Well, the visiting nurse says I am doing well, and more importantly, Jenn, my physical therapist says I am well ahead of the curve and have great movementin my cyborg knee.  But every time Jenn comes, twice a week now, she gives me more exercises but she never takes any away.  Every time I do a set of exercises, I ice for twenty minutes.  You can imagine how much time this doesn’t leave for any other activities.  I think my brain is dissolving.However, I did write my first poem since this all this medical mishigoss just after Thanksgiving.  In the middle of all this of course we had a huge snowstorm. Fortunately this time we did not lose power, for a wonderful change.  However, our septic system has backed up.  The upstairs toilet and bathtub are draining into a sink downstairs.  Rotorooter is here for the 2^nd time [the plumber gave up] trying to fix it.  Right now they are ripping out the upstairs toilet.  What fun, what delight, what will happen next?  Perhaps the roof will cave in.Friends been wonderful, bringing over whole meals.  I am slowly returning to cooking. I made an omelet and cocoa and tonight I am cooking half the meal.  I have given up the walker and crutches and I’m walking up and down stairs and round the house with a cane.  Exercises hurt like hell, but walking actually hurts less than it did before the operation.  Nights are still the worst time, but I’m down to waking 3 times with pain instead of 5 times.  I have slowly begun cutting back on the oxycodone.Puck is probably the happiest cat: he has me right where he wants me.  Sugar Ray is glad too. He has always felt I should be on a leash and not allowed to go farther than the end of the driveway.So far with my annual juried intensive workshop, I have just rejected the obvious entries. I haven’t been counting them but think I’ve probably rejected 35 to 40?  Probably more. Today I will start carefully going over the ones that I glanced at, saw some talent and kept to read.  I’ll start accepting soon.  All the ones I kept are logged in in the order they came, so that if there’s a tie, then the one who submitted earlier will get in.Woody has been incredible, doing all his work and a good bit of the cooking and housework and laundry I do as well as feeding the cats.  I am slowly beginning to take some a few more tasks, like hand laundry I do in the bidet. I feel as if I am slowly, slowly returning to life and work.  But it really goes very slowly and I had no idea no matter what people told me how much time it would take to heal from the operation and be able to use the new knee effectively and naturally – if nature has anything to do with all this.Today the sky doesn’t remember dumping all that snow on us and the wind has gone off to wherever it goes to sleep.  The sun is brilliant on the snow, the shadows are blue,  the birds are jostling at the feeders and performing cat TV.  The guys from rotorooter are dismantling the plumbing and the cats are amused except for elderly Siamese Efi who has gone into hiding.