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The final patch of snow, bravely holding out against the warm weather of the past two weeks. Thanks to the eternal shade of the neighbour’s garage and being part of a huge pile of compacted snow it was able to survive until today. Tomorrow it will be gone.

The humongous piles of compacted snow did quite some damage to Alison’s dogwood shrubs. I can’t wait to see all the plants turn green and the many firns we planted last year to unroll their heads. Very soon it will be summer.

The results of the MRI are in:

• A Baker’s cyst 3 x 2 x 4 cm
• Old minor tear at the lateral meniscus
• Grade I-II patellar chondrosis
• Osteophytosis at the medial trochlea

If you’re interested you can Google what this all means. Basically I have fluid in my knee, and the cartilage behind my knee cap is damaged. There is also a small bone spur, a bone that the body makes to make up for a lack of cartilage. Unfortunately that is not a good plan and over time this can get very painful when that bone hits other bone.

I’m going to have physiotherapy and have to do a lot of stretching and strengthen exercises. They hurt.

And my doctor referred me to an orthopaedist. He’ll probably see me in 6 to 9 months.

Everything is brown and grey now the snow has melted and the trees and shrub are still leafless. Everything except Alison!

I finally started building built-in bookcases in our living room. It was long overdue but I was just too busy with other things to make something for ourselves.

Here’s an artist impression of how it will look like in a few weeks.

Apart from the bookcases there will be drawers for CDs and a big shelf for Alison to put plants on. After the bookcases, one in every corner, are finished, my books can finally leave the boxes that they inhabited for the past four and a half years. I don’t even remember which books I brought to Canada and which I left behind.

While temporarily putting Alison’s books and the books I collected over the past years into boxes I felt very sad. It somehow seemed I was moving out, instead of building something new. Fortunately that feeling didn’t last long, but I surely hope I didn’t suddenly became clairvoyant…

My knee hurts.

Since quite a while now but it got worse after a fall while cross-country skiing a few weeks ago. So my doctor made me have another MRI. The technician was so kind to make this photo. As you can see I didn’t have to go into the machine head-first so the whole experience was not at all claustrophobic. I even managed, despite the loud noise, to nearly fall asleep at the end.

I paid an additional fee, on top of the $650 that will hopefully be reimbursed by my health insurance, to get the results on a CD-ROM.

If you are an orthopaedist you might see exactly what is wrong, if you’re not, just enjoy the little movie. I think it’s really cool to look into your own knee sliced like it is a loaf of bread.

[Click to play; click circle button on bottom right to play full screen]

44 candles, and I managed to blow them all out at once but one.

Alison baked this cake, a Gugelhupf or something. It turned out to be very bready, so I suggested to top it with icing. That worked well and the result was delicious. A really sweet birthday cake.

My mood has lifted today (Yay!), so Alison invited (and instructed me to invite) some friends to come and eat the cake. Of course it was very last minute, she had to see if I was feeling well enough to cope with visitors. On top of that it is beautiful, almost-spring weather so we just left a lot of messages on answering machines, hoping that at least somebody would show up. Two people did and we had a good time.

The snow is covered with a crusty layer because it’s thawing and Poupoune has found out she can now use the mountain of snow as a secret passage to the neighbour’s garden, and subsequently, to the cats in the alley.

Note to self: make the fence two metres taller.

It’s my birthday today but I’m totally not in the mood for a party. Alison is in Toronto, and I’m invited by friends to celebrate my birthday with them. Even though i didn’t feel like it I reluctantly went. It costs a lot of energy to appear human.

The supper was great, the cake was lovely, the company pleasant, but nevertheless I wasn’t able to really enjoy it.

This depressive episode lasts a couple of weeks now and I’m want it to be over. I can only see the negative side of things, the house that needs lot of maintenance, the tenants that refuse the rent increase, my lack of friends, clients that didn’t pay my invoices etc. I even shout to the dogs.