Repeat from the comment thread below, but since I feel it merits its own entry:

Burlington-->DC-->Frankfurt-->Prague, May 23.
The reverse: June 2nd.

Piia in Prague, a sidetrip to Brno, perhaps visiting a friend's family in Zlín, my brother in Bratislava...and the dream of a day/overnight to Budapest. Can't only see things I've seen before.

Plus, who doesn't want to be helplessly flailing in Hungarian?

Spring is, hopefully, well and truly on its way, and with it comes a frank reappraisal of the state of the backyard. It's had a troubled past--we used to dig up half of it on our "holes to China" project (well, we were five) and the drainage is unfortunate, as well as the erosion, leaving the fence we put up twenty years ago, give or take, floating about six inches off the ground most of the way around the back yard. In addition, it is now unevenly leveled, given our renters' propensity for adding random bits of garden plot, and unevely covered, given our habit of keeping furniture out there under tarps for months at a time. Mmm, dead bits. Add the dilapidated garage (now with elm branch on top!), a few collapsing old wooden barrels, about twelve plastic lawn chairs, and general overgrowth, and it was quite the scene.

Nevertheless, I'm making an effort to get out there, even if in a stopgap capacity at the moment. I've been doing a large amount of raking and general brush-clearing. Found some chives that previous folk had planted, and that's good, since it saves me the trouble of having to deal with them from seed. Plus, I can go hack out some bulbs and bring 'em on down to our communal garden plot at the Intervale when we get to break ground.

I don't have to work until two today (compare that with 6:30 the last two days) so I'm going to try to bag up all the crap I raked up yesterday and attack a badly-sagging forsythia in the back corner I'd sort of forgotten was there.

MRI was...OK. Didn't hurt at the time, sore as hell later on. Still in physical therapy, actually doing my stretches.

Gotten back into translating, been doing a lot of reading, bought necessary bike accessories (and biked six or seven miles today, woo!) made plans to communally garden this summer...and pizza and beer at dusk with a couple of bike-riding friends.

It was a good couple of days off, that's for sure. All to the tune of the new Flaming Lips album.

1. Place the patient on back with arm at side with hand supinated and place sandbag on finger tips to remind patient to keep arm in this position.
2. Target the junction of the middle and inferior thirds of humeral head 2 mm inside the cortex.
3. Prep and drape.
4. Anesthetize the skin and subcutaneous tissues with buffered 1% lidocaine.
5. Fill a 20 cc syringe with the proper contrast solution and fill connecting tubing being sure to eliminate all bubbles.
6. Advance a 22 G spinal needle until contact bone at target site. Be sure you are on bone; the subscapularis tendon is very firm and can fool you.
7. Pull back 1 mm and turn bevel toward humeral head. Advance and feel the syringe drop into the joint.
8. To eliminate air bubbles, drip the proper contrast into the hub of the needle and perform a wet-to-wet connection.
9. The injection and the remainder of the procedure depends on the type of arthrogram you are performing:
MR Arthrogram:
Inject 12 cc of a solution of 5 cc normal saline, 5 cc Omnipaque 300, 10 cc 1% lidocaine, and 0.1 cc gadolinium.
Instruct the patient on the importance of the ABER position and how it can help the surgeon figure out how to fix them.

I am, uh, not looking forward to tomorrow afternoon. Thank heavens for step 4. I wish I hadn't read steps 6 and 7.

My bike is built!

Too bad it's snowing. (I rode it anyway)

I'll need some mudguards. And probably a helmet.