I'll be damned if it's not Turkish

There are mondegreens, and then there mondegowans. This one of my all-time favourite tunes from The Pogues:

( This is how I thought the chorus went )

( This is what they're apparently singing )

Rich bastard problems

It's amazing what a person is able to forget. At least I'd like to think I would've remembered if my last attack of gout had been anything like this. Thursday and most of Friday, it was little more than an annoyance. I still managed to make it downtown for lunch both days and the greatest inconvenience was having to explain again and again why I was limping. It's hard to say why I feel so abashed having to admit to gout except that in my head it's a glutton's disease, and a comically antiquated one at that. If only I'd known then that an attack of it in the big toe is also called "podagra", I'd've been saying that instead.

Then about half-an-hour before quitting time, the spikes of searing pain started. I never finished the document I was working on, what with wanting to punch the wall every two minutes or so. Naproxen seemed to do nothing to help; only an ice pack gave me much relief. Around bedtime, I switched to ibuprofen and got better results, but I was still awake again at about 12:30 a.m. wanting to go upstairs and refill the icepack but absolutely dreading the walk up the stairs to the freezer. Sleep was fitful at best after that.

Normally, being out of sorts on a Saturday wouldn't be much of a problem, but yesterday was the date of the annual Rising Young Stars concert at the Lyric and the Old Man and I had reservations for dinner with Nuphy at Cicchetti beforehand. And since the restaurant was practically in the same building as the hospital where Miss Cleveland was recovering from having his chest sawed open again, I hoped to squeeze in a visit to him as well. Honestly, if I hadn't been asking all week for a chance to see him, I might've bailed on the evening altogether. I also worried that if I stayed home, there'd be no way I'd be able to convince monshu to take my ticket for the concert.

Last time he was in recovery, I felt like my visit might've ended up being more of a burden than a comfort. Happily, it was different this time. We had perfect CTA connexions, leaving us and hour-and-a-half to kill before dinner. I still figured we wouldn't be in the room for more than 20-30 minutes, but Miss C actually seemed to be holding us there as long as he could. His nephew was in town from Oakland, so playing trip adviser gave us something besides talk of food and health to fill the time with.

The restaurant was amazing (full review to follow), if correspondingly pricey. Sadly, the same couldn't be said of the concert. I watched the two codgers climb into a cab at Erie before shuffling over to Michigan and having the same incredible CTA karma going back home. Before I signed off the computer and crept down to my bed, I saw a message from the GWO informing me that both he and Nuphs had bailed at halftime. So I propped myself up in the bed, iced my foot, and did my best to stay up until he got in.

He took the Clark, however, so it was 10:30 before he made down into the bedroom. According to him, it was a really lackluster programme this year, the best singer in the first half being wasted on a forgettable aria from Les pêcheurs de perles. (Patner's review spoke diplomatically of voices too small for a huge house like the Lyric.) To the surprise of both of us, it was Nuphy who pulled the plug. They ended up missing what was reportedly the standout selection, "Batter my heart" from Doctor Atomic, but it's questionable it would've been worth it for the Old Man to have gotten to bed shortly before midnight at best.

Today the foot was slightly better, but I've got my crutches out and I ain't afraid to use 'em. We'll just have to see how it feels when I try to slip this bugger into a shoe tomorrow morning. (As luck would have it, my sandals pinch at exactly the spot where the pain is localised.) Vitamin C, particularly in the form of tart cherry juice, is supposed to be my salvation, but we haven't been able to find any yet. So I suppose it's another night of putting faith in ibuprofen and hope.