Saturday, January 30, 2016

One happy thing

Just got word that my friend, who had the emergency surgery last week, is now off the ventilator and may soon be moved out of ICU. I am extremely happy to hear this.

I also decided to start a new project - I began the Maud Pie amigurumi. I'm using the same old Friends Forever Fawn pattern, so she will be about the same size as the Pinkie Pie I made. After I finish typing this exam I am going to go home and work some more on her.

I also did something I thought I wouldn't ever do....I bought a couple Equestria Girls dolls for my collection. But wait - they're not the blah Barbie-sized ones, they're the much cuter "Mini" (more "chibi" style) figures. I got Rarity and Fluttershy - I think they have the nicest character design, and anyway, they are my two favorite ponies. And they are apparently particular friends in the universe: I mean, all the Mane Six are friends, but there are some dyads that seem to have more in common with each other, and Rarity and Fluttershy strike me as BFFs.

I have to say: if Equestria Girls had gone with the cuter, cartoonier, "chibi style" concept for the dolls at first (and maybe make the animated girls, oh, 20% smaller and cuter) I would have been more on board with the concept, even if I STILL say I find Equestria, which is "another country," far more interesting than a pale imitation of a North American high school. (Though I guess lots of little girls aspire to high school attitudes and fashion; that's why Barbie and similar have been so popular. Well, I will say, being on the other end of it? I didn't find it "all that" when I was there. Oh, high school was OK for me, but far from "the best time of your life" as it's often advertised to be)

One slightly weird thing about the EqG minis - they have horse ears. Otherwise entirely humanoid, but with horse ears. Wonder if that was a tiny nod to the whole anime/manga tradition of the catgirl or the foxgirl. They also have giant heads and especially giant (molded) hair. I tried to pose them like they were walking arm in arm, like sometimes teen girls who are close friends do, but their giant hair got in the way....

They are very poseable. One thing about doll technology: they've really stepped up poseability in recent years. I don't remember the dolls around when I was a kid having that kind of poseability. Oh, Barbie had the weird things inside her rubbery legs that clicked into position to let her knees bend (and occasionally, one of my friends' very-played-with Barbies would get a wobbly knee. Heh. Do they do knee replacements for Barbie?). But one thing I really like, especially about the Monster High dolls, is that most of them have knee joints, hip joints, arms that rotate more or less like a human arm at the shoulder, elbow joints, AND wrist joints. So you can put them in very realistic poses and I particularly like the "expressiveness" of the arms and hands. (The hands and sometimes the legs and heads can also be taken off, like to dress them. Which is weird and I'm sure the little hands represent a choking hazard, but...)

When I was a kid I remember dolls being mostly just jointed at the shoulder and hips, and the sockets just rotated in one plane (if that makes sense: the arm will go around in a circle but cannot be lifted out away from the body). Also some dolls looked really odd if you rotated their legs so they could sit down - very splay-legged.  And it was frustrating if you had them in a less-than-full-skirted dress.

I don't think I'll try making clothes for the little EqG dolls; their tops are molded on. It looks like the skirts MIGHT be removable but it would be hard to make anything to fit, because it would have to be designed with a full-back opening; their heads are so enormous in proportion to their body that nothing would go over them.

I'm feeling SOME better this morning. It still feels kind of like my guts are "angry" at me, which is just like the bout of gastritis I am now remembering from some 25 years ago - one of my profs gave a dinner party and served moussaka, which is both incredibly rich and contains eggplant, which I found out I don't tolerate well. Also, she served some kind of dessert that was full of coffee, another thing I don't tolerate well. I got sick at home afterwards and felt unwanting to eat for about a week and a half. I mostly managed with Pepto back then, I don't think there were the OTC PPIs and acid blockers....

Also tight waistbands, even not-tight-but-kind-of-pushy-when-you-bend waistbands are not so good. I have jeans on that are kind of loose but even when I scrunch forward to work I can feel the front of the band pressing, and it's not comfortable. I think I will go home and shower and just put pajamas or a nightgown on. No one is likely to drop by, but even if they do: well, I'm sort of sick, so it's okay.

I tried sleeping in the recliner and could not so I gave up and went to bed, and just resigned myself to feeling worse this morning. I did, but it's now improving. I may try sleeping in the recliner again tonight but actually move my white-noise machine into the living room (I need it to sleep, where I live - too many people driving by late at night in their big loud pickups). I will say I felt ENORMOUSLY better yesterday after lying for an hour or so on that ER bed where they have it inclined up at the head, it was exactly the posture I needed to be in to relieve the reflux.


1 comment:

Lynne said...

I saw an article that said it's better to sleep on your left side (vs right) if you have reflux. Since the stomach curves down to the left, sleeping on the left keeps the stomach acid in the lower part. Sleeping on the right makes it easier to reflux up into the esophagus. No idea what if any effect back or stomach sleeping does.