La France, or Things I Used to be Good at

We are going to France this August for a week. Jack and the kids decided on this, and I agreed. We haven't decided yet where we are going to go or what we are going to do when we get there, but we have plane tickets.

When we go, I'll be five months past my knee surgery, which has a nine month recovery period. I will have to get into good shape, and pronto. When Jack and I went to Paris in 2004, we took the elevator up the Eiffel Tower, and we walked down. All of the steps. Right now, I can get down stairs if I use the "up with the good, down with the bad" method. I'd have an easier time getting up the Eiffel Tower than down at this point, which is really weird. My family also wants to visit Mont Saint Michel in northern France. I have been to Mont Saint Michel when I traveled to France before. I recall there are about 900 steps, give or take a few hundred. For a vacation focused on culture and history, it is going to be a fairly strenuous.

The best part of any trip if that it gives you something to look forward to. I know several parents who have withheld information about their kids going to Disney World or whatnot. I can understand some of that logic--parents might not want their three year old asking every morning for two months if today is the day they get to see Cinderella, followed by the meltdown when the little girl hears the disappointing news.

My kids are old enough to be part of the planning. Both kids are taking French in school, and the Boy has taken a new interest in doing his French homework. I studied French for seven years in middle, high school and college, but that was ages ago. I went to France for three weeks when I was a junior in high school and stayed with a family in Caen, Normandy. My conversational French exploded during that trip, and reached its peak when I was a freshman in college. I used my French a little bit (un peu) in my first job out of college, but not enough to keep me fluent.

At the library yesterday, I picked up some Pimsleur French language CD's. I listened to one CD in the car, and another while I eating lunch yesterday. These are "listen and repeat" lessons, where I have to practice both listening and speaking in French. In 2004, I remember asking at the airport train station in reasonable French, "Pardon me. We would like two train tickets into Paris." The answer came back to me was a flood of nonsense. Jack didn't help when he repeated in French what the woman said to me which I didn't understand in the first place. Oy. Long story short--I can speak French better than I can understand it, and that can cause more problems than it solves. I tried phrasing my questions in such a way that they begged a yes or no answer, but that didn't help either.

That was twelve years ago, and in those twelve years, I've used almost no French. When I plugged in the disks, I was surprised at how much I remembered. I could do and understand the listen and repeat exercises! After about the fourth lesson, I noticed interesting themes of sample conversations.

1. You go to a restaurant and ask if they have beer or wine. You ask a man how much money he has in both euros and dollars. Beaucoup?
2. A wife asks her husband for money and then they argue whether or not a pair of shoes are expensive. (Spoiler: He thinks they are; she thinks they aren't.)
3. A woman gives a bellhop 100 euros, and then haggles him about the price of a newspaper.
4. A man asks a woman if she wants to go to dinner. She said that sounds nice, but she has plans for dinner with her husband. The man then asks the woman if she would like a drink. He offers wine and beer, but she wants tea. Then their spouses show up.

I am not making this up.

I was concentrating so hard it took me a while to figure out that the plot line of this soap opera language class was messed up. With that realization I also began to realize how much real French I forgot. These are the grammar rules that distinguish a true speaker of French from an wannabe. In 2004, I told a waiter that I heard his restaurant had the best cassoulet in Paris. He was delighted I spoke French, and was pleased that I was looking forward to the bean stew. Then he very kindly and patiently corrected my use of "best." I got an "A" for effort and a "meh" for execution. I wanted to say I read Hugo and Flaubert in French in college, and now I barely order a meal in a restaurant, but I didn't.

I don't remember the gender of many (okay, all) nouns. Wine (vin) is masculine and beer (biere) is feminine. I would have guessed the other way around. The gender of alcohol was not a main part of my seventh grade French class. I don't remember which verbs are self-reflexive. I forgot there were such a thing as self-reflexive verbs. And I never really bothered to learn how to conjugate vous, the plural of "you," which doesn't exist in proper English. In improper English, it might be youse, as in youse guys or y'all.

I was listening to one of the CD's in the car between working out and running an errand at U Village. In the car, I heard an addition lesson, which was harder than I thought. Dix et trois font... (fill in the blank.) The first few were easy, but after the tenth one, I had to work hard to keep up. I had to translate each number, add them, and then translate the sum back into French. It was hard and the speaker was fast, but I got most of them right.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself when I got out of the car and overheard a woman talking on her cell phone in French. Of course, I understood none of it, which was a bucket of cold water on my renewed language skills. But at least now I can ask a random guy to buy me a drink at a bar. If things go well, I can ask how much money he has.

Afraid

My daughter had a track meet today at high school in southeast Seattle. She finished her events early in the meet, and was ready to go home. Instead of waiting to take the school bus back to northeast Seattle, she took the light rail to the university station. She would have to walk about five or six blocks from the high school where the track meet was held to the light rail station. It is spring, so the sun was still up at 5:30 or so when she called. I told her to text me when she got on the train, and then when she arrived at the university station so we could pick her up. A half hour later, I was making tortilla soup, and I started to get a little pit in my stomach wondering where she was. I thought about calling or texting to see if she was okay, but I didn't want her to get mugged for her smart phone. Just then, my phone pinged and I got her text. She was on the train.

Claire Adele rides the bus downtown every other week for a youth group event, so I know she has some street smarts about riding public transportation. In Seattle, middle school kids who live between one and two miles from school are given an Orca card (aka city bus pass) instead of a yellow bus. My sophomore is not the youngest kid in town on public transportation.

That being said, I was at a student run event at the same high school of the track meet last fall. The students were asking the school district and city to give all students bus passes, regardless of where they live. The students, especially girls, were concerned about their safety. Several students had been mugged walking to and from school. In their own words, the kids did not always feel safe in their own neighborhood.

And here I am letting my daughter walk through this unfamiliar of town. She accused me of being racist a few months ago when I would not let her attend a presidential campaign rally by herself in that part of town. In that case, she would have get down there by herself, hang out, and then get home by herself when the rally ended around eleven o'clock at night. (Did I mention she wanted to do this alone?) I told her I not making assumptions about the neighborhood, but rather the information I got was from the students themselves and I got at their school. If students tell me they are afraid, I believe them. Plus, while Seattle Public Schools thinks it is fine for kids to ride the bus to and from school, school hours aren't until 11:00 p.m.

I studied statistics in college. There are 400 kids at that high school and 180 days in the school year, which means there are 144,000 trips to and from school each year by the students. If ten kids a year are mugged, that means there is a 0.0069% chance of being mugged on any day walking to or from school. If ten students are mugged, that means 2.5% of the students would have been victims of a crime. If each of these kids has twenty unique friends, it means that 50% of the kids in the school know someone who got mugged.

The odds of my daughter getting mugged during rush hour in daylight were incredibly small, as she was only taking one trip. I suppose I could get all Nate Silver and fivethirtyeight.com on this and apply a distance from school factor to this (i.e., the longer the walk home, the greater the likelihood of getting mugged, or studying where the mugging occur and figure out how many students walk past that point, etc.), but I won't. The question is when and where to be afraid, and how much it should run your life.

There is a difference between specifically afraid and theoretically afraid. I lived in Chicago in my twenties. I didn't own a car and relied on public transit. I've lived in the big city where bad shit happened all of the time, but the odds of anything specifically happening to me were slim. Was I still theoretically afraid? Yes. All of the time? No. Could I afford a cab late at night when I didn't want to take a bus which decreased my need to be afraid? Yep. Did I pay attention and look under parked cars as I walked past to make sure a lunatic wasn't hiding underneath, ready to grab my ankles and pull me to my death? Yes.

I recently read an article (I wish I could remember where--damn middle age) about women being afraid for their personal safety in general. A counselor (or therapist or social worker) had a group of married couples. She asked everyone when they were last afraid. One man said twenty years earlier when he was in a war. Another said something like when he was in a car accident. The women all had events within the last week, if not that day. "I was afraid walking through a dark parking lot" was a common refrain.

I used to be unafraid when I was in high school, but I lived in a suburb. When I got to college, fear kicked in, not because I got a sixth sense, but because I was followed twice by men who should not have been following me. In both cases, I was with at least one other person, so my "safety in numbers" theory went out the window.

I think my daughter isn't afraid like I was in college, and she wants to go to college in New York City. Her high school has 1,800 kids, and one kid (male) got mugged last year and no kids got mugged this year. In two years, that is about 1.3 million trips to and from school in two years. The odds of getting mugged at her school are 1.3 million to one over two years.

I am not sure if I am glad my daughter isn't afraid, or if I wish she were. There is a big gap between being intrepid and being chicken shit. She says strange people have approached her on the street when she goes downtown for her youth groups meetings. She tosses them a scowl, and they back off. She has a great scowl, and I can see it being effective. Where is the line, though, where women can feel just as safe as men going about and about in strange places, or even in their own neighborhood?

My Lucille Ball Moment(s)

Yesterday, I was riding the stationary bike at the Y.* I am riding faster and getting more of a cardio workout, so I am sweating more. Before I left the house, I decided to add some Nuun to my water. Nuun is like Gatorade or other electrolyte sports drinks. I dropped a Nuun tablet in my bottle and left the lid off off for a few minutes while I finished getting ready. Nuun has a little effervescence, and I didn't want pressure to build up in the bottle. This bottle has an interior straw and little spout on top that pops up. I like this bottle because I don't have to unscrew a lid while I am on the bike. I just pop the button and can drink from the straw.

I get to the Y and start riding. I press the spout button on my water bottle. Even with letting it sit for five minutes, the pressure built. The Nuun water shot three feet up straight of out of the bottle like a water fountain. Before I clamped the spout back down, it sprayed about three bikes over. Lucky, those bikes and treadmills were empty. One woman behind me on an elliptical chortled, but everyone else was too busy reading a book or listening to music to witness my Lucille Ball moment.

When Jack and the Boy came home that night, I told them my story. The Boy wanted to replicate this event. He filled the bottle, added the Nuun, and went in the backyard to see what would happen. Nada. They both thought I meant the water bottle had a little spurt. No, it was a full blown spray and it covered several bikes and a few treadmills at the Y. Nevertheless, the spray at the might have been a fluke.

Disappointed, the Boy put the bottle back in the fridge. This morning, I got the bottle out to take it to the university athletic center. Before I left, I took a sip. I popped the spout up, and out sprayed the Nuun water all over the kitchen. Dang. I cleaned it up and went to work out. As I was riding the stationary bike, I popped the spout and got sprayed again.

I don't think my family is going to believe me when I tell them what happened again; yet, I am not going to add Nuun to this water bottle again. But before I do that, I am going to refill the bottle, add a Nuun, put it back in the fridge, and wait until the Boy comes home from soccer practice after school.


* This is probably the most common opening line of my blog for the past few months. It is my "It was a dark and stormy night."

Jury Duty

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from a random cell phone number with a (206) area code. I typically answer these calls in case they are my kids calling from a friend's cell phone or something like that. I was less than a month out from my surgery, when the man called and said he was a deputy marshall and there were two changes against me for missing jury duty. One of the charges was for missing jury duty, and the other was for contempt of court. I asked the man how I was notified that I was on jury duty, and he said I should have gotten a letter in the mail. I was kind of freaked out because before my surgery I was super busy and might have missed the letter. After my surgery, I was completely out of it and might have missed it.

"It is possible I missed this," I said. "I just had surgery and might not have seen the letter. What do I need to do about this?"

"You can come down to the eighth floor of the courthouse and..." the man said.

I was beginning to think this was crazy.

"What?" I said. "Hold on. I just had surgery and you want me to come downtown?"

"Well ma'am..."

"I am going to call the courthouse and find out what the real plan is," I said.

"You will not be able to contact the right people if you call the courthouse," he said. By now I was guessing this was scam. He kept giving me his cell phone as the number to call to find out the plan.

"If this is legitimate, then I will be talking to you in ten minutes," I said and hung up.

I contacted the U.S. District Court, and they had no record that I was scheduled for jury duty.

Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail for jury duty. My daughter brought in the mail and had read the outside of the envelope which had in big, bold print "JURY DUTY SUMMONS" written on the outside.

"Fuck," I said. (My daughter later reported that I said the f-word about fifty times. I think it was closer to three.) "Maybe I can get out of it because of my knee."

"Jury duty is an important responsibility," Claire Adele said. "You should do it. I had to write an essay for my social studies class on why this is so important."

I think I dropped another f-bomb. I've never done jury duty before. I was called when I lived in Chicago, but got out of it because we moved to St. Louis. My mom has been a juror, and was on some large and long cases, including a murder trial. She was on a federal grand jury for a financial scandal that lasted months. I used to joke that she was a professional juror.

"If you can't get out of it, you should get into it!" Claire Adele said in a super perky voice. When did my daughter become such a Pollyanna? "I learned this at the YMCA. This is what the counselors say to kids who don't want to participate in activity. I am going to be using this a lot this summer." She is going to be a CIT, Counselor in Training, this year and now she is using the techniques she would use on an obstinate ten year olds on me. Hopefully, my daughter won't apply this cheerful aphorism to situations like date rape and whatnot.

I am going to talk to Evan, my physical therapist, to see if I can use my temporary disability to get out of jury duty. While I could do the work of a juror, it would be a big problem if I got on a case where I had to be sequestered and didn't have access to exercise equipment to do my physical therapy.

Could this be the only silver lining to my accident? Getting out of jury duty? Or might this not be enough to get me out of it? Oy.

Feeling better...

Since my skiing accident, I haven't been able to walk Fox, our dog. We have a lovely neighbor, Heidi, who walks Fox for us midday. She adores Fox, and we are lucky to have her. She is very kind, gentle and loves animals.

Yesterday, she asked how I was doing. Normally, I say I'm fine but I wince and moan and generally act like Debbie Downer and put out by this whole thing, which is in all senses, tiresome.

For the first time since the surgery, I said, "Fine!" and I really meant it. I was feeling better and I was only thinking about my leg 75% of the time instead of 100%, which is good. "I am starting to feel better," I said with a bona fide sense of optimism. Usually people I meet on the sidelines at my son's soccer games or at the grocery store have a very Pollyanna attitude and want me to feel just fabulous. I was feeling happy that I wasn't going to rain on Heidi's parade.

"Oh no!" she said. "Then I won't be able to walk Fox anymore!" 

Just when I thought that being optimistic and cheerful was a good thing...

13 and 47, and Male Bonding

The Boy turned thirteen today and next week I turn forty-seven. His due date was my birthday but he arrived a week early, with the same birthday as Queen Elizabeth. I was talking to my dad and he remembers being thirteen. I told him about a mini-meltdown the Boy had last weekend.

"This is a big year," he laughed. "I remember puberty. Lots of changes."

In many cultures, there are rituals for boys at this age. The Boy has a few Jewish friends who have had their Bar Mitzvahs. Those kids studied for months and then had a big party. I am sure the boy was looking at the new iPhone that one of his friends got for his Bar Mitzvah, and overlooked the years of Hebrew school.

The boy wants a cell phone for his birthday. I was tired of nagging him about his homework, and didn't want another devise to compete for his attention. He has his own computer for his homework, which is bad enough. A few months ago, we checked his browser history and we discovered he was watching Dr. Who in the middle of the night. While the content was not questionable, the 1:34 a.m. video watching was, not to mention it violated the "no computer in your room" rule. No wonder he was a crabby jackass in the morning. Miraculously, when we kept his computer downstairs, he was in an infinitely better mood in the morning.

I told the Boy that he could have a phone if we could go three weeks with him taking initiative on his homework without me nagging him. It was a vicious cycle for both of us. "You don't like to nag me, and I don't like to be nagged, so let's stop it," he said.

But it didn't work. Fearing failure to live up to his end of the bargain, the Boy became more tense. He felt apart towards the end of Spring Break. I was in no mood to have another device that would be a non-productive source of distraction.

Jack was a bit more gentle. "Should we get him a phone?" he asked me.

"No way," I said. "Forget it. What do you think?"

"Well..." he said, being noncommittal.

This week, Jack talked to the Boy. "Do you think your mom wants you to have a phone?"

"Probably not," the Boy said "She probably thinks I acted like an asshole this weekend." He seemed remorseful for his less than stellar behavior.

"Why do you want a phone?" Jack said.

"So I can text my friends," he said. He rattled off the names of classmates and boys on his soccer team, all nice fellows. He was feeling left out. As much I would prefer my son to have real life friends instead of virtual and digital friendships, I can see where he would feel disconnected.

Jack reported this conversation back to me. "I am thinking maybe we could take him tonight to get a phone," he said. "At least he didn't make up some lie about wanting a phone for safety. He says he wants a phone so he can text his friends."

I relented. If Jack was okay with it, I suppose I could be, too, even though I'll be the big bad monitor. After school, I told the Boy that his Dad would take him to get a phone when his homework is done. I decided their trip to the Apple store would be a male bonding experience.

My forty-seventh birthday is coming up, without any fanfare, milestones or hype. No puberty for or rites of passage (unless heaven forbid the other M comes my way.) In some ways, I feel the same as I did when I was thirty-five or forty. Today, the Boy said birthdays are overrated. I disagree for anyone under thirty. Each year is so different, but as an adult, the years thankfully start to feel the same, with fewer or no major adjustments or changes. I was reading Alexander McCall's Smith's retelling of Jane Austen's Emma the other day. There is a line where Emma graduates from school, and feels as if it is the end of the world. In a sense, it was the end of the world that she knew. As an adult, milestones aren't that often--maybe moving to a new city or getting a new job, getting a divorce or seeing the kids leave the house to go to college. We don't have new things every year, or just because we are forty.

Today, though, I felt old. I don't mean i felt old when I thought about the numbers on my driver's license, but I felt what I expect it would feel like to be old. Yesterday, I was gardening with a college student who has helped us out of the past year and a half. She helps with odd chores and keeping an eye on the kids. I was not in pain, and my mobility was getting better. As I was walking up the twenty-two steps to the house, I felt like I was eighty. I was reminded of a few older people I've seen around the neighborhood. They can walk fine and get mourned, but maybe they use a cane, or walk slowly. They might have a limp, or a stiffness that prevents them from bending over. I reminded myself of those folks. Bizarrely, I felt better after that. At least those people are outside and getting around, I thought. So can I.

Speaking of the elderly, today is Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday. I saw a picture of her taken by Annie Leibowitz. The Queen is standing on steps outside surrounded by her dogs. She has one leg on one step and one leg on another. A casual observer might not notice that or think anything of it, but I noticed. The photo said, Here is a ninety year old woman who climbs stairs. She is able-bodied and spends time outdoors. I should be so lucky one day.

Day Off and Time is Standing Still

Bike Time: 45 minutes 

Distance: 8.14 miles

I would love a day off from needing to exercise. I take that back--I would like a day of from riding the stationary bike. I don't mind exercising every day, but even pro-athletes get a day off to rest. Or, I would like to do another type of exercise--walk, yoga, bike outside.

Today I was at the University athletic center, riding the stationary bike in my corner office. It was hot, and I was tired and sweaty. I am increasing the resistance, so it is getting a little harder. I wanted to stop, go home, and eat lunch. Actually, I wanted a Beacon Hill sandwich from Bagel Oasis to eat with my unsalted potato chips. If I was going to eat unsalted chips, I wanted an awesome sandwich to go with it.

I digress. I was biking and hot and tired and wanted to stop. I needed to get my forty-five minutes in, and already did ten minutes in the morning after breakfast. If I were biking on a real bike, I could do one of three things:

1. Coast: You can't coast on a stationary bike. It beeps, telling everyone on the floor you are a slacker and need to keep moving. 
2. Stop for a water break: I could stop, but so would the clock.
3. Kick up the gears and ride faster, thereby getting home faster: I should call Einstein and tell him time doesn't speed up or down on a stationary bike, but he already knew that.

Instinctively, I did three. I increased the resistance and started pedaling faster. This, however, did not take time off the clock like it would on a road bike. It took me a while to realize what I was doing. Since the injury, I was okay clocking time on the bike, since that was the only exercise I was getting. Now that I am getting into better shape, I am thinking like my old self on a road bike. If ride ten miles on a bike, it doesn't matter how long it takes me. If I ride faster and get done sooner, that's even better. On the stationary bike, time does not have the flexibility of the road.

Drastic Measures

I've decided I am going to cut down on my salt intake for the next few days to see if that helps reduce the swelling in my knee. Compared to the average American, I don't eat that much salt. I don't binge at McDonald's or other fast food places, and we avoid processed foods at home. I drink tea every day, green tea at least twice a week, which should hopefully reduce inflammation. I don't know if green tea will help my knee, but I don't think it can hurt.

At the opposite end of the green tea spectrum are potato chips. I love potato chips, even though I know they have almost no nutritional value. I think I inherited this from my mom. She would drive to another suburb to buy Yoo-Hoo potato chips. They had grease pockets in hem. Today, I had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat toast for lunch, which is fine, but I need to have something crunchy with such a soft food. Cheese and crackers go together, as do hummus and carrots.

I was at the little coffee/grocery store around the corner from my house, Seven Roasters Market & Cafe, when I saw this on the shelf.

I asked the barista if she had tried them. She winced. "They are still crunchy and greasy, but most people want salt with their crunchy stuff." She let me have a sample chip. It was okay. She was right about the crunchiness and the grease part.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I bought a bag.

Normal and Meat

Bike Time: 45 minutes 

Distance: 8.03 miles

I wish my knee could just be a normal knee. I wish I could wake up in the morning and not have to think about it, wonder if it is going to bend properly when I walk, or if I will have to make a huge effort to get it to behave. My plum is still there, unpredictably slowing the bending of my knee. Sometimes I think of it as a sponge filled with pudding--when I bend it, the pudding seeps out. Or maybe it is like a glob of wet toilet paper that needs to get mushed up before it can move through the pipe. Maybe it is like a lump of clay--the clay get through the knee and eventually bend, but the clay slows the process down.

My physical therapist last week seemed slightly concerned that my knee was still stiff. Today, he was more concerned. He looked at my knee and held is while I bent it back and forth. He could see and feel my plum as my knee bent.

"Hmmm," he said. This is not a good noise from a medical person.

"Is this normal?" I asked.

"Well, it isn't consistent for someone who can bike 45 minutes at a stretch," Evan said. "If you can bike for forty-five minutes, you should have no problem with your range of motion in other areas."

I know from past experience that no one ever wants to be an interesting patient. "This is keeping you form making forward progress. You can't start jumping and doing there stuff until this range of motion issue gets resolved." I had noticed that no new exercises had been added to my PT routine for a few weeks. I suppose this is why.

Jason, one of the other members of my PT team, came over to look at my knee again. Evan had iced my leg and wanted to show Jason what was going on.

"My leg feels like a piece of meat that just got out of the freezer," I said.

"Technically, your leg is a piece of meat," Jason said. Touche. (I thought it was funny.) They discussed my scar tissue and swelling causing me a problem.

All in all, I fell like I am getting better, but it is hard to see evidence that I am plateauing. I hope this hiccup doesn't become a bigger problem. Part of my stiffness is caused by swelling and scar tissue which are normal parts of healing. I hope the scar tissue will breakdown and this will get resolved. Jack told me sometimes people need surgery to get the scar tissue removed. Hopefully, I am not there.

Nevertheless, I want my leg to be normal again. I gave the dog a bath in the bathtub yesterday, which was a challenge without kneeling on the bathroom floor. Today, I walked to our car maintenance place to pick up our car after it's oil change. The place is about a ten minutes walk from our house, but today it took me twenty minutes. Walking down hills are hard, and our house is near the stop of a steep one. At one point going down the hill this afternoon, I stopped and checked my email on phone. I wasn't physically tired, but tired from having to be so careful with every step.

The good news is I know that this isn't just in my head. There is a physical reason why I have to think about my knee every time I sit up, sit down, or move. It doesn't hurt and it isn't uncomfortable, but I really wish it could be normal again soon.

Sweat, and Darcy v. Jamie

Bike Time: 45 minutes 

Distance: 7.5 miles (I rode at the YMCA yesterday. Different bike.)

I rode the stationary bike at the university sports center today. I rode my favorite bike, which is in the northeast corner on the fourth floor. The entire corner is made of windows, like a corner office for exercise. It the morning, there is a decent amount sun that comes in, especially on a warm, clear day like today. I was riding along and I felt a strange sensation: sweat. Not just a little of mild perspiration, but sweat dripping off the back of my neck and down my back. I though I might have broken a sweat the other day, but not really. Today was the real deal. I think this is the first time I've sweat while working out since my surgery seven weeks ago. Part of my sweating might have to do with me sitting in front of a sunny window, but I'll take it. I've exercised in front of this window before and not sweat. Normally, I could run (I mean walk at a very slow pace) an errand after exercising, but today I was officially too gross. Woohoo!

I was tired, thirsty and hungry while I was working out, which was also unusual. I always bring a water bottle with me, and I actually needed it today. After my bike ride, I did my weight work out. It was about 11:30, and I was doing my leg curls. As I was counting, I began to dream about lunch. After about 18, I started thinking "cheeseburger" instead of counting. I had half burger leftover from last night's dinner that I was going to eat for lunch today. Ah, the joy of earning your calories!

Today on the stationary bike, I was reading Curtis Sittenfeld's Eligible, a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Even with a juicy book to read, I find forty-five minutes is the max I can ride the stationary bike before boredom gets the best of me. Outside, I can ride forever. Inside, forget about it. My dad has his stationary bike set up in front of a television. As much as I hate watching television during the day, perhaps he is on to something.

Sunday morning, I finished reading Outlander.  Now, I am in the middle of this retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which brings me to the question: who is the best romantic male hero*--Darcy or Jamie? I am torn, and I never thought I would be. I have way too much time on my hands to read and ponder such important questions. Overall, I prefer Elizabeth Bennet to Claire Beauchamps. Claire is kind of grumpy, as I might be if I found myself alone and in a place 200 years before today. The men pose a different challenge. Jamie is new and interesting, the Scottish Highlander who appears to be just a regular guy who in fact is not only strong and brave but educated. In the mid-1700's, it didn't seem like there were many men who were both. In P&P, Darcy is the aloof, stubborn one who comes around to being civilized. In Outlander, Claire is the aloof, stubborn one. Jamie is like a masculine Elizabeth Bennet, which is lovely. 

I have a friend who has been divorced for a few years, and is getting back into dating. She is choosing between two men, and I thought of this comparison between Jamie and Darcy. In many ways, both Jamie and Darcy are perfect. The one major flaw they both have is they aren't human--they are fiction. Great and interesting fiction, but fiction nonetheless. It is easy to get lost amongst the pages while I am riding on the stationary bike, and think these guys might exist in the real world. I wish every woman could have her Darcy or Jamie, whichever she prefers. At best, we can read about these not real men while riding not real bikes.

* Atticus Finch is the best male literary character overall.

Spring Break and Prophet from my Future

Bike Time: 50 minutes 

Distance: 9.05 miles on interval training (i.e., not no resistance)

Today is the last day of Spring Break. I went on Facebook, which was a bad idea. I saw pictures of my friends hiking the Grand Canyon, visiting Red Rock, frolicking with dolphins in Cabo, and seeing Broadway plays in New York. I got a big case of FOMO (fear of missing out), as this is what my FB Spring Break post would look like:

Hey! Here are the great books I've read and I am reading. I've done some sewing, and shipped off a blanket to my mom. Made some napkins too using this pattern! Never mind my teenage daughter thinks making napkins is an economic waste. "Consider your hourly rate at least $15 an hour. How long does it take you to make a napkin, plus the cost of supplies and driving to the fabric store? Those napkins are $17 each and you buy one at Mrs. Cooks for $5." Who says high school kids these days don't know anything? She doesn't know my billable rate when I was at the consulting firm. If you took all of the napkins and other stuff I've sewn since my injury times my billable rate, they would cost more than I paid for the dining room table and chairs! Ha!

"Love the first 50 pages! Bitchy! but in a good way!" -- Lauren

"Steamy." -- Lauren

Yes, I am getting to the point where what used to be a hobby is now a major form of entertainment. Did I mention I have limited mobility and it is driving me nuts? My physical therapist said if I went to New York for vacation six weeks after the surgery, my knee would be mad at me. Instead, the rest of my body is mad at my knee for keeping me home. 

There was some good news. My friend Vicki from college sent me text saying she wanted to chat and she was hoping I was having a good recovery from my surgery. She lives in California, but has family in the Pacific Northwest who she visits frequently. When we connected in real time, she asked how I was doing. I took a deep breath. I feared boring her or being Debbie Downer. She seemed sincerely curious. She is an old friend, but most people who haven't been through a knee surgery think "You can walk now, right? All's good." I told her how I am working out, and I can't walk up and downstairs normally--my usual list of stuff.

She told me about her knee surgery in her thirties, which I had forgotten about. I remember her having knee trouble, and finally getting it fixed. I was probably one of those people who thought "All's good." In my thirties, I probably wasn't used to dealing with people with ailments. Now, I keep a mental register for injuries and infirmities. For example, my friend Karen's husband tore his achilles tendon, and Tanya's husband has his appendix out. Tanya was mugged in her early twenties, and the attacker stabbed her hand. She went through months of agonizing physical therapy to be able to touch her fingers to her thumb.

Vicki was now a prophet from my future. I've talked to other people who've torn their ACL, but here one of my oldest friends had gone through it, too. "I thought that I would never get better. I thought I might get stuck like this forever. But now I can dance and walk."

We talked about physical therapy. She'd go to the gym before work, ride the exercise bike for ten minutes, and then ride the bike for ten minutes afterward work. She was impressed that I was up to forty-five minutes on the bike. We talked about the differences in recovery between being in your thirties versus forties, and how it would only get worse the older we get.

My favorite part was when we talked about crossing the street, and the million micro-decisions that are made. "I can't do a mini-jog when I cross the street, so I try to walk as fast as I could so I can make before the 'walk' sign changes. But I don't want to walk so fast that I trip and fall. That would be worse," I said.

"I took my time," Vicki said. "I didn't care if cars had to wait for me." I laughed. She was right, but then I remember the time a guy in a white muscle sports car let me cross the street, not realizing there are tortoises at the zoo who move faster than me. He tried to clip me as soon he had enough room to pass me.

"You'll be better soon," she said. "Before you know it, you'll be dancing." A call from an old friend was worth a thousand FB posts.

Outlander: Biting and Sad Romance

At the end of each physical therapy session, Evan ices my leg. While my leg chills for fifteen minutes, I usually read a book. I have been reading a lot lately, as I have a lot of down time since my surgery. A few weeks ago, I ran into a friend, Theresa, at the grocery store and she recommend I read Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Theresa had previously recommend I watch "Bletchley Circle," so I took her advice.  She said Outlander was a little steamy, but I wasn't deterred. "My book club read it and all of the husbands seemed to appreciate it," Theresa laughed. "They said we should read more books like this."

I was in the middle of another book I has bought, and decided to reserve Outlander from the library. It is the first book in a long series of adventures of a time traveling English woman who leaves 1945 and visits Scotland in 1743.

Yesterday, Evan iced my leg. He wandered off to take care of his next patient, and I got out my copy of Outlander. Before I cracked it open, the woman on the bench next next me said, "Oh I love that book! Have you seen the tv show?"

Before I could answer, the physical therapist working on her chimed in, as did another patient on the exercise bike. Three of the three women in this small area had both read the book and watched the television show. These women ranged in age from late twenties to mid-forties. I didn't realize this book had such a following.

"It is like Game of Thrones for women," one of PT women offered. "They show both men and women. Game of Thrones just shows women." Interesting.

I guess that explained why I had to enter my birthday into the Starz website before I could watch the show. I had watched the first episode earlier in the week. While the book was written in 1991, the television series started last year. I entered my real birthday, not just random date that would show I was older than twenty-one. After I was the show, I thought maybe this show is just for middle age women and the website folks had to make sure I was middle-aged. I am surprised I didn't have to check my gender because this is show is chick-flick central. Sure, almost all of the main characters are men and there are lots of battle scenes that take place in the Highlands of Scotland, but this is mostly a romance.

Claire, the main character, has a husband back in England, but she meets up with the younger and much hunkier Jamie in Scotland. Gabaldon, the author, was married with three young kids living in Arizona at the time. A woman back from serving as a nurse during WWII gets to leave her boring life and face dangers and adventures in another era. She can hook up with someone else scot-free (pun intended) because her husband hasn't been born yet. The young buck thinks she is brilliant and adores her for it. This is pure cougar fantasy. Sign me up.

I am not a regular romance novel reader. The closest I get to romances are Jane Austen novels. (Next on my list of books is Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld, a modern take on Pride and Prejudice.) I am getting to the point where I am closer to the age of the mothers and aunts in these books than I am to the heroines. What is a middle-aged woman to do? It is sad when I can relate to Elizabeth Bennet's Aunt Gardiner better than I can to Elizabeth. I suppose that is why romances are so popular, and yet so difficult to read. For middle-aged women who have already been in the game and settled down, this gives us a chance to live vicariously through fictional characters. It still brings on a certain sadness to know that those days of young love are far, far behind me. I guess after I got married I was so busy having kids I didn't really think about romance. Now my kids are older and I am recovering from my knee, I have more time to ponder.

Time travel in a way dissolves age, I think this maybe one reason why Outlander reaches to out so many readers. In one sense, Jamie, the hot young Scotsman, is five years younger than Claire. In another way, he is 197 years older. Time travel smoothes out those kind of wrinkles.

Oh and the biting. This is the second book I've read during my recovery/convalescence where women have bitten men on the lower lip and drew blood during amorous times. I don't really get the lip biting thing. It seems both gross and mean. I asked Jack about this.

"Have you ever been bitten while having sex?" I asked.

"That is the strangest question someone who has ever been married for twenty years has ever been asked," he said.

"Seriously," I asked.

"Have you ever bitten me?"

"No," I said.

"Then no," he said. "I would get a canker sore or two and that would not be fun."

My Adele Nightmare

Some people have dreams of returning to high school and have to take a test they haven't studied for. I've had those kinds of dreams. They are mild nightmares--not so scary you wake up in a cold sweat or screaming until the raccoon stops attacking your leg*--but the dreams of embarrassment or stress.

My nightmare involves Adele. I dreamt the other night that I was signed up to sing an Adele song in a concert in front of a large crowd of people. Sure, I can sing to Adele while driving in the car, but

a) I don't have her voice,
b) I don't know all of the words to her songs,
c) I don't necessarily know the music to sing the right notes, and
d) even if I had b) and c), I still don't have a)

Why would anyone want to sing an Adele cover? It would be almost impossible to be as good and if even you were good, it would only invite comparison.

I am not sure why I have this dream. I don't sing well and I like Adele. My new favorite song of hers is "Water Under the Bridge" from her 25 album.

After some pondering, I figured out why this is my nightmare. (Note: The tile and theme of this blog is Rough Draft. As soon as I hit the "publish" button, I started to wonder why this was my nightmare. I couldn't settle until it was resolved.) This is my daydream gone bad. I would love to take the stage sometime and sing like Adele, even for a few minutes. I've imagined myself as a singer/songwriter like Sheryl Crow, carrying my guitar around coffee shops and small towns in the Pacific Northwest writing and singing. Maybe in my next life...

While I am on the topic of Adele, here is a really sweet video from the BBC where she goes undercover meets a bunch of Adele impersonators.

* I was listening to NPR a few years ago and there was a story of a woman being attacked by an animal. I caught the story in the middle, and was waiting to hear which vicious beast had damaged her leg. It was a raccoon. Seriously. I didn't realize they were so nasty. We used to have a few of them walk through our yard in the spring and eat the cherries off of our trees. The crows were our raccoon alarm as the birds would go berserk when the raccoons arrived.

The Psychological Bogeyman

Like me, the Boy loves movies. In the past few days, we have watched The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking and Whiplash, a movie about a jazz student who get abused by his teacher. Last month, we watched Pawn Sacrifice about Bobby Fischer who was flat out crazy. I ordered The Time Travelers Wife from Netflix, and the Boy joined me in watching it a few weeks ago. The man would travel in time, and get dumped in an unfamiliar spot naked. He had steal clothes, food and try to survive in an often inhospitable world. We also saw The Right Stuff based on the Tom Wolfe book about the Mercury astronauts. Next up: Birdman, the movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2015.

What is up with the Boy liking these movies with psychologically tortured souls?* Stephen Hawking was plagued by a disease that left him unable to move. The Mercury pilots, while not certifiably insane, were the pioneers of the space age and were kind of crazy to volunteer to get strapped to a rocket and get flung into outer space. Bobby Fischer was a tortured genius.

The Boy is twelve going on thirteen. Could it be that instead of watching horror stories, these movies have the same effect of allowing him to manage his fears about the world? Instead of Freddy Kreuger, could it be that the Boy prefers the psychological bogeyman? Instead of watching teens being chased by a man with a chainsaw, the Boy prefers watching people struggle with their inner demons?

When I was his age, I was an Alfred Hitchcock fan. My favorite was Rear Window, which I showed the Boy. I loved mysteries and movies with problems to solve. The Boy likes the BBC's Sherlock, which is both about a crazy person (Sherlock) and mysteries to be solved.

Now, I find these psychologically themed movies a challenge to watch. I almost could not bear to watch the end of Whiplash. I had to leave the room because I could not stand to watch this young man get abused by his teacher. Why did it make me so uncomfortable but my son could stand it? Perhaps as an adult, I have seen abuse in action, and those stories rarely have a happy ending. Perhaps this is a safe distance for my son to see abuse, and then create a map in his mind of how to solve those problems in the future. Or perhaps, the Boy is like I was, finding these characters interesting, but only seeing them from a safe distance. As I've grown, I've seen crazy close up. While I don't think movies make insanity look glamorous, it is much messier when you are living with it than seeing it on a screen for a few hours. Most people plagued by insanity aren't international chess champions like Bobby Fischer.

As I've watched my mother decline with Alzheimer's, my biggest fear is losing my mind. While it completely sucks to have a bad knee, it would be far worse to have a damaged brain, whether with memory loss or forms of mental illness, like depression or schizophrenia. I know what I could do to fix a bad knee--physical therapy and surgery--but a mental or neurological disorder would be harder to fix, and far more messy. Yet, we are bodies and souls. We need a healthy body to help keep the mind in shape, and vice versa.

Perhaps I will begin to embrace my son's interest in the psychological bogeyman. Perhaps I too need to create maps of how to get out of potential messes.

* In fairness, the Boy also loves Parks and Rec and Dr. Who. He isn't only interested in movies about the inner life. He does like comedy and sci-fi.

Canoeing, Golfing and Bowling, or Out and About

Bike Time: 45 minutes 

Distance: 7.75 miles

I ran into a dad from the Boy's soccer team today at the grocery store. A big smile came across his face when he saw me.

"Wow! No crutches or brace!" he said. He was genuinely happy to see me out and about without assistance.

"Yeah, I am still slow, though," I said, sounding like giant wet blanket, extinguishing his enthusiasm. What is wrong with me? I should let this guy be happy for me. But I am slow. My son showed me a video posted on YouTube where a boat crashes into a dock in San Diego. At the 17 second mark, there is an elderly woman in red who can't walk fast and the boat is approaching. (Spoiler: She does not get hurt, at least as far I can I tell.) I feel like this lady on a daily basis. If a boat crashes into a pier where I am walking or zombies attack, I'll be one of the first gone.

I know it is a big deal to be able to walk, and I am glad that I can. So why I am not as thrilled as everyone else is that I am hobbling around? Maybe I am a giant whiner, but I would like to think this is not the case. The point of my physical therapy is to get me back to sports, not just walk down the street. I've heard the NFL has a policy that players with repaired ACL's have to wait twelve months before they can return to play. There is a Cubs player who just tore his ACL and he'll be out for the entire season. Are these guys "happy" when they can walk again when they still have eight to eleven months of further rehab in front of them? Meh. In this case, the glass is about an eighth full--something is better than nothing. And yet... Walking is good, but it isn't sufficient.

What do canoeing, golfing and bowling have in common? These are the things my family is doing during our stay-cation Spring Break that I can't do yet because of my knee. Argh. You can drink while doing all three of these activities and yet, I can't manage to do them sober. I can't get in and out of a canoe, I can't swing a golf club and I can't bend my legs enough to bowl. It is really a bummer to think that people can bowl after downing a pitcher of beer and I can't do the little mini-jog to the line before releasing the ball. On another happy note, these three activities can easily be enjoyed by people over the age of seventy. How many senior citizens do you know who don't golf, bowl, or canoe? Or if they don't, they could if they wanted to? These activities could be done by drunk senior citizens, but not me. (Note: This is not meant to insult seniors or drunk people. I have many good friends and family members who are seniors, and I hope to someday join their ranks.)

The sports medicine people and the surgeons list the things you can't do without an ACL: skiing, tennis, soccer, and basketball. I kind of don't buy it that the list of thing someone can't do without an ACL would be so short. Surely, we did not evolve with an ACL just to do these four sports. Is it reasonable to say I want to get better so I can bowl? No. I want to get better so I can go out and about with my family when they are out and about. And I have an "out and about" family. (See previous posts about my family's out-and-about-ness here and here.) Bowling, canoeing and golfing are lame compared to zip-lining, mountain biking and white water rafting, which were activities in one vacation.

In the good news department, I spent forty-five minutes on the stationary bike the today. Yay! This is a milestone for my endurance, but I am not sure I am going to tell my physical therapist just yet. (I am actually horrible at keeping minor secrets.) Once I can ride for forty-five minutes, that means I (or they) can start cranking up the resistance on the bike and my strength training phase starts to kick in, which, honestly, I am not looking forward to. I will look forward to the "return to yoga" or "take a barre class" phase, but weight training has never been my thing. I want to gain a little more confidence with the endurance phase before I start increasing the resistance on the bike. I feel fine while I am riding (and could go even longer perhaps), but afterwards my knee isn't too happy with me.  That seems to be the theme of physical therapy so far--I work hard, and feel tired afterwards. This is a pooped out tired, not a "that forty mile bike ride was great" tired. I am always at the edge of trying harder and harder. And when I get good at something, then it changes and I have to do something new and harder. And I have to do this hard work before I can return to easy stuff, like golf, bowling and canoeing.

The Mom Gene

When does the Mom Gene kick in? I think there is an equivalent Dad Gene. These genes come into full flourish when you have kids, and peek when you have teenagers. These genes are essentially common sense.

We are discussing where to go on future vacations, and Thailand is on the list as Jack has family there. We were looking at a book called A Day in the Life of Thailand. In this book, there was a photo of man getting a tattoo and writhing in pain. Claire Adele said, "When we go to Thailand I can get a tattoo!"

"No way," I said.

"Why not?" said she.

"Hepa-fucking-titis," said I.

"Oh," said Claire Adele.

Jack came back from walking Fox and we told him of Claire Adele's idea.

"You'll get HIV," he said without blinking. It isn't just me with the hyper-vigilance. I bet anyone over the age of 35 would have a similar response.

When does this gene kick in, the gene that sees potential problems in almost any idea? One could say that teenagers have a greater thrill seeking sense, and don't see potential dangers. This is normal for teenagers, but is it also normal for adults to go through a similar overprotective phase, and why isn't is discussed as a phase? Is it because we are an adult-normative society and adults get to write articles and books about challenging teenage behavior? What if we lived in a society ruled by teens? Would this parental common sense be mocked? What will happen in 20 or 40 years? Will this caution get better or worse? When I am 80, will I say, "Sure get a tattoo in Thailand! How many people really have died or gotten sick from a bad needle? Just how bad is HIV or Hep-C? Aren't there decent medications for that now?" Or will it be worse, seeing fear in places where it might not exist? "Don't go to Thailand because you might get mugged! Don't go downtown because you might get mugged! Don't leave the house because you might get mugged!"

Back in my college economics courses, we would draw optimization charts, where two curves with two sets of data would meet. Where is the optimization chart that defines the age that best maximized risk versus caution?  Here is my best guess and sad attempt at an optimization graph for risk versus caution. I would actually move the sweet spot to age 25, maybe 30.

Bath & Shower, and Stephen Hawking

I took a bath today for the first time since my surgery. I am six weeks post-op and finally allowed to submerge my knee without risk of infection. Yay! Right after my skiing accident, I took a bath almost everyday. I don't know if the warm water helped or hurt my left knee, but the rest of me felt better afterwards. Independent of my knee, the rest of my body, especially my right leg, liked a nice soak in a bath with salts.

Today, I poured in the last of a bag of lavender bath salt into the tub. I also mixed in some bubble bath from Lush. Normally, I make a trip downtown on the bus in December to the Lush store at the Westlake Center, but this year I didn't. I am not quite ready to take a bus trip downtown, so I ordered my usual Lush favorites online. (My biggest fear of going downtown is crossing the street and running out of "Walk" time before I make it to the other side. I also fear tripping, as when I cross the street I am loving as fast as I can. I get a little wobbly when I walk fast, which isn't good.)

After I sat in the lavender salt for about fifteen minutes, I added the bubble bath. We have a spa bath tub, so I turned on the jets which makes the bubbles grow rapidly.  I let the bubbles fill to the top of the tub. A toddler would have gotten lost in my bubble filled tub, and our dog Fox would have been buried. I loved it.

One of the issues I have now is when and how often I should bathe. Pre-skiing accident, I would take a shower in the morning like most people. Now, I get up, eat and work out. Should I shower before or after I work out? Normally, I would shower after, but then I like to run errands after my workout, and I want to be not smelly. Somedays, I shower too much. Other days, not enough. I hope it all evens out in the end.

Last night, the Boy, Jack and I watched The Theory of Everything about Stephen Hawking, the cosmologist who suffered from ALS, also known as Lou Gerhig's disease. His mind was left untouched, but his body has failed him since he was in his twenties. This puts my temporary disability into perspective.

Distraction

I am having to ride the stationary bike as part of my recovery. I have three options for riding. My favorites are, in order:

1. The University athletic center with the view of Lake Washington.
2. The YMCA. Today's view included watching someone across the street clean their bong on their front porch. (Welcome to a state with legalized marijuana!)
3. In my dining room staring at the neutral colored wall.

Given how much I need to ride, how pleasant I find the experience of riding makes such as difference in how much I do it. The bike in my dining room doesn't have a device to measure RPMs or estimate distance.

Unlike riding on a stationary bike, riding on the road is rarely dull. Even riding through the corn fields of northern Illinois, which I have done numerous times, the scenery always changes. There is the challenge of looking at the road to avoid bumps, holes, grates or broken glass, as well as looking out for traffic. There are none of these distractions on a stationary bike.

To make the stationary bike palatable, there needs to be an easy distraction. At the IMA, there is a view. At the YMCA, I can read a book. My dad watches movies on his bike in the basement. Without some kind of a distraction, stationary bike is deathly boring.

The upside of riding the stationary bike is that I can ride it any kind of weather -- rain, snow, sleet or hail--without needing any kind of special gear or clothing. Perhaps today I am grumpy on the stationary bike as it was sunny and eighty degrees in the middle of the afternoon. When I went to the YMCA's cardio room around three, there was one other person there. Never have I seen so few people there. In the morning at the IMA, there were people on the weight machines and people riding the ellipticals. A few people were running laps.

Why are you running inside on this beautiful day? I wanted to yell. Do you have a disease where you are allergic to sunshine and warm weather? 

I should be more patient and empathetic with these indoor exercise folks, especially since I am one of them. Maybe they don't own a bike, which would be even worse.

I was at my favorite neighborhood pho place, Bol,* for lunch, and the waitress asked if I had plans to be outside today. Grrrr, I thought. I might look normal--which is good--but I can't walk that far or bike outside. I am debating whether or not I can make it a half a block to the Whole Foods from here after lunch. 

Of course, I was being a jerk inside of my head. This was a perfectly normal and friendly thing to ask, and I should tone down my inner hostility. The more I thought about it, I probably would stay close to inside today even if I could walk or bike. I went out for pho--rice noodle soup--to tame my other affliction: seasonal allergies. Maybe that is why there are so many indoor exercisers today. They  might not be avoiding sunshine but pollen, as the Seattle Times discussed today.


* This place is super cute and reasonably priced.

Standing Still and Work

Yesterday, I was at physical therapy. Part of my home exercise program (aka HEP) is to do three sets of standing on injured/recovering leg for one minute. Evan had me to this yesterday in therapy. I asked how I should hold my good leg.

"How about up at ninety degrees?" he suggested.

"Okay," I said. I did as told, no problem.

When the timer rang, he said, "That was too easy. Put your good leg out and then move it back and forth, but slowly, and then hold it in position for a few seconds before you move it back. When you stretch your leg back, bend your torso so it is even with your leg."

Okay, fine. This was harder than I thought it would be. I was sloppy, but could get through it.

The thing that stuck with me was the "too easy" part. Can't something in this process be too easy? There are million of things I can't do yet. Can't I celebrate and slack with maybe the handful of things I can actually nail?

I thought about standing still. As you may have figured out by now, I am a balletophile. Dance was my "sport" growing up. One of the very first things you learn in ballet is how to stand still. Why? There are many times where lots of dancers are on stage and only a few (or one) are moving. Here is one of my favorite pieces of classical ballet, the pas de quatre from Swan Lake.  Notice the four dancers moving in perfect unison. It is brilliant. Now notice the two dozen dancers standing perfectly still on the sides of the stage. They are are doing a great job of standing still for more than a minute and a half. You can't see them in every shot of the video, but in a live performance, they flank the stage and don't move while there are solos, pas de deuxs, etc.

I am good at standing still. Ta da! Yet, there is much more work to be done in building my endurance and strength. Let me emphasize work. I am almost six weeks post-surgery and I have a new perspective. I remember once before my surgery, I was in the Sports Medicine Clinic waiting room and a woman struck up a conversation with me. She was older, probably in her sixties. She was going to need a second surgery on her knee because she didn't do physical therapy after the first surgery. I wonder if the clinic paid her to sit there and tell people that. She was the cautionary tale of what happens when you don't do your PT.

I thought I would enjoy PT as a way to get back into shape after the surgery. I enjoy exercising, even if I hadn't made it a high level priority before my skiing accident. At the very least, I walked my dog two or three times a day. I remembered my Grandma Jennings would walk with her friend Inga every day and that was her exercise. (Those women were fast walkers and talked as they clipped along.*) I figured walking Fox was at least as good as the exercise my grandmother got. A neighbor of mine got spinal cancer a dozen years ago and her doctor told her to get a dog so she would walk an hour a day. She did. Her cancer went away and Mittens is a fixture in our neighborhood.

One of my goals is to walk my dog again. I didn't realize what a low-bar goal this was. I walked my dog the other night, but I still can't walk up or downstairs properly. This bring me back to physical therapy. I had thought PT would help me progress faster and more efficiently. I thought there would be natural healing, and the PT would supplement it.

Now I get the sense that that notion was wrong. While there is natural healing of my knee, the PT is a necessary step to regaining my functionality. While I am choosing to go to PT and am working on my home exercises, PT isn't a choice. I have to do it if I want to walk up and downstairs again like I used to.


* When I would visit my grandmother, I would occasionally join my grandmother and Inga in their walk. I remember the last time I walked with them a few weeks before my grandmother died. "If you ever need to get a divorce, get a good lawyer," my grandmother said.

"Get one of those lady lawyers," Inga said. "They work so hard." Her niece had divorced a partner in the accounting firm where I used to work. According to Inga, he made an obscene amount of money. I guess this lady lawyer made sure Inga's neice and her family were well taken care of.

Scar Tissue and 10

Dr. Tex, my surgeon, and Evan, my physical therapist, are both on the same page when it comes to the scar tissue in my knee: the scar tissue needs to go. Under each incision, there were portals where Dr. Tex used his arthroscopic tools to place my new ACL. These portals will turn to scar tissue, and if that tissue isn't softened, it will limit my mobility in the long-term. Dr. Tex told me to massage my incisions to soften the tissue.

Evan has a more rigorous approach. I should have learned by now that for each of my post-op physical therapy appointments, a good five minutes is dedicated to knocking out this scar tissue. Normally, I don't pay close attention to the intention of what he is doing when he works on my knee. I know in general he might be working on my extension or flexion, but I finally figured out the scar tissue thing, and I need to start preparing better for it.

Evan and I started on a conversation last Friday about pain. He brought it up as my right leg squirmed and squeamed as he "massaged" my scar tissue. Here, the term "massage" means use a tool and grate on the incisions. In addition to hurting the muscles, it is a royal bitch on the outer layer of flesh. This is not fun.

"I am a pretty good judge of how much pain someone is in," he said as my right foot approached his forehead in an effort to distract myself from the pain. "I can tell when someone is drug seeking. They come in sitting with a straight face and tell me their pain is a level ten. When I ask them what's going on, instead of telling me about their injury, they tell me of their history of pain meds."

Over the weekend, I was thinking about what a ten level of pain might be. Everyone associates childbirth, third degree burns and kidney stones with level ten pain. I thought of the hospital scene in Gone with the Wind where the solider needs his leg amputated. I was traumatized by this scene when I saw on television when I was a kid. I had to leave the room, but I could still hear him screaming. I know that was the reality of war in that time. On the pain scale, I bet getting a leg removed by hatchet without anesthesia would be a ten on the pain scale. I can think of little that would be worse.

While the my scar tissue "massage" is extremely uncomfortable, I can reasonably tolerate it. Maybe it is a four or five on the pain scale, but it is only for a few minutes, and not worth needing a higher level of drug. Now that I know this is on the agenda every day since my incisions sealed up, I should take a large dose of ibuprofen before I go to PT. I don't need oxycodone, but a little over-the-counter stuff should help a bit.

Bath, Hunger and Diet

Last night, I took a bath. I love baths. I love adding various kinds of salts and bubbles to baths, too. I am a big fan of the Lush bath bombs. After my skiing accident, I took a warm bath almost every day. Now, I am not supposed to take a bath before six weeks after the surgery. The medical team wants to make sure my incisions have sufficiently closed up and water can't leak into my knee and cause an infection. I can shower, but they don't want the leg submerged. I put only a few inches of water in the tub, and bent my left leg so it wouldn't be underwater. It wasn't quite the same as a full bath, but it was good enough. I am looking forward Friday when I can take a regular bath. I'll have to clean the tub first, or get someone in my house to do it. (See previous post.)

I had physical therapy this morning, and afterwards I did one of my daily workouts. After working on my knee for a total of ninety minutes, I was starving. I ate a decent breakfast, but I was as hungry as I might be after doing a long hike. I can't be burning that many calories doing squats and riding a stationary bike. Evan talks about the extra metabolism in my leg that is occurring while I am healing, but I am not sure that equates to wanting to eat so much.

I think my weight has stabilized, but I am not sure since I haven't stepped on a scale, nor do I want to. (I think I gained about fifteen pounds since my skiing accident.) I am not sure how much fluid in my knee would add to my weight. It probably isn't a significant amount, and the addition of fluid is probably offset by the atrophy of my left thigh which is now two cm smaller than my right thigh.

I could go on a diet, but I am not sure a major reduction in calorie intake would be healthy at this point. I had friends who have had lost significant weight by cutting out certain foods in their diet. One friend lost 35 pounds by eliminating all sugar from her diet. I had another friend who lost weight though diet and exercise--and not drinking alcohol. She looks like a smaller person.

I am not sure what I can cut of my diet. I don't eat much sugar and I drink maybe once a week, if that much. Potato chips? Fries? Lunch?

Clothes, Cleaning and the Bike

Bike Time: 20 minutes    x 2

Distance: more than 6 miles* total

Clothes
Now that I am out of the brace, I can go back to normal clothes. Hurray?

I am still wearing my old yoga pants that I can pull up over my knee. I need to wear baggy pants to so I can fit the cryo-cuff ice pack on my knee under my pants. I exercise four times a day, and twice a week I got to physical therapy, so it is easier just to wear my old yoga pants all of the time. I usually squeeze a trip to the gym around running errands so I have one less trip up and down my stairs.

Spring is here in the Pacific Northwest and we had a warm weekend. In the spring and summer, I love to wear skirts. I haven't returned to my usual state of personal hygiene and waxing my legs. In addition to hairy legs (which I could fix), I have the scars and swelling of my Frankenleg (which I cannot fix.) This weekend, we took the kids out to dinner and I wore a skirt anyway.

Cleaning
I haven't done much cleaning beyond the absolute necessary--like dishes and laundry--since the accident. The cooktop is gross, the cabinets are covered with fingerprints, and I found this the back of the bottom shelf of my pantry. I saw one of the roots and thought What is this? and then I pulled it out.

Fingerling potatoes, past date. They kind of look like a bouquet of something with the purple bag.

Bike
I am supposed to ride the stationary bike three times a day. It is somewhat easy to get out of the house twice, but the third time is a challenge. Jack put my road bike on a stand in the dining room. The Boy seems to like riding the bike in the dining room. Yesterday, he sat on it while he ate.

The boy refused to let me post a picture of him riding this. I wanted my dog Fox in the picture, but he is rightfully afraid of the bike, especially when someone is riding it. Now that I think about it, I am glad he is afraid of the bike.

For the Boy, the bike in the house is novel. When I ride the bike in the house, time slows to a post-Einsteinian realm otherwise not known to man. Below is the view from the bike. It makes the view of the three beige houses across the street from the YMCA seem divine. I timed my ten minutes on my watch. It stopped when I had completed nine minutes. It wouldn't move forward to ten minutes, so I had to ride the bike for what seemed like infinity. Time moved slower than Christmas Eve for a five year old. I finally quit at nine minutes. I could have literally died of boredom.

I could put a picture on this wall, but still...

* Distance on a stationary bike doesn't mean much.

Good to Know

I had my six week post-op appointment with my surgeon today. Evan, my physical therapist, had warned me that Dr. Tex might be hard on me. My scar tissue is kind of thick, and Evan expects Dr. Tex to tell me to work harder on breaking it down. (I am supposed to break the scar tissue down by rubbing on it.)

Dr. Tex gave the plan for the next few months. In the next few months, I'll be focusing on rebuilding my leg muscles. The knee is a dumb joint (so I've heard it called) and it needs the muscles around it to make it function. (I suppose this is true for all joints.) Next on the agenda is building up my endurance, and then my strength. I will have to ride the stationary bike for forty-five minutes with no resistance. After that, I will increase the resistance and begin interval training. Once I get my endurance up, I'll start building strength in my legs, where my surgeon Tex said I will life weights to the "point of failure." Hmmm.  Not sure I like that term, but I see where this is going.

I told Dr. Tex about my plum, or the bolus of fluid that makes it hard for me to bend my knee.

"The kneecap isn't tracking properly yet," he said.

Huh? I thought.

"All four of your quadricep muscles aren't working yet, and the muscles work together to move your kneecap. If they aren't all working together, your kneecap won't slide properly. This will take a while to get it back."

Good to know, I thought.

"Your knee will be sore for a few months," he said. "You'll need to keep icing it. Icing is low hanging fruit for making it feel better."

Good to know, I thought.

I was glad he told me my knee will be stiff and sore for the next few months. I am not thrilled about it, but it was good information to have. At times, I wonder if this stiffness is because I am overdoing the walking or standing, or perhaps undergoing the exercise and sitting too much. Now I know this is part of the deal, and I won't have to waste time trying to figure what's wrong. I was also glad to hear I should keep icing it. At times, it feels like I should be better than I am. It is good to know that I am on the normal track for recovery, and that track doesn't move rapidly.

It was good to get Dr. Tex's 30,000 foot perspective, as we would say in the consulting business. Evan is more focused on the day-to-day grind of my recovery and pushing me along. His job is at the other end of the range--the micro level: improving my gait and making sure I can do the millions of things people can do with a well functioning knee. His job is keep me in the present, do my exercises and make me come back twice a week. He needs to keep me closer to earth to get there.

Shifting and Peeing (Not at the Same Time)

I learned how to drive on a manual transmission car. I remember my dad patiently waiting for me to get the car into gear while I was trying to make a left turn in the middle of a busy intersection during rush hour. I had to sit through two cycles of the light before I could make the turn. The cars behind me were honking furiously, which did not help. I remember my dad teaching me how to drive up hills, stop at the top, and then start again without rolling back. I remember the lag between shifting gears, the car would slow for a second or two while the clutch was pressed down. The car would speed up as the gears engaged.

This lag that occurs when shifting reminds me of the phase I am in now for my recovery. Three weeks after the surgery, I did my ninety leg lifts to get out of the brace. That didn't mean I was instantly out of the brace forever--it meant I could go without the brace as tolerated. I would walk around the house without the brace, unless I was cooking. My leg would get too tired to hop around the kitchen when I was making muffins and cooking sausage for breakfast. I would wear the brace out of the house, especially when going down stairs. At the ballet last weekend, I didn't wear it at all, but I had the crutch to ward off evil spirits and people moving faster than me (which is everyone.)

This week, my physical therapist told me I needed to wean myself off the brace.

"It is becoming more work for you to wear the brace than not to wear it," Evan said. That was my cue to drop it altogether. 

Before I had the surgery, I thought it would be a glorious day when I was no longer wearing the brace. Not so. I am in the lag between shifting gears where I am going slower than I was before. I could move faster with the brace and/or the crutch than I can without them. 

I needed to get out of the brace eventually. When I needed it, I didn't mind that it was bulky, uncomfortable, and would slide down my leg with the hinge away from my knee. I was happy to have the extra strength and stability so I could get out and about. The less I needed it, the more I hated wearing it.

Moving slowly has one major liability for a middle aged woman like me. My bladder seems to have a shorter time between when it tells me I might need to pee and when I actually need to pee. I rarely get little hints from it, warning me it is full and should be emptied. Or, something has happened to my body where these signals are drowned or canceled out by other systems in my body.  Whatever the case, I often finding myself needing to pee right now. Before, I could hop and pee right away. Now, I have to take my time standing, hobble to the bathroom, which is now much harder to do while I suck my gut in to give my bladder room to expand. I pray I don't pee my pants, or pee on the bed or couch. I am not a guy so I can't pee standing up, and navigating sitting down takes a few precious seconds where I hope my leg will bend enough for me to sit. Otherwise, I kind of pee standing up, which means I am peeing before I fully sit down.

Every problem becomes goal. Sitting quickly is a good goal.

Another day...

I was talking to my friend who damaged her ACL but didn't completely tear it. She is debating whether or not to have her ACL surgically repaired. Her situation with a partially torn ACL is more complicated than mine was. For a fully torn ACL, the doctors say people can live without an ACL and surgery isn't necessary unless you want to return to cutting and turning sports like tennis, basketball, skiing or soccer; or if there is excessive or uncomfortable instability. The answer about whether or not to have surgery with a partially torn ACL is even more vague; hence, she struggles with the decision.

She read my blog and said it made her scared about the surgery.

"Why?" I asked. I was a little nervous. I hope I didn't portray the recovery from surgery as being that bad.

"It is the day-in, day-out of it," she said.

She is right. I don't get a vacation or day off from physical therapy. I don't do the physical therapy to be obedient so I can get a gold star from my physical therapist. There are no gold stars in PT--just a new list of exercises and goals (which can be a little disheartening, to tell the truth.) I think about my knee a lot, especially when I leave the house or sit for a long time. Working out and doing the exercises make me feel better and increases my functionality.

While it is hard, it isn't terribly terrible. I am uncomfortable, but not in pain. The discomfort I do have can be managed with icing my knee, elevating it and taking ibuprofen.

In my last post, I outlined all of the things I couldn't do that I wish I could. The operative part of that sentence is "wish I could." Everything I can't do becomes a goal. While there is frustration, I have a sense of accomplishment when I reach a milestone. There are other things that aren't so bad:

• We've spent significantly less money in the month surrounding the surgery. I think we only spent money on the mortgage, utilities and groceries. Notice I didn't say "food." We rarely ate out during this time. Jack was kind enough to cook as I didn't want salty restaurant food to increase my swelling. I am surprised American Express didn't call to see if I was in the hospital. "Why yes I am!" I would have replied.
• The kids talk to me while I am doing my home physical therapy exercises. I am a captive audience and I don't say much while I am doing my leg lifts.
• I don't have to take out the garbage, compost, yard waste and recycling. You've seen pictures of my stairs. Now imagine schlepping garbage and recycling down these bad boys. 
• I have quality bonding time with my dog.
• Another patient at PT was impressed with my cycling skills. He said he wished he could bike like me. I was where he is now just a few weeks ago.
• I am on a first name basis with half of the staff at the University YMCA.
• I have a nice view where I ride the stationary bike from the university sports center.