Sorry I've been so scarce

My apologies for the sporadic blog posting and visits to various sites of late. My only excuse--and it is a valid one--is that my neck has been bothering me quite a bit the last few weeks. I've dealt with chronic neck pain for several years now, the residual effects of an accident at the Kohl Center, in which some IDIOT behind me tripped over her own feet returning from concessions and landed on me. This is the biggest problem with "arena" style seating: while it means few bad seats, it also means that your head is level with the knees of the person behind you, and I'm sure I'm not alone in suffering such an accident (and how many have had hair stepped on or have been hit/kicked in the back of the head?).

Anyway, over the years I have been prone to flare-ups. I know activities to avoid to prevent aggravating the old injury (don't hold phone with shoulder, don't sit with head at an angle, don't do a lot of heavy lifting, etc), but sometimes that isn't possible and it's been bothering me ever since the jerks upstairs flooded half my apartment. I had to move a bunch of stuff out of the walk-in storage closet and stack it in a corner of the bedroom for two weeks, then when the carpet finally dried and the musty smell eradicated, I had to move the stuff back into the closet on my own, and well...my body decided to protest all the heavy lifting. These boxes mostly contain books (the consequence of having once worked for a publisher), so you can imagine how heavy some of them are.

The only good thing to come out of it is that the Neighbors From Hell have finally moved! Now , of course, I live in fear of getting even worse ones above me. No offense to friends who have children, but please, oh please don't let them rent to someone with kids. There's no way I could stand listening to running and wrestling above my head 24/7. Listening to it for even a few hours is enough to give me a headache. Please can we have a nice, quiet and respectful neighbor for a change? Is that really asking too much?!

Anyway, I do have some new pics I've been wanting to share, but haven't had the patience to sit at the computer long enough to upload them. Sitting in any one position for too long aggravates the neck. Hopefully I will get a chance to do so soon. I've been trying to rest and give my neck a chance to heal, but when there's no one else to do the grocery shopping, take out the garbage or do the laundry, it rather hinders the healing process.

What I wouldn't do for a month of maid service and a masseur!