Basic Survival Skills in the NFL, or Thank Gods Todd Sauerbrun is Learning-Impaired

I haven't blogged lately, and that means I haven't blogged about the Bears lately. And that's because the Bears are depressing. Today I decided to tune in to the game vs. the Broncos, during which I discovered that the Broncos kicker fails at basic survival skills.

For those who are not NFL-aware, Devin Hester is the most devastating punt returner in the game today. If you give him a centimeter, he will take a touchdown. Generally, every team in the NFL knows this fact and have added this basic rule to their survival manuals.

Do not kick high and up the middle to Devin Hester.

This is akin to laymen saying:

Do not set yourself on fire. You can if you really want to, but you're probably going to regret it. A lot.

Todd Sauerbrun of the Broncos missed the memo and punted a beauty to Hester which was promptly returned a cool 70-some yards for a touchdown. He fell over in the backdraft created by Hester zooming to the endzone.

Ok fine, sometimes people have to learn things the hard way. Except Sauerbrun apparently needed this additional rule in his manual:

Do not kick high and up the middle to Devin Hester again if you already did it once.

Which is akin to laymen saying:

After setting yourself on fire, putting yourself out, and dressing your burns, do not set yourself on fire again. Seriously. You can probably still feel the pain of your blistering flesh even as you read this. Don't light that match. Seriously.

Because he kicked another humdinger to Hester which got returned a cool 80-some yards for another touchdown. Possibly I got the 70-some and the 80-some switched. The end result is the same. 6 points for the Bears and Sauerbrun flat on his back watching Hester set his ass on fire. Again.

As a human with basic cognitive skills I find it a little disturbing when a fellow human turns on the extra-strength stupid like that. But as a Bears fan I am extremely grateful for this turn of events. And Gods bless Robbie Gould for the game-winner.

PLEASE let this verdict stand

"God Hates Fags" church (aka the Pestilence Known as Fred Phelps and His Ilk) ordered to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest

I wish I hadn't eaten dinner before reading this because this is so tasty and delicious I could have saved myself a bunch of calories.

Truth

Newark Airport - conveniently located just minutes away from the exact center of hell!

Things That Are Pissing Me Off

Any Wal-Mart commercial, but particularly the Wal-Mart commercial which tells you the heart-warming reason why pro football players love their mommies - because their mommies were able to give them junk food bought at Wal-Mart and wash their tighty-whities with laundry detergent bought at Wal-Mart. It ends with the incredibly dumbass sexist comment "and they say moms don't know anything about football." I had plenty of reasons to hate Wal-Mart but they keep making sure I never run dry.

Trying to get out of the house for a bit and take myself to Target or the grocery store, only to find after about 20 minutes in the store that I am suddenly lightheaded and worn out and need to get my pathetic ass back home.

The look and feel of a healing abdominal incision. The look and feel of my abdomen around the incision in general.

Capitalizing on an interception that your rock-star defense snagged for your team, by throwing the ball right back to the other team. And by capitalizing, I mean eating the opportunity with flaming habanero salsa, causing it to come shooting out the other end in fiery stanky horror to be flushed down a toilet.

The fact that I can fully sneeze again (for a while after the surgery I couldn't) and the fact that I don't seem to be able to stop fully sneezing now that I've started. My incision is ill-pleased.

Thankfully, my kitties and a small supply of 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate minis are helping me get by, otherwise I'd be trying to choke a bitch right now. Just as soon as I get up the energy.

All Things Ghetto Fabulous (Including One Extraordinarily Dumb Cat)

I've decided I need to get in on the do-crap-and-get-paid-for-it action. I want Food Network to air my new show, Ghetto Fabulous Kwizeen. An entire episode will be devoted to spray cheese. I will probably need an entire week to cover the glory of Spam. And the myriad ways to tart up ramen noodles and Hostess pastries will probably carry me into early retirement. Believe me, you'll thank me when the Velveeta Dinty Moore Ramen Bake episode airs.

Speaking of trash, I received a bag of circus peanuts from John and Laura this weekend. Now, in my humble opinion, circus peanuts join forces with Peeps and candy corn to form the Unholy Candy Trinity. Every ten years or so I get the urge to taste one or the other of these candies, just to remind myself why I hate these candies. The last time I ate circus peanuts was in college, and I distinctly remember chewing it with my mouth open, as though I could possibly release the circus peanut evil back into the wild that way. It does not work. And it did not work this time. Circus peanuts = horrid gritty fake banana awful. As Laura cited in her blog earlier, Bad-Candy.com waxes highly poetic on the subject of circus peanuts and how gritty/horrible they are.

I have yet to meet a person who loves circus peanuts. But yesterday, I found out I own a cat who loves circus peanuts. Yes, my feline badonkadonkdonk Molly was presented with a circus peanut and proceeded to lick and chew the crap out of it. And this morning when I came downstairs, what did I find on the floor but the open bag of circus peanuts and a partially masticated peanut next to it. I think with Halloween so close I'm going to pick up some candy corn and Peeps and see how she takes to those. I have a feeling she'll be able to guest-host Ghetto Fabulous Kwizeen for me.

In more boring news, I started working from home today. It went mostly ok, I had to lie down flat on my back for a few minutes during the day to relieve the pressure on my incision, sitting upright all day doesn't do it any favors. I think in a couple more days I'm going to try driving (doctor's orders = no driving for 2 wks).

The Crap People Get Paid Good Money For

So in the course of my enforced post-op inactivity, I've been napping, knitting, reading, and surfing the largely desolate landscape of daytime TV. Today I flipped past Food Network and was accosted by Sandra Lee, who in my opinion is the biggest no-talent ass muppet to hit food television, and that's saying a freaking lot considering how much airtime Rachael Ray and her EVOOMGSTFU gets.

So anyway, this woman was making what she called Vanilla Cranberry Can Cakes



What are they? They're blueberry muffin mix without the blueberries and cranberries stirred in, baked in used food cans. Tarted-up used food cans by the time that pic was taken, but used cans all the same.

And she got paid who knows how much to show me this shit on TV.

I feel insane.

Powering Through

Slowly getting better. Still haven't used my vicodin, I think I am going to stick to the copious ibuprofen unless things take a turn for the worse. Yesterday and today both I managed to get out of the house and take a walk around the block, but each time I felt pretty drained on arriving home. But I do feel better overall.

Daytime tv sucks festering balls.

And I'm Back

Surgery went A-OK on Thursday morning, and I came home from the hospital on Saturday morning. For anyone considering major abdominal surgery as a form of entertainment, well I really cannot recommend it. For the gruesome play-by-play, keep reading.

I checked in for surgery Thursday morning, got blood taken, and got hooked up to my first IV line. My surgeon and anesthesiologist both came in to talk to me. Because my parents showed up 40 min early to pick me up, we were doing a lot of thumb-twiddling. I was inspecting my IV line and asking the anesthesia guy if bubbles in the line are normal (apparently they are). I got wheeled over to anesthesia guy (AG) and he puts a sedative in my IV before administering what I think was some kind of spinal block which I would later find out is totally totally awesome. AG tells me I don't have to look as he injects the IV but of course that made me look anyway.

Next thing I know I wake up and think - freaking-A, I hope I'm not still waiting for surgery. I feel faint pressure and hear a kid screaming on the gurney next to me, so I ask "Am I done?" and a nurse chirps "You're done, sweetie!" Then I get wheeled to a room. Yay! No roomies. All for me.

Thanks to Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff, I feel no pain. Thanks to General Anesthesia, I am feeling hella nauseous. Thankfully the nurses got right on putting an anti-nausea thing in my IV. Phew. I cannot imagine that puking at this point would be a Happy Fun Time. My parents come in, and after hanging up clothes for me, putting my bag within reach, and fumbling with the controls on my bed and tv, they figure they can do much less damage elsewhere, so they leave.

I discover that Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff has the unfortunate side effect of making my nose, face, and chest itch like an evil dirty disease. Between this and getting my vitals taken every hour or two by one of a procession of kindly care techs, I'm only able to nap on and off for the next 40 hours or so. Luckily the Pope cancelled our weekend meeting so I had nowhere I had to be.

I get some jello down but am still feeling a bit queasy so I don't risk anymore. Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff is still working, so the rest of the night is spent napping and getting vitals taken. Also, instead of the old-school surgical stockings you used to have to wear to prevent blood clots, I had this contraption wrapped around each of my legs. The best way I can describe it is a shiatsu massager for my legs...a really annoying shiatsu massager that would have made sleep impossible all by itself.

Friday morning comes along, and the nurse takes away all the annoying stuff that is keeping me in bed except for the IV, which she temporarily disconnected so I could try and get out of bed and test my sea legs. I successfully use the bathroom which was one of my criteria for getting my release ok'ed, so that's a plus. And then around 24 hrs after the surgery, that rotten bitch Totally Awesome Spinal Stuff takes off forever, and in her place she has left Indisputable Pain.

I have never been one to complain much about pain - I don't see much point in complaining about it. But after walking around my room a bit, moving stuff in my bag, and my bed tray and lunch tray, my incision informs me that I have tried to do too much. Thankfully the nurses came to the rescue with liquid ibuprofen in my IV, so I never had to be on narcotics at all. I know some people were looking forward to the kinds of crazy I would be able to come up with under the influence of morphine, but alas you will have to settle for my ibuprofen musings.

Saturday morning I get a new nurse, and it turns out she went to my high school and graduated the same year as I did. Crazy small world. I get discharged Saturday and my parents took me to breakfast and then home, where Mom commenced her orgy of cleaning as her way of helping me out. I ended up sending her home on Sunday afternoon, as there wasn't much she could do to make my incision comfortable, and I was getting by ok on my own otherwise.

So far it's been mostly bearable, and a test of my creativity as I figure out new ways to do the basics like getting in and out of bed without using my abdomen. Taking it easy on my midsection means it's been a lot harder on my back, arms, and legs, so they're starting to get sore. I've been using my toes to pick up a lot of things. I was given a scrip for Vicodin which I did fill, but so far have been powering through on copious amounts of OTC ibuprofen. I'm also getting tired pretty easily - I've had one nap today and am thinking about taking another. But from what I hear everywhere this first week is the toughest. I'll be back on hopefully soon if the enforced inactivity starts to bring out the blogging genius in me.

Toodles,
D

My Cats Imbibing Treats

Today I gave the cats some Feline Greenies treats. Even though Guinness is my thin cat and Molly is my chunky monkey, the following is and always has been an accurate depiction of their approaches to the arrival of treats.

Guinness: ZOMG TREATS TREATS OH MAN TREATS FUCKIN' RULE *chompchompsnorf* *gulpchompsnorf* TREATS ARE SO AWESOME THEY ARE TOTALLY THE SHIT *chompsnorfsnorfinhale* BITCH ARE YOU GONNA EAT THOSE TREATS OR WHAT??? (directed at Molly)

Molly: Who am I? What are these? *sniffsniff* Hm, I think I can eat these. *crunchcrunch* Bit hot out today, don't you think? *crunch* What is math? *crunchcrunch* Why do I even care what math is? *crunch* Jigga wha? HEY. (directed at Guinness who has come to commandeer the treats that Molly was too slow to eat because she was pondering math.)

Almost There

So I'm just about 36 hours away from surgery and I cannot wait. Seriously. I would so much rather charge in and make the unknown into the known and be experiencing the road to recovery instead of wondering how it's going to be. Still have a bit more cleaning to do, a load of laundry tomorrow, and then pack my bag and go to my last bellydance class. Mom is coming to stay with me after the surgery and of course I will never get the house as clean as she would have it. Such is the nature of moms.

I'll be back sometime next week hopefully, check y'all later!

A Dream for the Hall of Fame

My favorite dream of all time probably has to be the one where Jimmy Stewart and George Clooney were fighting over me, using Jello and ball point pens as weapons. But the other night I had one that seriously fights for the top spot.

I was at this year's Chicago Marathon, which will be about 4 weeks after my surgery, cheering on a friend of mine who will be running it for the third time this year. I was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk when Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice (see the video) starts blasting in the background, so I got up to dance because I love that song. LO AND BEHOLD, who starts dancing right next to me but CHRISTOPHER FREAKING WALKEN. So we danced together (nope, no flying and dancing off the walls though) and at the end of the song, he dipped me, at which point the excitement and the post-op fatigue combined and I passed out. It was totally worth it. Best dream ever.

Peety Sparklies

A couple of months ago, I got back in touch with some friends from high school, some of whom I seriously had not talked to in 18 years. Really sad how time gets away from us. But I'm happy to say we've rediscovered our friendships, and one of the fine ladies has proven to have exceptional talent in designing and creating beautiful jewelry using Swarovski crystals and sterling silver. I've bought several pieces from her now and I love them all. Constantly get compliments on them too. She's got a website up now, so check it out. She also does shows around the Chicagoland area and in a few other states as well, her show schedule is on the website.

Here's to you, Mel! Beadazzle Jewelry

Two Weeks

So, two weeks from today I go in for the first major surgery of my life. Since finding out I need this surgery I haven't been scared nearly as much as pissed off. Granted, when I read about being on a ventilator I got a little oogy-feeling, and yesterday I went to the hospital for a blood test and looked around realizing that this is where I was going to be getting my slice-and-dice. A bit unsettling.

But mostly I'm just pissed off. It's a bad time to leave work, even though at this time I only have scheduled 7 days off of work. Thankfully I can start working at home quite soon, but from what my doctor said and reading other women's accounts on the web, it seems like fatigue is going to be plaguing me for a few weeks if not a couple of months.

I can't do full-on exercise for probably 4-6 weeks, and if you had told me even 3 years ago that I would be pissed off at not being able to work out, I would have spit my triple chocolate cupcakes in your face and laughed my ass off. I feel like I finally got my shit together and started a good and consistent workout regime, and God said "NO! You will have a tumor instead!" *flings down benign tumor in my path for effect* At any rate, all I can do is tell myself that the forced inactivity will make me doubly recommitted when I can be active again.

I know I should be grateful that things aren't worse. I know there are people who would kill to be sniping over relatively unimportant crap like I'm doing. This is just a pretty big gear-stripping for me, when I've been healthy and independent most of my life (my adult life anyway) and now I'll be temporarily incapacitated and will need to accept people's help. It's just a really weird change for me. But I do know it could be worse.

I thought about starting a separate blog to talk about my condition, my surgery, and the post-op experience, if for no other reason than a writer (and by that I only mean someone who likes to write) can get a story out of her own experiences. I still might do it, and maybe it will get some Google hits and help some women out there looking for accounts of what they might have to go through themselves.

Scary Black People Made Me Gay

Well, they didn't make ME gay, since I'm straight, have been scared of very few of the black people I've encountered, and even the ones who might have frightened me did so on general weirdness and not anything to do with being black. Also, none of it was enough to get me to switch teams.

But alas, poor Bob Allen is not as strong as me.

In a nutshell:

TITUSVILLE - State Rep. Bob Allen told police he was just playing along when a undercover officer suggested in a public restroom that the legislator give him oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated, according to a taped statement and other documents released Thursday.

This happened because:

"I certainly wasn't there to have sex with anybody and certainly wasn't there to exchange money for it," said Allen, R-Merritt Island, who was arrested on charges of soliciting prostitution.

"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he "was about to be a statistic" and would have said anything just to get away.

So of course the first thing you do when you're about to be forcibly engulfed by the Big Gay Black Juggernaut is to go into the nearest public bathroom where you could be cornered more easily. The sheer terror and stress of the situation apparently led to:

In a written statement released Thursday, Titusville Officer Danny Kavanaugh recalled entering the restroom twice and said he was drying his hands in a stall when Allen peered over the stall door.

After peering over the stall a second time, Allen pushed open the door and joined Kavanaugh inside, the officer wrote. Allen muttered " 'hi,' " and then said, " 'this is kind of a public place, isn't it,' " the report said.

The officer said he asked Allen about going somewhere else and that the legislator suggested going "across the bridge, it's quieter over there."

"Well look, man, I'm trying to make some money; you think you can hook me up with 20 bucks?" Kavanaugh asked Allen.

The officer said Allen responded, "Sure, I can do that, but this place is too public."

Then Kavanaugh said he told Allen, "I wanna know what I gotta do for 20 bucks before we leave.' " He said Allen replied: "I don't know what you're into."

According to Kavanaugh's statement, the officer said, "do you want just [oral sex]?" and Allen replied, "I was thinking you would want one."

The officer said he then asked Allen, "but you'll still give me the 20 bucks for that . . . and that the legislator said, "yeah, I wouldn't argue with that."

As Allen turned and motioned for the officer to follow him to his car, Kavanaugh identified himself as a police officer by raising his shirt and exposing his badge.

And my very favorite morsel of the story:

When Allen was being placed in a marked patrol car, he asked whether "it would help" if he was a state legislator, according to a police report. The officer replied, "No."

But the piece de resistance has to be:

Bob Allen has sponsored legislation that toughened penalties for lewd or lascivious conduct.

If Karl Rove could have gone out on this note, that would have been a great juicy helping of awesome but I'll take what I can get.

Further Observed

In the news: Karl Rove is quitting. What bullshit. If anyone shouldn't get to leave their job on their own terms, it's this scum-sucking, eerily-uniformly-flesh-toned, dirty-rat-bastard cyborg. At the very least I wanted a Mark Foley-esque exit for Rove if not a full-on "Money's on the dresser, Chocolate" moment.

Again in the yarn store: 100% bamboo yarn, which is actually more slippery than Michael Jackson in the hands of prosecution. Really curious to see how it is to work with. The yarn, not Michael Jackson or his prosecutors.

Tables turned: My best friend has decreed that I can no longer tell her what TV shows to watch after losing IQ points to The Two Coreys. She acknowledged that this was my revenge for her recommending Not Another Teen Movie, over which I nearly sued her ass for mental anguish, emotional distress, the 2 hrs of my life I can never get back, and the $3.95 rental fee.

Observed

Today in the Borders cafe: a very white man in a Green Bay Packers cap, reading Uncle Tom's Cabin with all the diligent concentration of a man defusing a bomb. Seriously, the book was 3 inches away from his nose.

On reality tv: I don't remember the channel or the name of the show, but apparently it's Wife Swap with hair stylists. The show caught my eye because the guide info said one of the people was in Gurnee which is very close to me, so I decided to see where they were filming. Apparently this salon requires Bible study during the workday for their employees? Whatever bakes their Eucharist bread I suppose, but I think I'll stick with my trusty stylist for the foreseeable future.

In my knitting group: A woman who can knit lightning-fast without even looking at her needles. I seriously envy her.

In my new favorite yarn store: a 50/50 blend yarn of soy (that's right, soy) silk and wool for 50% off. It feels really nice and has beautiful purples/blues/greens/tans running through it. It's from South West Trading Company and they have quite a few alternative fiber and alternative fiber blends including bamboo, milk protein, and hemp in addition to the soy silk.

Very Odds and Ends

The Bourne Ultimatum. It was ok. Good action, plus Matt Damon is so tasty and delicious I might not have to eat for weeks after a Bourne marathon. However, I have only read half of The Bourne Identity and I'm fairly sure there was reasoning behind Damon's character agreeing to become Jason Bourne, and the movie didn't touch on it at all, which kind of left the impression that he was just a pointless, thoughtless mook who agreed to become this killing machine.

Clowns are still fuckers. I was flipping channels the other day, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was on, which is the third film installment in the franchise that made J.K. Rowling richer than the Queen and Davy Crockett combined. In the scene I was watching, the students confront a shape-shifter that takes on the shape of whatever your deepest fear is. The trick to defeating this thing is to think of how to make the fearsome look ridiculous, and then cast the proper spell. So this one girl steps up to the plate, and the boggart (shape-shifter) turns into a mummy or something. She casts her spell and the damn thing turns into a SEVEN-FOOT CLOWN. HELLO??!?!??!?!?! That's a bazillion times worse than a well-preserved corpse in need of new gauze. WTF???

In other clowns-are-fuckers news, I also saw the Krusty the Clown Burger King commercial that shows both Krusty and an animated version of that unbelievably creepy Burger King character. I couldn't decide which was worse.

Sweet pathetic reality TV and the validation of self. So this weekend I also discovered a horrific trainwreck of epic proportion - The Two Coreys. Who are the Two Coreys? Corey Haim and Corey Feldman of course, who rose to meteoric (a really sluggish, cold meteor) fame in the 80's thanks to the film The Lost Boys.

Both Coreys are about 35 now. Feldman is gainfully employed and married with a nice house and a cute dog. Haim is unemployed and appears to have stopped maturing mentally just around the original premiere of The Lost Boys, 20 years ago. He is basically a hot steaming mess. Haim moves in with Feldman and his wife and the Madcap High Jinks Train leaves the depot.

I told John about this show and we both agreed that we would have expected Feldman to turn out the worse of the Two Coreys. I am wondering if this is because Feldman was the less conventionally attractive Corey back in the day, i.e. people tend to associate good looks with good fortune. To both our credits though, Feldman did have that weird Michael Jackson wannabe phase to live down as well. In any case, we both turned out to be wrong and Haim is the pungent mess that we would have been more inclined to expect of Feldman.

It all adds up to a jaw-dropping, fetal-position-inducing spectacle that is only honed to a razor edge by the addition of Feldman's wife, she of the suspiciously buoyant breasts and tears flowing in support of PETA. It's horrific. It's awkward. And I fully admit that it makes me a lesser person when I admit that this trainwreck makes me feel better about myself. Sometimes you gotta do what you can to cope.

Hi, My Name is Donna, and I'm a Book Whore (all together - "Hi, Donna")

I've been a book whore since I was a little kid. I am the only child of Korean immigrants and thankfully we weren't poor, so they could afford to indulge me in the area of their choice. My parents were no different from the stereotypical Asian parents in that they wanted me to succeed academically (especially since it was clear from an early age that I had the motor skills of a tranquilized elephant) so that area was always books. I could ask for any book I wanted and my parents would buy it for me, which, combined with their lack of knowledge of American popular fiction, led to my trying to read Stephen King's Carrie in fifth grade and being so scared I had to throw the book away.

Tales of telekinetic horror aside, I have always loved having books. In the bookstore, I'll dig through the stacks of books to get at the copy two or three layers back which I assure myself that fewer people have touched and whose cover is usually in better condition than the topmost, heavily molested copy. New books give me a mild contact high, but I have old much-loved books that have been re-read again and again. I am just plain easy when it comes to books.

I go through phases of being good and steering clear of bookstores and Amazon.com. Usually books are cheaper at Amazon so I'll just order what I need from there. However, I love being in a bookstore so much that I'll sometimes give in and buy from there, especially when they tempt me with the occasional 3-for-2 sale.

I justified today's Borders excursion with the fact that I'm facing abdominal surgery next month with a 4-6 week recovery period, so I'ma get me some books. (Meanwhile I had to beat the crap out of the Voice of Reason within that reminded me that I have a pile of unread books still waiting for me.)

Laura was kind enough to lend me these two (oops, three!):
Lamb, the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
The Stupidest Angel, A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
Lakota Woman

And at Borders I picked up these at the 3-for-2 sale:
Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Saturday

I went looking for cillic's recommendations but didn't find most of them. I did already have A History of God in my unread books pile so hopefully that will get read soon. I also want to finish Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, which I'm about halfway through.

And I'm looking forward to these when they come out in paperback:
It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News
A Thousand Splendid Suns

Running Out of Tacky

So Laura and I were talking today, and I invited them up to my neck of the woods and noted that I could give them directions that would take them past the local Tacky Spectacle, the Onan Pyramid House. Now I am quite sure I showed this phenomenon to Laura when she visited a couple years ago, but I can hardly blame her for blocking it out. It is a spectacle both dazzling and underwhelmingly peculiar to behold.

It is, for lack of a better term, an "Egyptian compound" complete with pyramid, 50-foot Tut statue, hieroglyphics on the walls surrounding the compound, and if my memory doesn't completely fail me, a metal palm tree. All planted smack-dab in the midst of the lush cornfields of Gurnee, IL. Basically, it is what would happen if Britney Spears and the Luxor had a baby. Do you ever worry about the day when the universe could run out of Tacky? No, I don't either, but I have never had to worry about that possibility, seeing as how I've known about the Onan Pyramid House for years.

Move over, Liberace, (credit to Laura) because Tacky's got a brand new (or, decades-old) bag.

Book Recommendations, Please!

So I am scheduled for surgery after Labor Day (not RIGHT after Labor Day, I trust my doc but still a bit wary of the post-holiday blues) and I will need books to read while I recuperate. Please post your recommendations in the comments!

Thanks!
D