Lately, my cardiovascular system has been acting up, more “cardio-ly” than “vascularly,” which explains why I spent the last 24 hours hooked to a mobile heart monitor.
When I had the monitor attached, I wasn’t too concerned when the cardiac nurse scoured my skin with rubbing alcohol. It was cool, cleansing, soothing even. But when she came at me with what proved to be the equivalent of sandpaper for human skin—I say, there oughta be a law. But eventually I was all wired up—three octopus suckers on my chest, two on my stomach, the monitor held on by a strap over my shoulder and across my chest, and gray wires, like miniature gray plastic intestines, dangling everywhere.
The nurse carefully explained to me how to reattach the electrodes in case they popped off the octopus suckers. I pooh-poohed this since I live a very sedentary life and couldn’t imagine moving around enough with enough vigor to cause the electrodes to fall off. That is, until an hour later when I rather emphatically adjusted my bra and, sure enough—sproink! sproink!—the two electrodes on my stomach came flying off. The electrodes are color-coded—in this case, it was the red one and green one—so, for a brief moment, as I held the disengaged electrodes in my hands, I felt like the hero in a B-grade movie who has to decide which wire to cut to stop the nuclear bomb and who has a 50/50 chance to get it right, and time’s a-wastin’. Finally, I just snapped ‘em on. Since I didn’t explode in a small mushroom cloud, I must have done it right.
It also didn’t help that I couldn’t get the “pocketa-queep” sound from The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (a family favorite) out of my head. To comfort myself and get my mind off octopus suckers, human sandpaper, nuclear bombs, and strange literary noises, I comforted myself by making banana bread. If anyone breaks a tooth on an electrode, I don’t want to hear about it.
Knitting Knews
Finished the back of the Aran baby sweater last night and started one of the sleeves. Apparently I haven't quite internalized the "Must Swatch" concept since, no, I didn't swatch for the sweater and it is coming out two sizes too small. Was hoping for a size 18-month sweater, am making a size 9-month, and am having to tweak the pattern commensurately. Pooh. Still, I am in luuuuuv with the pattern. Easy to knit, and the results are really impressive. Way to go, designers! (Although I find it odd that the same book that contains this perfectly-thought-out baby sweater also contains patterns for a layette knit out of light pink cashmere. Do the designers even know how many nasty and multi-colored bodily fluids a baby is capable of producing, constantly and regularly and sometimes in projectile fashion?)