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Gettin ma’ throat cut.

Welp, sometime in the next 4-6 weeks I will be under anaesthetic and having stuff done to the arteries in my neck. A carotid endarterectomy, as it happens.

1. General anaesthethic
2. Open up the neck
3. Mess around in there, probably damaging some of the nerves going to the skin under my beard
4. Forgot step 1 – remove beard.
5. Install a shunt around the right inner carotid artery.
6. Clamp inner carotid artery top and bottom
7. Cut that artery open (tbh, I think they just put a slit in it).
8. Scoop out the goop
9. Close it all up again
10. Being careful not to let any of the goop uh-oh and wind up in the brain
11. 1 day in intensive, because messing with that region can mess with some instrumentation around the carotid, in particular blood pressure monitors
12. 2/3 days in recovery

Risks include

• Stroke
• Damage to nerves of the tongue and throat, possibly impacting
  • Speech
  • Swallowing
  • I’m guessing cunnilingus, although I did not ask.

Risks of not doing it include

• Stroke
• Getting more risky each year

Surgery, and this procedure in particular are indicated b/c:

• > 80% blockage of the artery
• Age. Apparently, 59¾ is “young” when you are a vascular surgeon

Blood pressure is still high-ish, but responding well to medication. Stroke as a result of surgery is a “how long is a piece of string” situation. If there’s one, it’s likely to be minor, likely to fix itself. We are not necessarily in a Stephen Hawking scenario.

It’s a risk. But not doing it is really not an option. More risky to not do it than to do it.

But it’s surgery. I should write a will for real this time.

Every Hero Needs a Villain

A backstory for my Draw Steel “shadow” character. Need to justify why a thief/assassin type would want to become a heroic hero.
I gave an outline to ChatGPT, got this.

---

They called her Flick because she was never where she ought to be for long.

She grew up in Saint Arlond’s Orphan House, a leaning stone building tucked between a tannery and a shrine to a forgotten saint. The place smelled of wax, soup, and damp wool. It was run by Father Caldus, a stooped old priest whose hands shook when he poured tea but never when he blessed a child. He believed hunger could be endured, cold could be endured, but cruelty could not.

Flick stole anyway.

At first it was bread, then coins, then small things that fit in a pocket and left no scream behind them. She told herself it was survival. Later she told herself it was talent. When she got good—really good—she left anonymous gifts in the alms box: silver for medicine, bolts of cloth, once even a sack of flour that appeared overnight like a miracle. Father Caldus pretended not to notice the pattern. Mercy, she learned early, sometimes wore the mask of ignorance.

Across the river stood Blackwell House.

It called itself an orphanage too.

The man who ran it—Master Harlowe—trained the children who showed sharpness: quick hands, quick tempers, quick lies. Those children learned knives and ambushes and how to hurt smaller children without leaving marks. The rest were kept barely alive on thin gruel and colder words, just enough to justify the three-silver stipend the city paid per head each month. “You’re worth three silver,” Harlowe liked to say. “Don’t forget it.”

One winter night, Flick slipped into a fine townhouse near the magistrate’s quarter. The locks were clever. That pleased her. She took coin, a pair of chased candlesticks, and a ring heavy with gold and set with a dark stone carved in unfamiliar sigils. She didn’t know what it was—only that it was valuable, and that she’d never seen craftsmanship like it.

She didn’t know it was a city seal.

She didn’t know that one of Saint Arlond’s children—thin, watchful, always eager to please—had been selling whispers to Blackwell House in exchange for extra food and fewer beatings.

The knock came three days later.

Magistrate Veyl arrived with two guards in polished mail. He was civil. He was thorough. The ring was found wrapped in cloth beneath Flick’s bedding, placed there by hands she knew too well. The sigil was unmistakable. Theft of a seal was treason-adjacent, the kind of crime the law liked to make examples of.

Father Caldus did not beg. He said only that the children were his responsibility.

The sentence was death, commuted to lifetime agricultural servitude on the eastern estates. Everyone understood what that meant.

The orphanage was dissolved by sundown.

Children under fourteen were transferred to Blackwell House “for care and instruction.” Harlowe smiled as they were marched away. “You’re worth three silver a month,” he told them cheerfully. “Live on that—unless you find a better use for yourselves.” Anyone who cried learned how fast a whip could answer questions.

Those fourteen and older were given a month to find employment. Most would fail.

Flick watched Father Caldus led away in chains too heavy for his wrists, and something inside her went cold and sharp and very still.

Three nights later, a figure stepped out of the alley behind the shuttered orphanage. He wore shadows the way other men wore cloaks.

“There’s murder in your eyes, girl,” he said mildly. “I can use that.”

He knew about the ring. He knew about Blackwell House. He knew exactly which seal Flick had lifted, and exactly how impressive that was for a street rat. He called himself Corven. He did not pretend to be good. He spoke of balance, leverage, and removing problems quietly.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll teach you how to survive. Enough to deal with Harlowe, if that’s what you want.”

Flick followed him.

Training hurt. It stripped away fear and replaced it with discipline. She learned how to vanish in a crowd, how to listen at doors, how to strike once and be gone before the echo faded. She worked for Corven—spying, stealing, sometimes worse—always told herself it was temporary. Always kept count of the names she would never be.

When she was ready, Corven sent her to the county fair with a pack, a blade, and forged papers. “You need legitimacy,” he said. “And real work. Try being a hero for a while. See how it fits.”

Flick went, carrying three debts like knives under her coat.

One to free Father Caldus from a sentence she had earned for him.

One to burn Blackwell House down to its foundations—especially the child who had sold them all for an extra bowl of gruel.

And one to prove that she was not, and would never be, one of Harlowe’s cruel little monsters.

If she had to become a hero to do it, so be it.

Latvia needs husbands

Apparently, Latvia currently has a bit of a man drought, which has led to the rise of “husband for an hour” websites. Handyman duties – fixing taps, assembling furniture. It’s what we are good for, it seems.

So, I have constructed this limerick:

There was a young lady of Riga
At IKEA especially meagre
So she called up a guy
In such short supply
To tighten her screws and then leave her.

Thank you, and good night.