world Britain.

You can't even trust your familiar old brands to be safe here - they "localise" the recipes. Thus Cheerios that are sweet from the box, 7UP that is tooth achingly sweet, Heinz ketchup and Hellman's mayonaise that have strong distinct vinegar tangs.

It's not that I am being jingoistic about American products. It's quite a different story on the other side of the channel in France and Belguim ( not to mention Switzerland). Asti & I routinely do day trips over the Channel and shop in the French Hypermarts or the Bruges farmers market and their food is gorgeous.

I've heard a lot of talk about the "New British Cooking" all full of self-praising accolates. It's rubbish. Whatever they make might manage to look pretty but by and large it tastes pretty mediocre or gross. (We won't even start with the cost of food here because that itself is enough to sicken you!)

Not to say you can't go to some restaurants and find fantastic food. You can. We do. I just had dim sum at Yauatcha in Broadwick Street, Soho, London. Oh my god it's fantastic. Must orders: baked venison puffs, almond prawns - and the beef ho fun is to die for!

But sometimes all you want is some cottage cheese for a simple lunch with sliced fresh fruit on top. And fuggeddaboudit, it ain't happening here.

Went to see Cabaret at the Lyric theatre with Asti today. Awesome, awesome, awesome production. The actress playing Sally Bowes was no Liza Minella, not in her dreams; she was adequate and passably good in a few bits. The rest of the cast was ok. The orchestra was great. And the MC, ah the MC...the MC -was- the show and he was fabulous. From the moment he peeked his head out of the dilated iris in the wooden front "curtain" and said Wilkommen! he drew in the audience and had us eating out of his hands - and replying to his demands. No way to describe it, but he was sensationally good. Wow! I am so impressed. And the ending of this version of Cabaret was stunning - they slowly drop their clothes and walk naked into the showers as the clouds of zyklon B swirl. Wow!