Poisson d'Avril?

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"Aw, shit."

"What is it?"

"My eye popped out."

If I hadn't heard it hit the floor I'd have thought he was April Fooling. I stopped bottling my kombucha and started toward my first lesson in Replacing Your Husband's Eye. It took a few tries but we got it in place in less time than it would have taken us to get to the eye doc's office, which I've since learned is what the eye doc had said to do. Go to his office, that is. But I'm pretty sure he just would've shown us how to replace it and like Nick said, "How hard can it be?"

Nick's eyelid was initially sewn shut to prevent the prosthesis from falling out and he had the stitches removed just yesterday, so I guess this isn't entirely unexpected, but it's still enough to throw you off kilter for a second. What's in his eye socket is the implant, surrounded by reattached muscle, with a thick, plastic "contact lens" (thick as the edge of a cocktail glass) in front of it. I'll go into more detail soon as I'm still educating myself on the whole kit-and-kaboodle, but the real eye-looking part will be attached to the implant and shouldn't just pop out!

It's only been a week since they removed his damaged eye but his good eye feels soooooo much better. Nick says it's still sensitive to light, but the difference is huge. They pulled the pins out of his hand on Tuesday and he's been working his hand as much as possible since. I understand the necessity for doing as much as his hand will allow in order to prevent the tendons from freezing up, and I think it's great he's been driving, gardening and carrying wood into the house, but he wants to go rock climbing this weekend. It's this genre of things that is causing me to grow old.

It's been glorious outside and we enjoyed dinner in the courtyard last night. We sipped our gin tonics while watching the sun set and Acacia climb over all the walls, including the archway. I was mostly okay with that until Nick started to join her, clambering up the black ironwork. I lost it. I asked him to please stop and when he didn't immediately come down, I stormed inside. A few seconds later he was beside me gathering up the quiche to bring out to the patio.

"If you fall doing something stupid and break both your legs, you're going to have a hard time driving yourself to all your doctors' appointments!"

"Wow. This quiche is awesome, babe. Seriously, it's the best one I've ever had."

And that was that. Saved by leek quiche - which was extra good this time because I threw in all kinds of leftover cheeses, which clearly is something I should've been doing all along (Foodies click on the Recipes link to the right for details).

Nick is going to see Courtney the dentist on Monday, so I'll be able to make whatever we want for dinner - whoop whoop! - which will include a salad, the thing Nick has missed the most, and some meat protein so he can start rebuilding those muscles. I've always called him Popeye because his forearms are normally almost bigger than his biceps from his love of climbing, but those muscles are now jelly. Actually, no. Jelly has more consistency than whatever currently resides between his bones and dangling skin. Not being able to lift anything because of his busted sternum compounded the effects of the absolute immobility of his right hand. I didn't fully realise the extent of the atrophy until last week, but you know Nick, and this won't last long.

Between you and me though, I have to say I'm secretly hoping it lasts through the weekend so the crazy rock climbing idea doesn't even come up again!