She Wore A Bone Necklace!

I need some creative, artsy help.

My awesome surgeon very kindly let me keep my little extra bone. It lived for awhile in my freezer, and when the weather got a little warmer out I moved it into my zucchini planter. I decided to try to clean it using cold maceration...basically, I'll keep it in a jar with some water and let the bacteria do their thing. I change the water every so often, and hopefully soon I'll have a clean bone. Then a little hydrogen peroxide for whitening/germ killing, and I should be good to go. I am a little confused, since on the same instruction sheet it then goes on to tell you to never soak the bone, but I'm hoping that just means 'once everything's off of it.' I'm also confused because I've read that to maintain bone jewelry you should oil it with jojoba or something every so often, but I've also read that you should only handle the bone with clean hands because otherwise it will soak up your oil and discolor/weaken it. I saw one guy put a coat of some kind of polymer on his collected bones (polyacrylate, I think) but I don't know for sure, and I kind of only get one shot at this.

I digress. Assuming that my bone does come out of this ordeal clean, I really really really want to make it into a necklace. Here's the catch: I don't want to do anything to damage it. No holes, no glue. I will at some point have to 'do' the other foot, and if I'm allowed to keep that bone too then I may want to make earrings. I've considered doing (learning how to do) some sort of wire-wrapping. But beyond that I'm a little stuck.

Most examples of wire-wrapping I see are very 'pretty.' I've been told or at least hinted to that my wanting to put my own foot bone in a necklace is a little weird and a little macabre. So I don't want a 'pretty' necklace of this. I want it to be totally bad-ass. My latest idea is to somehow wire-wrap it, then string it on some black hemp-knotted cord (that kind of stuff I'm already not too bad at), and then maybe even add a Mjölnir pendant. I've been a teensy bit 'into' Norse mythology as of late, and no, it's not only because of these guys. Or Thor. Which is an excellent movie, btw. I just like it. I figure I could probably use an Icelandic-style wolfshead hammer that was thought to be worn by both pagan and Christian Vikings, so it isn't being heretical or disrespectful to Norse Neo-Pagans/Heathens:

I guess the downside is that it looks a bit like an inverted cross which may make some folks think I'm satanic or something.

What to do, what to do...thoughts?

In other news, I changed the blog layout. Mostly so I could actually put in real-sized YouTube videos like the one in the previous post without resorting to creative html code that I truly do not understand and usually end up making much, much worse. I don't know that I'm crazy about it, so it may change again.

Yes, I have a 'type'.

I am not one to go nuts over celebrities. I never got into JTT (yeah, remember him?), Josh Hartnett, Brad Pitt, or Matt Damon. Not really my type, and more importantly, I knew there was nothing to be gained. On my 21st birthday I met Jenson Button, my Formula 1 'boyfriend,' and I was a little star-struck, but had no fantasies that Jenson Button was going to be like, 'yeah, let's hang out and I'll show you my stomach' or anything. I just don't get all girly and 'eeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!' about people I don't, and won't, ever know...especially those who are way, way out of my league.

Until now.

I've mentioned Tyr before, a Viking/Folk/Progressive Metal band out of the Faroe Islands. The Faroe Islands are a mostly independent nation that's part of Denmark (along with Greenland). It's located between  Iceland, Norway and Scotland. I discovered them some months ago. I like them very much. Here's why:



Go ahead. Watch it again. Watch it again, I won't judge. I've been listening to them while I work up data. Because my data has been taking some time to load, I've even been watching the videos.

Long story short, I discovered that the crazy-hot guitarist (the one on the end with all the tattoos and piercings) is on the Facebook. Not just a 'Like' page, like the also-lovely frontman has, but an actual 'Add as Friend' Facebook page. I noticed that he had somewhere around 3000 'friends,' so I thought, hey, why not?

The happiest moment of my day today came when I received the email "Terji Skibenæs confirmed you as a friend on Facebook." I grinned like a fool. Probably blushed a little. I'm really, REALLY happy none of the lab boys were around.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to have a ridiculous schoolgirl crush on a man I do not know (but who's Facebook friends with me), whose name I cannot even pronounce, and still maintain a little bit of dignity and pragmatism. One good thing about being able to browse through his profile is that I've learned that he has a girlfriend, and there are a lot of adorable pictures of him and his nephew. These discoveries have brought me a little bit back to earth...it's hard to go from thinking, 'aww, look at him playing Legos!' to having thoughts that are entirely inappropriate for a happily married woman to have about another man. I'm also resisting the temptation of posting things like 'OMG I LUV U UR SOOOO HOTTTTTT' on his wall and commenting on each post and picture. There's definitely a girl who appears to have actually met him, but seems a little desperately obsessed, and it's kind of sad. I don't want to be that.

Also, he cut his hair on Saturday. He's still a good-looker, but it's probably better for my marriage this way.

Surgery Post V: 2 Months Later

I am one-third of the way done healing, apparently. According to my surgeon, it takes 6 months for my little titanium friend to fully incorporate into my bone. And then it might take a little more time for my foot to really feel like MY foot, and be used to walking on it and the like. But I'm healing up according to schedule, which is a nice thing. I am no longer using a cast or a boot or even crutches; I'm in my regular shoe with an ankle brace for stability. I can shower (as opposed to bathe), and I can even walk a little barefoot from the bathroom to the bedroom. It is all very exciting.

A couple weeks after my surgery, a friend of mine asked me if I was happy that I had done it. At that time, my foot was in a cast, and I really had no idea. Since I'm still not totally healed, I still can't say for sure, but I thought I would jot down some things I've noticed.

• I have an arch. For those of you who have regular arches, try to imagine for a minute that if your feet are on the floor, you can't stick a finger under your foot at all. This is how both of my feet were (and one still is). But now I can! I also got to see before and after x-rays, and it's amazing how...normal! my foot looks now!
• My knee goes over my toes! This is the biggest reason that I never would have been a successful ballerina (and yes, I was classically trained...until I was 13 or 14, anyway). I just never was able to put my knees over my toes, and it turns out it's because of my feet. I notice that when I walk, I no longer throw my foot out...if anything, I'm slightly pigeon-toeing because I'm used to trying to compensate. It's very weird, and very cool.
• Speaking of, I've completely forgotten how to walk. I'm working on it, and it's getting more natural.
• Weirdly enough, the most painful part of walking right now is directly under my pinky toe. Maybe that bone just never had pressure on it?
• My ankle is still enormous. 
• If I didn't have the bone in a cup in my zucchini planter, I would think they maybe forgot to take it out. There is still a bump where they took it out. I don't know if it's just that everybody has a little bump there (I really don't know) and maybe they didn't remove as much as I had assumed they would, or maybe it's just still really swollen. 
• The skin on my fourth toe, and also the skin on the inside of my lower calf, is totally numb. Apparently this is completely normal.
• The scars on my foot are pretty thin, but the one on my calf is pretty ugly. Turns out Mederma is $20 a little tube, but while I am not terribly vain, I really want this scar to be a little less...noticeable.
• I already mentioned the crazy amount of gross extra skin that came when I was in a cast for 6 weeks. What I didn't mention was the hair. I have always had, as I'm sure a lot of people have, very fine, very light hair between my ankle and big toe on the top of my foot. For whatever reason, my body decided that since I was in a cast and my skin was swelling (or something), that super light, super fine hair turned coarse and DARK. I have a cavewoman foot. I don't totally know what to do about it. I'm hoping it will just kind of go away after some time, or at least not grow back after awhile if I shave it off.

Guess I'll get the throw pillows...

Tjett was in the process of growing a playoff beard. He hadn't shaved since the playoffs started and the Wings kept winning so he just didn't shave it off..."if it's working, I'm not going to mess with it." He is very superstitious about hockey. It was also not terribly pretty. I said "*sigh* ok. It's fine." Which I DID actually mean, because far be it from me to make Tjett do something that would make his team lose.*

Because he (rightly) figured I meant that I still thought he should shave, he went ahead and buzzed it off. The Red Wings are now down 0-2 in the second game of the series, and are already behind one game. If they don't come back in the series, Tjett's going to blame me for making him shave off his beard and making his team lose. In which case I'm pretty sure he'd file for divorce.

*Even though hockey isn't my very favorite thing ever, I like it well enough. It's probably my favorite sport. And even though my team is the Wild, I rather like the Red Wings. Especially Jiri Hudler. And even though I'm not personally invested in the playoffs, I really like my husband. And I really like it when he's happy. And he tends to be happy when his team wins, and vice versa.