Windy city scarf

I bet you thought I'd thrown in the needles, seeing as I haven't mentioned knitting in quite a while. You'd be partially correct. I don't do as much knitting in summer because it's just too bloody hot. However, as the leaves start to go all orange my hands begin to twitch for the needles once more.

This is sister Madi, modelling my first proper project for the year, apart from a couple of iPod covers made for friends by request. It's the Windy City Scarf from Stitch N Bitch; The Knitters Handbook. It has one of those handy keyhole bits so that you can thread one end of the scarf through and it wont blow away. It's supposed to look like this.

I wore it out this morning, just to the shops. It struck me that it's a very crip- friendly garment. I only have to wrap it round my neck once, so it's comfortable on my rather minimalist neck (it's an OI thing). It is also able to be secured with the keyhole, so that if the wind blows, it wont be swept off into the breeze where I'd have trouble chasing it. When I was little, I remember my Mum telling me the cautionary tale of Isadora Duncan, who apparently jammed her scarf in the car door. It got caught in the wheel and strangled her to death, so Mum was always wary of dressing me in anything that might push me toward the same fate as Ms Duncan. She's most pleased that my new scarf clears the wheels of my wheelchair by quite a distance.

This is my next knitting project, for my friend Thea. She picked it out herself and when I asked why she might like such an article, she replied: "So that when people come over to my house and see it they say "what's that?" And then I can say, "It's a Uterus, my friend Stella knitted it for me.""

Woohoo! How exciting... our very own "Blogging Against Disablism Day" on May 1st. If you'd like to participate, click on the above graphic and it will send you over to Diary of a Goldfish. She tells you how. Even if you don't want to participate, go and check her out anyway - she's pretty rad.

I'd rather just break coffee cups and promises

Ok so I know I've never been the best and most regular blogger in the world, so it's not like you guys expect amazing things from me anyway. However this time my leave of absence comes with a semi-valid excuse.

To cut a long story short, I slipped off my shower bench and broke six bones. The box I put my feet on was on a slightly weird angle because I'd dropped a bottle of shampoo between it and the wall. Combined with my slightly alcohol-impaired co-ordination at the time, I put weight on it the wrong way, it flipped over and slipped under the bench and I fell on my arse in a rather undignified fashion. There is no elegant way to do that.

I hit my head really hard, so memories of how I got up are a bit foggy. The gaps probably have something to do with the alcohol too. Whoops! I'd like to think I was rescued by my handsome Spanish neighbour. Unfortunately I think the more likely scenario involves me squirming out from under the bench, up onto my footplates and into my chair, something I wouldn't normally attempt under the best of circumstances. It's amazing what your body can do when it's an absolute emergency.

Turns out, I'd broken two ribs, two vertabrae, a finger and my coccyx bone. Nasty. At least the letter from the Radiologist gave me some amusement. It read - "Examination is difficult due to the gross and complex deformities attributed to Osteogenesis Imperfecta. There is a marked thoracic convexivity to the right and the lumbar convexivity to the left. The bones are deformed, osteporotic and hypoplastic throughout. In the lumbar spine there is mild loss of vertebral body height centrally involving all lumbar vertabral bodies. The pelvic bones are grossly deformed with gross flattening of the pelvic cavity. Conclusion: There are gross deformities of Osteogenesis Imperfecta."

In English I think that means that my bones are a bit fucked, and I'm er, gross, I suppose. Doctors are such charmers aren't they?