Achew!! Excuse me… sorry, but the dust on this blog is thick. Not wood dust unfortunately, but the normal kind of dust (i.e. mostly Soylent Green).

I’ve been up to my neck in kidney stones lately (well, down to my urethra, actually). I’m an avid kidney-stoner. Last year I did five. Over the past several months I’ve passed a handful of stones. Two required ER trips and another required lithotripsy to break up and allow to pass through the plumbing. The lithotrispy method uses sound waves to break up the stone. I wasn’t awake for the procedure but I believe it involved pressing a boom box against my lower back and blasting “That’s the way, uhh-huh, uhhh-huh, I like it”.

The real “ball-buster” of the three was the middle one. With an obvious middle-child complex this one would not go quiet and unnoticed, as middle children should. In fact, it caused me so much pain that I decided to go the ER and I never go to the ER anymore when passing stones. I’ve learned that lesson. The car ride is tortuous, there’s usually too long a wait, and I’ve noticed that sick people tend to congregate there.

In this instance, the ER was in fact packed and we were informed that it would be hours before I would be seen. I would have cried more if I had more tear ducts (I am not a man’s man… I’m barely a woman’s man). My mother suggested I feign passing out to get more urgent attention (she also coaches slip and falls in case you’re looking). Luckily, my pathetic state drew enough attention to get me bumped up and drugged up.

As I walked out of the ER with a new lease on life, a young child in obvious distress began heaving. I had instant empathy as he began to spew and I thought “awww the poor…” at which very moment my thought was interrupted by vomit hitting my shoes. Immediately my thought switched to “awww… that’s my shoes” (my sense of empathy has always had a vomit cutoff switch).

With my MIA explained, let’s just move forward and take a look at a little pictorial gallery of some woodworking things done in moments where my junk wasn’t on full tilt pain. I am looking forward to getting back in the woodworking and blogging saddle (I’m, of course, going to mount the saddle very, very gently for a while).

I made some boxes. Lots of figure in these materials. Lots of tear-out to deal with. More on that battle in a future post.

Figured Boxes

Apparently I did some crack and then made miter keys. While I was never in the boy scouts, I do believe in being prepared (a miter key badge would be appreciated if a scoutmaster is reading this).

Got miter keys?

Sliced up some ebony for box parts. I hadn’t planned on doing that but my hand was forced as the blank was face-checking like crazy. I presumed the moisture difference was just too great between the faces and core. It did seem to work as these thin boards haven’t checked at all.

Ebony Mini-Sticker

Well, it’s been a pleasure seeing you again. Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve chit-chatted too long when I should be making more miter keys (miter keys are the new cowbell).