The GirlAlive Blog

News aplenty

Okay, so a ton has been going on, but I haen’t been able to write about any of it because I’m still partially blind.  I mean, I can see, but I still can’t see details, so I still can’t really read.

First of all, let me fill you in on my surgery.  I went to Glasgow to get LASEK surgery that I paid for months and months ago.  Now, you’ve probably seen LASIK surgery on tv where you spend half an hour under a laser and then magically you can see everything and it’s great.  That is LASIK, not LASEK.  LASEK recovery time sucks.  They didn’t tell me about the excrutiating pain until I was being prepped for surgery.  I got all zapped, and the surgery went fine.  I had no problems for the first day or so.  Then the pain set in for about 2 days.  I was on heavy painkillers a lot.  Then I got the bandage contact lenses off, and the pain stopped, but I still can’t see.  They told me to expect a "dramatic difference" when the lenses were removed.  It’s been 2 days and I’m still waiting for the dramatic difference.  I have to go back to work on Monday, but I don’t know if I’ll actually be able to do anything when I’m there.

But the more important news is that my brother’s wife Jaime had twins!  It was earlier than expected, but the babies are doing great and Jaime is getting better and better.  They’re adorable little midgets, and you can see pictures at my brother’s blog at http://blog.wayfellows.com/ 

They still have no names, so they are still calling them Raisin and Kiwi.  And the nurses are calling them "the Olson twins".

 Gotta go.  More medical appointments await.

Alana 

still blind

Oksy, so I had the surgery on saturday and they conveniently didn’t tell me about the excrutiating pain until I had alreasy signed all the papers.  If you get LASIK, it’s not bad, but I had to get LASEK which is followed by a week of near=blindness (hence my typos aplenty) and four days with bandage contact lenses that cause pain like I haven’t had since I had gallstones.  I’m on ibuprofen and tylenol with codeine just to be able to open my eyes.  There should be only a few more days of pain until they teke the lenses out.

Alana 

New Eyeballs

I may not be able to answer emails or anything for a while after Saturday because I’m going for eye surgery on Saturday, so I will be a little bit blind for a few days.  But I’m getting a whole week off work.

In other news, I put my guinea pigs all together in the same cage the other day.  There was fighting.  Elvis started most of it.  He’s the smallest of our piggies and he’s turning into a little Napoleon.  He attacked and bit both Homer and Spike.  There was no blood, but Spike was quite shaken up.  

I don’t have a whole lot to say because life has been dull.  And it’s going to get duller when I can’t watch tv, read books or use my computer for a week or so while my eyes are healing.  And I can’t play with the piggies because I don’t want to risk any eye inflammation from my allergies.  It’s going to be an interesting week…

Alana 

Long Week

So this has been a long week.  I am so bored with my job.  I sent in an application for another job, but I haven’t heard.  It’s a long shot anyway because I’m overqualified in some ways and underqualified in others.

I had my immigration test on Thursday.  I had to take a test on "life in the United Kingdom".  I bought the book and I studied it.  Then I showed up for the test.  First they had to register all of us, one at a time.  It took over 45 minutes.  Then they logged us all in to take the practice test.  Which was another 10 minutes.  Then another 5 minutes to log us in for the real test.   Then we had 45 minutes to complete the test.  I answered all the questions and then double checked them.  When I clicked on "finish" it told me, "You have left 0 questions unanswered and you have 40 minutes remaining."  So I finished and double checked the entire test in 5 minutes.  I went out and got my results from the secretary.

In front of me was a guy who failed his test and was rescheduling.  Then I got my results and was told that I passed and got a piece of paper to prove it for my immigration interview.

So that is hurdle #1 down towards getting settlement here.  I don’t know if I really want to live here the rest of my life, but I do know that this is where my husband, my guinea pigs, and my house are, so I’d kind of like to stay for the moment.

Alana 

Fringeiness

Last night was my one night of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  My husband and I planned to go to a bunch of shows all in one night in order to get completely burned out on the festival and therefore have no insane ideas of visiting the city center during the rest of the festival.  I believe that it worked.

I’ll start with my trip into the city.  I had taken the day off work so I could sleep in and get some other stuff done at the same time.  I was planning  to head into the city at 1:30.  I had an eye doctor appointment related to my upcoming laser eye surgery scheduled for 3:00, and it normally takes less than an hour to get to the city center, but it is the festival and my husband informed me that there was a major fire at a kilt shop on Princes Street, so the buses were running late and re-routed.

I went to the bus stop to catch a #47.  A #37 came by, and it was supposed to be there 10 minutes earlier, but I decided to grab that bus thinking, "If it’s running late who knows when the 47 will be here."  I talked to the driver and it turns out he wasn’t 10 minutes late.  He was 40 minutes late.

Anyway, I got to George Street to my eye doctor appointment with time to spare.  They had a bunch of problems scanning my eyes because I apparently have huge pupils.  After the eye doctor, I went to Starbucks to meet up with my husband.  I had a really big iced mocha.  It was the first time I’ve been to Starbucks since moving here.  I hate to admit it, but it totally felt like home.

After coffee, we went to Pizza Hut and had a medium Pepperoni and green chili pizza.  The bathrooms were all weird.  I can’t even describe it.  There was a labyrinth of stairs with no right angles and it was very disorienting.

After that, we got a bus over the the Pleasance theater complex.  It’s apparently related to the University, and it’s a cool area.  There’s a big courtyard with a temporary bar and information booths.  We found our first venue: the Pleasance Cellar.  We were scheduled to see Owen Powell’s The Two Closest Starbucks in Britain.  The cellar was literally a cellar.  Water was dripping from the ceiling and the seating was a bunch of Ikea stools.  I think there was maybe room for 30 people in there.  It was incredibly uncomfortable, but the good news is that Owen Powell was very funny.  He had spent a year travelling Britain and measuring distances between Starbucks.  He didn’t hate Starbucks.  Didn’t love them.  In fact, he admitted that he doesn’t even like coffee.  But he needed to know how close together 2 starbucks could be.  It was genuinely funny, and he deserved a better venue. 

After that, we had a short break and then went to the Pleasance One theater to see Lucy Porter’s Love-In.  My first impression after sitting on an Ikea stool for an hour was, "It’s so comfortable!"  The seating was big cushioned benches, and we got a row with extra leg room for my 6′5" husband.  There was even air conditioning.  But that was only secondary to the fact that Lucy Porter was hilarious.  She was talking completely on the theme of love.  And how she considers love to be a mental illness, but doesn’t mind so much because crazy isn’t so bad.  She talked about bad dates and embarrassing moments and crazy habits, and she gave out prizes and had audience participation and it was completely 7 pounds well spent.  I would see her again in a heartbeat.

Our final show of the night was back on George Street, and by that time Princes Street was re-opened and the buses were a little more normal.  Our final show of the night was Rich Hall.   The theater was a more traditional theater with the individual seats with armrests.  For my husband and I, it was not really very comfortable.  But Rich Hall was undeniably funny.  It was his first night at the Festival, and you could tell he hadn’t worked out all the kinks.  It didn’t help that the audience was full of drunken obnoxious British people.  Despite that, he did make me laugh out loud plenty.

My husband liked Rich Hall best.  I liked Lucy Porter best.  We both liked Owen Powell, in spite of the venue.  Overall, we had a good night and by the time we caught a midnight bus home, we were completely exhausted.  

When I got home I went to bed, and laid there awake for 2 hours.  I was exhausted, but my feet hurt so much they kept me awake.  It was very annoying.  But I’ve got a whole weekend to recover.

Alana