Busy busy busy

Okay, so next week I have to finalize the 'official' readings list and course outline for my seminar. I have to re-read and fully commentize a dissertation to be defended on Thursday. I have to arrange for several upcoming events to be announced to the university.

These events include: 1) the 'grand opening' of the lab on 5 October (please &deity; we have furniture by then); 2) the mandatory meeting I've called for the grad students on the 14th of September; 3) the department open house scheded for the week after that. Not on the list of things that need to be announced to the general public is the trip I'm planning back to Seattle, for my parent's 65th wedding anniversary. That's sixty-fifth, just in case you think its a typo.

But I need to figure out how to get all of Xmas 2004 and 2005 (and if I have time 2006) into a suitcase that can fly. Cuz this is my big opportunity to get that monkey off my back.

Also, in a few days, it will be one month since my doctor told me that my dead toe should be better 'in about a month'. My left little toe is numb. Not the whole toe, just the 'pad' and the lateral side of the last segment (phalanx? that's the bone). The very tip used to also be numb, but it came back a couple weeks ago, so I expect the rest to come back eventually, but in the meantime I have no sensation (well, no touch or temperature--I haven't figured out pain or kinaesthetics, not wanting to poke at it too much) in my little toe. It's weird. I'm not looking forward to trying to start yoga again without sensation in my little toe.

Sometimes I get deep pain in that toe, which is either 'phantom limb syndrome', real pain coming from somewhere, or my imagination. I'm actually hoping for real pain, cuz it means something is happening down there.

BTW, in case anyone cares, blood supply looks good, motor control (to the degree that I have any in my little toes) seems okay, doesn't seem to be infected or swollen or atrophying or anything like that. As I said to my doctor when she assured me everything was going to be okay, "Won't you feel silly when it turns black and falls off." Which, for the record, it doesn't look like it's going to, but there's always that little voice in the back of my mind.... Luckily, the I have a pill for that voice, which keeps it mostly in check.

This has turned into a big rant about my dead toe, when it started out as an attempt at a to do list while I have the time and energy to think about it. Maybe it's time to switch the meds up again....