Sidelined

By 5pm last Monday I'd seen four different doctors in the space of about six hours.  I was sitting in a chair of someone's cubicle discussing the (frightening) costs of a surgical procedure I was to undergo at 7am the next day.  I remember being in something like a daze, trying to take in all the information and doing my best to stay in the moment so I could ask all pertinent questions then and there, but struggling to do so because it was all such a shock.  I'd started the day with an appointment to get my right hand checked out.  At its worst, I thought, it would be arthritis, but very likely a sprain, if that at all.  The last doctor of the day was a hand specialist and he diagnosed the pain as a rare infection, and his partner concurred.  It was pretty serious although its origins a mystery, they said, and surgery would need to be immediate.

The pain had started Sunday.  I woke up to find I couldn't make a fist or bend my right ring finger so I called my mother thinking it might be arthritis and she'd know if it was from the kind of pain I described.  She didn't.  What was also weird was that my hands looked perfectly normal.  There weren't any swelling, cuts, or scratches.  I'd never hit it on something or fallen on it.  There were no bites.  My nails and cuticles were clean and healthy.  Around 3pm I took a nap and woke a little later from excruciating pain.  The swelling had begun.  It was so slight that it was strange so much pain could come from it.  The swelling had moved up to the lower part of the finger by that evening and when I woke around 1am again unable to sleep because of the pain, I considered going to an emergency room.  Instead, I took some Motrin and gritted my teeth.  As soon as 9am rolled around on that Monday, I started calling some doctors to see who I can see the quickest.  I was fortunate to have gotten the appointments I did for all four doctors so quickly.  Then Tuesday I was at Surgicare at 6am worried out of my mind that I'd come of out of this as an amputee of some form or another, or, if not that then lose the use of my fingers or my entire hand.  The lesser worries were that the incisions would leave hideous scars and that I'd have nerve damage rendering some parts of my hand permanently numb.  

Everyone at Surgicare was surprisingly super nice, which maybe says something about private surgical centers versus the complete ambivalence I've experienced from city hospitals.  Every single person involved in the surgery stopped by my curtained off pre-op lazyboy-type chair to introduce themselves and explain their role.  Finally, the hand surgeon came once I was gowned and showercapped and I had to ask about the chances of me ending up with a few less fingers.  He told me I'd come to see him just in time and had I waited two more days, it might have been a good possibility.  

With that assurance, I was taken to the operating room, anaesthesia drip plugged into my left hand, and soon thereafter my entire left arm got ice cold.  Suddenly, I felt stinging in my nose and as I cried loudly, "It's up my nose!  It's up my nose!" that old cliche in every medical tv show and film of fluorescent lights going blurry descended on me and I was out.  Now I'd been under general anaesthesia a total of three times my whole life.  

I might have yelled some profanity as I was coming to, or it might have been contained in my head, but I remember waking up to the pain of one of the pulse monitors they tape on you being ripped off my skin.  My mother was there and I tried to look at my hand but all I could see was a big plaster cast resting on a gray block of foam.  On second attempt, to my great relief, I counted all five digits, and they weren't in some weird order or anything like that (wish I could insert here the scene from Arrested Development when the doctor played by the guy who does Homer's voice switches Gob's fingers around when he reattaches them - but I can't find the clip).  Once I could stand I was moved to another room into another lazyboy-type chair while a nurse tried to feed me goldfish crackers while I choked because I had no saliva.

Anaesthesia is a funny thing.  I've been under before but I never experienced anything like this.  Trying to wrap my still-fuzzy head around the paradox of having to pee like crazy but having no saliva in my mouth was a challenge.  It wasn't until the nurse pointed out that I was still hooked to an IV drip with an almost empty bag of fluid that I understood why my bladder felt like it was going to explode.  Having managed to swallow three goldfish, a Lorna Doone cookie and a few gulps of apple juice, I promptly vomited it all up.  When, on the previous day, I was told I'd need to have someone pick me up after surgery, I didn't take it all that seriously, thinking it was just a precaution for legal reasons.  Sitting there half conscious with my mother wiping regurgitated apple juice off my chin, I could see why it was necessary.

And the whole time, before and after surgery, but mostly after surgery, I thought of Stephen Fry and his admirably polite and stiff-upper-lip demeanor just after he'd broken his arm in the Amazon.

Skipping past the embarrassing details of having to pee while two nurses helped, and the time I punched myself in the face with the plastered hand because I had no control of my right arm from the shoulder down, a week later, things look good.  The stitches came out today and I can finally take a shower without having to wrap my hand in cling film, and actually wash my hand with soap and water (it got a little funky having to only clean with hydrogen peroxide).  

But what does all this mean for my tiny plot?  Well, gardening is going to have to wait a little while.  I'll only be able to go in and out to water, and only accompanied by someone because my hand isn't strong enough to do and undo that big stupid crazyass lock.  I was in there Saturday to water the poor parched creatures when I noticed.... THERE IS A BABY EGGPLANT GROWING!  I didn't have my phone to take pictures but it was adorable!  It was about 3" long and beautifully dark purple.  

There is, however, a slight problem.  Someone posted a note in our google group but I'd already noticed this a while back: someone is not playing nice in the garden.  The note mentioned that some plots were trampled on, but the havoc that's been wreaked on my plot started weeks ago and was more subtle.  I've noticed rocks having been thrown, such that one of my lettuce was bent sideways, a rock pinning down some of its leaves.  Other various rocks too large to be moved about by squirrels were strewn.  Also, cucumber and eggplant flowers, as well as baby perilla leaves growing at the top of the plants have been snipped off.  I hate to think this of my neighbors but it doesn't look like it was done by critters.  I can't believe that an adult would go around doing something so vicious.  Instead, I think it's people bringing in their kids and not watching them.  When I started planting months ago I'd already seen one guy letting his toddler loose while he tended to his own space and I saw the kid go stamping on other people's plots.  

As for my little purple baby, I hope to be down there soon to take pictures to post here.  And as for the lettuce, they fed me well but my mother thinks it's time to pull them up.  The leaves aren't getting bigger and they're getting too tall to be supported.  The one that was damaged by the rock is not looking so good.  So it will soon be one last salad and then, farewell my leafy friends.  

I've taken some gruesome post-op pics but for those of you with delicate constitutions I will spare you.  Instead, enjoy these.  

No broken bones:

Can you spot the swelling?

Post-op.  I named him Foamy but it's really called Carter block.  It's so comfortable my mother's going to take it home and wear it around the house to use as a portable arm rest.

A French tourist who wouldn't stop staring at Foamy.  Yes it's summer and I have enormous hot foam wrapped around my arm.  Quel est votre probleme?

Bubbling away in hydrogen peroxide.  You can still see some of the purple ink the doctor marked my hand with, like the way plastic surgeons do before cutting up someone's face.

Flowers, Seeds, and General Optimism

As I write this, Wimbledon is on, my new ac is on full blast, and I'm examining the upside down Y's marked with dirt on my sunburned feet.  There was an early morning brainstorm session on the next stage of the hand-built compost bins with the Sustainability Committee, then I skipped over to my tiny plot to water the parched darlings.  I'm guessing it was a total of 10 minutes my un-sunblocked feet was exposed to sun.  I wish I didn't burn so easily.  I'm not looking forward to the bumpy rash.  My poor toes.

But I discovered a few gems to share with you here!  I'd noticed teeny purple buds on my eggplants last week but here they are in full bloom:

Here's another one:

Pretty, aren't they?  I'm not sure if the variety my mom got me are the bulbous Italian kind or the long skinny Japanese kind.  I just hope they produce edible eggplants of some sort.

Before I go on, an apology for the high contrast photos.  It was very sunny out (aforementioned poor toes), and I took these with my iPhone.

Also exciting is that my cilantro have gone to seed.  I didn't know this until I googled to find out why my cilantro started to flower and didn't look like all the other gardeners' cilantro.  Apparently, I'd not harvested it properly.  Since I had no recipes I wanted to cook just yet that needed any, I decided to leave the flowers alone.  Many have now turned into coriander seeds:

I picked one to taste and it was deliciously pungent!  This might be a better shot of my thumbnail than the seed, but here it is split open:

This is what the cilantro looked like a few weeks ago, haphazardly growing with little white flowers on top:

The basil also flowered:

What were once cute little perilla seedlings now have strong thick stalks:

The lettuces look like they need some chopstick and twist-tie therapy.  I had no idea they'd get so weirdly tall.  Here they are flopped over, bowing to the mint:

And speaking of mint, they've gone crazy, as I'd expected:

Here's the whole thing as of this morning:

From the other side:

It looks like a crazy jumble of green now.  Remember when it looked like this?

Wayward Cucumbers

When I planted my tiny plot earlier this spring I tried to use as much foresight as possible regarding placement, considering height, sun needs, etc.  But being an inexperienced gardener I made mistakes and my tiny plot isn't perfect.  I had relocated my cukes next to the bendy wooden low trellis-y thing I'd bought to separate my plot from my neighbor's, thinking they could use that to climb.  Here it is behind the winebox plants:

Instead the cukes grew in the opposite direction, winding their young vines around their eggplant neighbors.  So I unwrapped them as gingerly as possible and attached them with twist ties to chopsticks I stuck into the soil.

I know this is ghetto and I know it can't last.  This would be optimal but as I have neither the space nor ingenuity, but mostly the space, I'm going to have to play the cucumber situation by ear. It all depends how much they grow, in what direction, etc.  But ideally I'd rather have my guys climb a tall fence.  That's why I've asked my gardening club about switching plots, since they're making more and it would be better if I had one by a fence so I am not shading someone else's plot.  

Chinese Bellflowers

My mother brought four Chinese Bellflowers to plant in my garden (one got decapitated).  I'm running out of space but these flowers are lovely.  The root is edible but it won't be ready for another five years or so, so I'm going to plant them next to the taller perillas so they enjoy some shade.

Resting on my kitchen windowsill before planting:

This one has four points:

This one has five points:

This one has six points:

Mint!

My friends Jennie and Will have a lovely garden in the back of their semi-detached Victorian in Jersey City.  It's lush and there's plenty of room to grow lots of lovely things, unlike my tiny plot.  We did a swap last week: some of their mint for a couple of my perilla.  As I was digging my guys up I thought of an impoverished mother giving her kids to a rich couple who would be able to give them a better life.  "You'll have a chance in Jersey City... sniffle... there's better soil and more sun... sniffle..."  Actually, it wasn't that sad but I did think my two perilla were going to a better environment, where J&W have other edible goodies growing.

I planted the generous tangle of mint in its own winebox where I could contain its out-of-controlness - mint has a tendency to do that.  I mixed the soil with a little poo water (by now fermenting in the plastic container I left outside - the stench was unbearable let me tell you) first.

If you run your hand over the top, even the gentlest graze will release a cool minty fragrance.  It makes me want to brush my teeth again.

Perilla Recipe Experiment

For my 3'x3.5' plot (in a previous post I might have said it's less than 3 sq feet but I measured it today - I'm not so good with eyeballing measurements) I have an abundance of perilla.  When I started planting my mother brought over the cutest little seedlings and we kind of ignored the fact they'd grow to be about 4' tall and they really should be given 8" to 10" from each other.  I later gave some to a friend in Brooklyn with ample garden space, and some more to another friend in Jersey City also with a garden that gets plenty of sun.

Perilla leaves, depending on the variety, can get to be about the size of a medium sized hand.  Mine aren't there yet but I've been getting a lot of recipe ideas from creative food blogs and I came up with something I thought would be easy to make using ingredients I already have.

Here's the filling:

Stuffing each leaf:

Break two large eggs into bowl and season with salt and pepper:

Heat up a little oil in a skillet and dip each stuffed leaf into the egg before laying out in pan.  Here they are sizzling away, my kitchen smelling delicious:

Finished:

The result was golden half moons of deliciousness.  Use more soy sauce than you think to get perfectly seasoned meat.  Try to resist eating them right out of the pan, otherwise you might get squirted.

There are variations of this recipe I want to try next week when more leaves will be ready for picking.  Try replacing the beef for pork or chicken, and adding Thai curry spices and nam pla to the meat.  I'm also experimenting with home-infused perilla soju.

Oh Poo

According to the back of my bag of Dr. Earth's organic fertilizer, when making fertilizer tea I am to steep the solids in water for 24 hours then mix the mulch with the soil after straining.  I followed none of these instructions, other than steep in water... for three days.

I should have known when a few drops escaped from the plastic containers onto my toes as I carried them down that I was essentially about to pour reconstituted horse poop or cow poop or some other kind of poop onto my little ones.  But like the horrible tasting calcium pellets my mother made me swallow to encourage the growth spurt that never happened, the poop water was for their own good.

Long, smelly and more or less unpleasant story shortened, I poured the brown fecal water around my kiddies then took the lazy way out by just spreading the shitty mulch around the base of some of the plants.  Immediately my little plot was swarmed with dung flies.  I looked to the plots to my left and right and they all were more less fly-less.  Not mixing the mulch was a bad idea.  But will the shit keep the squirrels away I wonder?  For that it might be worth it.  Then again, I don't know how much damage these flies might do.

On a positive note, I noticed two lovely bright yellow flowers popping out and saying hello from the more promising of my cukes.  I was worried about those two but seeing these flowers will soon mean delicate little crustless sandwiches with my tea.