Out and About

I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it.

It is a beautiful day and I was deciding which car to drive to workout: the SUV or the sedan? Should I go to the Y or the university athletic center?

I couldn't do it.

Last week, I talked to my friend Daphne who had ACL surgery one and a half weeks before me. We talked about how we were doing, said we each looked great, etc. We compared stories on our recoveries.

"I went on a twenty mile bike ride a few weeks ago. You know, the trail that goes around Lake Washington..."

"My surgeon was fine with me riding bike, but my physical therapist said no. I should ask him again," I said.

"My surgeon and PT were the same," she said. "My surgeon was like 'Do anything!' and my PT was 'Hmmmm...'" I knew the feeling. "I am out of PT!" she continued. "I've graduated!"

I groaned. I like Daphne and all, but it is hard to see someone skate by you, both literally and metaphorically. She probably can roller blade, ice skate, and whatever. I was given leave of my brace and crutches three weeks after surgery, which is fast. She got out of hers in less than two weeks, which is almost crazy for someone who isn't a professional athlete. I wasn't able to flex my quad properly for a long stretch and go down stairs properly, which is slow. Healing isn't a linear business.

I thought about Daphne's twenty mile bike ride. It was sunny and seventy degrees outside. I couldn't ride indoors today. I could not ride on a stationary bike. I put on my bike shorts, helmet and gloves. I couldn't find my fanny pack, so I wore my bike jacket with pockets. I did abide my Evan's request that not to ride on streets or on hills, but I had to ride on the Burke Gilman Trail. There really isn't any other spot.

My tires were a little flat, but not terribly so. I walked my bike down to the bottom of the hill. Our hill has a fifteen percent grade, so there was no way I was going to ride down that bad boy. There is a sidewalk perpendicular to my street at the bottom of the hill. I decided to practice on the sidewalk  before I took to the road.

I put my good leg on the pedal and tried to push, but I couldn't. You know that old expression, "It is like riding a bike," meaning it is something you can't forget?

I forgot. I've ridden my bike thousands and thousands of miles in the past forty years, and I couldn't ride on the sidewalk at the bottom of my hill. I couldn't get the coordination of both legs going. Mainly, I was afraid to take my post-op leg and put it on a pedal. I wasn't so much afraid of riding, but stopping. I would have to put my feet down. On the stationary bike, I stop pedaling and get off the bike. Here, I have to get off the bike while I am no longer pedaling. I was flummoxed. This was sad. Now I know how my mother with Alzheimer's must feel all of the time.

As I tried to get on the bike, it would roll backwards. I realized I was pointing uphill, and that was why I couldn't get going. This sidewalk was uphill, but it looked flat compared to my super steep street perpendicular to it. There is a name for this type of street: a false flat. I decided to walk my bike past three houses, and then ride downhill. It worked. I let the bike roll downhill, and kind of pedaled. As soon as I would move, I would practice stopping. It worked. I did this a few more times, and then walked my bike down to the Burke.

My heart was racing from nerves, not exertion. I was sweating from wearing my jacket, but I was going too slow to have real sweat. I rode to the south end of the UW campus, and then turned around. I didn't want to go too far--I needed to make it home.

Views at the end of my ride.

My ride was 1.9 miles each way, which is less than I usually ride at the Y or at the university gym. I couldn't read while riding, but I felt so much more alive. I get bored riding the stationary bike unless I have a good book to read, yet I never get bored riding my bike in the real world. I don't see how kids love playing video games inside in a dark basement when the real world is so much more awake. Are you playing Wii golf? How about going to a real golfing range and hitting a bucket of balls instead?

I can't remember the last time I rode my bike. Unlike many before and afters that pertain to accidents and traumas, this one I couldn't place. At the time, I had no idea it would be my last ride for months.
When I got to south campus, it had changed considerably since the last time I rode there. The light rail was open, and the new bike lanes to the station were there.

Depending on the weather (and how early I wake up), I'll probably ride to physical therapy tomorrow.

Work or Play?

Yesterday was the four month anniversary since my ACL surgery. It was another beautiful early summer day. The June gloom has passed, and my front yard garden was horribly overgrown. The ivy was covering one side of our monster stairs, and a weeping willow type plant was flowing down on the other side. The branches grazed my head as I went down the stairs everyday, and I am the shortest person in my family. I was worried the mailman would stopped delivering our mail because of the hassle. I was surprised no one else in my family complained, but they don't need to clutch the handrail for dear life as they go up and down the stairs like me.

I got out the loppers and hit the steps. I trimmed the ivy and the willow, and swept the seventeen steps on the concrete shoot that serves as the entrance and egress to our home. After that, I deadheaded my rose bushes, and further trimmed the ivy off the front of our concrete wall. (In some parts of the world, people like ivy. In Seattle, it is considered a noxious weed as it crowds out native plants.)

I wondered what my physical therapy team would think of my hobbling up and down the steps with a broom and dustpan. Would they be like, "Way to go, Lauren!" or "WTF? Why are you trying to trim plants on those deadly steps? Why don't you go skiing, play tennis or kick a soccer ball while you are at it? Where are the other three able bodied people in your family. Can't they do it?"

I thought about Carl, the carpenter who works on my house. He tore his patellar tendon while walking down the street. He was laid up and couldn't work for six months. This past week, I spent three days painting the Boy's bedroom and Lego room. Does this count as work? Should I be benched, or should I do as much as I think I can do? I am not painting for a living, so does it count as work, or play? I am not climbing ladders to paint, and I could stop if I got tired or got achy.

I survived painting and gardening. My back was sore after painting, but so was Anita's. Anita is the college student who helps us, and she is in her early twenties. If her back hurt, no doubt mine would, too.

Even though I survived, I wondered beforehand if I would. I long for the day when I can do whatever I want without needing to think about it.

Brexit and The End of the World

Yesterday morning, I didn't read the newspaper when I was eating breakfast. I didn't know the outcome of the Brexit vote until I was checking my investments and saw this sign. It was not subtle.

OMG, I thought. This is not going to be good news. Normally, the Vanguard website has a picture of a happy couple drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Last summer, the stock market took a major dip, and Vanguard usually says stuff like "This is a market correction. No worries. Stick to your plan and hold. The market will rebound," etc.

This time, Vanguard admitted there might be problem, such as increased uncertainty which will cause greater volatility in the market. (Here's the link to what they said.) They didn't say this, but volatility can be good. Back in the days when I did compensation consulting, we used the Black-Scholes Model for evaluating stock options. (Please keep reading--it will only be boring for a few more sentences.) Options are worth more when a stock had a more volatile history as measured by the amount a stock price fluctuated. The more it goes up and down, the greater the chance to buy low, sell high and then pocket a nice profit. Steady and stable stocks were worth less because they were less like to have dramatic increases in price.

The downside of volatility is when you need to sell a stock or fund to pay for your daughter to go to college, and the market tanks before her tuition is due. Or that it really might not be volatility, but the actual final cratering signifying the end of the world.

I read a nice summary of the Brexit mentality by John Cassidy in The New Yorker. (You can tell where he stands by the photograph of Nigel Farage looking like dressy Homer Simpson.) One of his points (Cassidy's, not Simpson's) is that globalization has helped some people and hurt others. Just because the people who support xenophobic, racist, and sexist leaders, those who have lost out due to globalization have real grievances.

It seems as if the U.S. and other parts of other relatively stable First World are going through some political rubbing of our tectonic plates which could lead to upheaval. I am waiting for the day when I click on the Vanguard site when the market slides down to read:

Greetings valued investor! The world is coming to an end. We give up.

• Take all of your money out of the market and invest in canned goods, bike tires and duct tape.
• Consider installing solar panels on your home for when the grid crashes. Collect rain water in rain barrels for showering and flushing your toilet. Consider purchasing a water purifier that does not run on electricity. 
• What plants grow well in your region? Consider growing root vegetables like potatoes or onions. Live in a warmer climate? Grow tomatoes and can them for easy meals in the winter. Many urban areas allow you to raise chickens, and eggs are an excellent source of protein, as are squirrels.
• Click here to find out ways to turn old clothes into quilts and make those jeans last for another ten years. 
• Do you have good skills like making furniture, chopping down trees or trapping squirrels? Barter is a great way to get what you need from your neighbors.
• Pillaging? Don't forget your local library! Your e-reader likely be out of commission. Abe Lincoln did fine reading Shakespeare and the Bible when he was growing up.
• Live in a dense urban area? Consider relocating to a place with arable land. Pennsylvania, Iowa and New Zealand are excellent choices.
• Click here to find ways to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer when the grid crashes. 
• Are you on a daily medication? Consider purchasing a five year supply. Order a book on home medicine tout de suite. 
• Consider reading post-apocalypitical fiction like Station Eleven* by Emily St. John Mandel to learn survival techniques. 

And remember: print all of this out!! There might not be electricity in a few weeks!"


* Actually, this is a really good book. I recommend it.

Painting

I spent part of this morning painting the Boy's room with our college student-helper, Anita. We are going to be painting the second floor, which includes the kids' bedrooms plus the Lego Room. Anita just graduated, and I wanted her help before she finds a real job instead of her part-time job of doing odds and ends around my house, like folding laundry, emptying and loading the dishwasher, and organizing my basement. She is very efficient and organized, and she helped me purge the first floor of our house before we got new floors. She has no attachment to our stuff, so she can ask hard questions like, "Will you ever wear this again? Really?"  Last year, she helped me paint my stairwell, bedroom and office. Having a second set of hands makes time fly and the job get done twice as fast. Everyone needs an Anita.

I had booked Anita to help me with this a few weeks ago to fit in after her graduation activities. Sunday, Claire-Adele and I went and bought paint. Normally, I like to paint, but this weekend I wasn't looking too forward to it, and I couldn't figure out why. I started to get excited once I bought the paint and had it in the house. Anita is like a tornado--there is no procrastinating. When she arrives, we start to work. This is good. I might never have gotten around to painting the kids' rooms if I had to do it alone.*

Yesterday, Anita came over and we started organizing the Boy's room. Rather, she organized while I sat and got lost in reverie about three crib blankets we found in his closet, one from my dear friend Maggie who I used to work with years ago. Another blanket was from my former boss, and another was from our old neighbors in St. Louis, also called the McGuire's. See how hard it is? The time it took me to write those sentences was the time it took Anita to move half of the crap out of the Boy's room into the Lego room. See how much I need help? I'd still be up there crying over baby blankets.

We (I mean Anita) moved everything out of the Boy's room except his bed and dresser.

"Damn," said the Boy when he saw his Lego room filled with the contents of his bedroom. "I didn't know I had this much stuff. We have a 'Where's Waldo?' puzzle? We should do that sometime."

This morning, I was in a jolly mood about painting the upstairs. I had a physical therapy appointment at 8:00, and Anita and I would start painting when I got home. This was the first physical labor I've done since my skiing accident back in December, and I was looking forward to it. After I lost the School Board election last November, I had a list of home improvement projects I wanted to tackle, like getting new linoleum for the kitchen and bathrooms. Painting was on the list, but was shuttled to the back of the line when I tore my ACL. I finally felt good enough that I could handle the work.

I love painting because it a) makes the house looks so much better without back breaking work and b) I feel a great sense of accomplishment when I am done. It makes me wonder why I didn't paint these rooms sooner.

Why was I so grumpy today painting later in the morning? Anita is pleasant--that wasn't it. Now that I am getting back to normal, it makes me realize how limited I previously was. In many ways, I should be happy I am better, but in other ways this was a little bittersweet, heavy on the bitter. This is a measure of what I lost for six months. I could be zen about the past and be thankful for the time I spent incapacitated where I was forced to slow down and relax. I did a lot of sewing, a lot of reading and a lot of riding the stationary bike. I am fortunate my situation was temporary and not permanent.

But really, I am not one of those people who is happy when forced to sit still for a long time. I was reading the endnotes in The Sun, and there was a list of quotations about finding strength in adversity.    I am so cynical, I think about how better off Holocaust, Hurricane Katrina, and tsunami victims would be without that level of major adversity touching their lives. Can they survive after losing their homes and possibly families? Perhaps, but it will be hard, and to tell them bad things builds character is kind of bullshit. Maybe those platitudes were meant for first world people who don't have major problems, like scurvy, starvation and lack of accessible clean water.

Still, we survive traumas large and small. There is a young man at the YMCA who had a non-malignant tumor removed from his brain last week. He had to undergo two hours of neurosurgery. He is very athletic, and will only be out of a commission for a few weeks before he can return to normal activity. He looked at me and said, "It's not like my knee went out," nodding at my leg.

What? I thought. The dude has a brain tumor and he thinks he is better shape than me. That's nuts.

But maybe it wasn't. Maybe for a guy who has a job a the YMCA and lifts weights and does cardio everyday, losing and having reduced mobility for six months (before and after surgery) would be worse than a benign tumor. Maybe half of life is saying things aren't so bad.

So Anita and I painted the Boy's room, and it looked so fresh and new. All of the finger smudges and pencil marks and crayon marks and shoe scuffs were gone. I accomplished something I hadn't been able to do in a while. Sometimes you don't realize how bad something was that you were living with until you get the new and improved version. For the Boy, his room is now a blank canvas, empty, ready to be refilled.

"Damn," said the Boy impressed when he saw his clean, white walls. "Damn."


* "You have kids and a husband, right Lauren? Can't they help?" you are asking yourself. Yes, but Anita is way better. There is no yelling, complaining or insisting there is a better way to work when I work with Anita. (Well, you might have to ask her about that.)

thighs

i remember when your thighs

used to be all muscular

he tells me

i vacillate between

oh thats sweet 

and

fuck you

Bye, Bye, Baby Boy and 80s Music

I spend my days

Driving him

Places he doesn't want to go.

The Boy used to be a momma's boy. Today, he falls asleep in the front seat as I drive him around. I think of him as a toddler, with his head against the window.

My Aunt has two boys. They are grown now, but they are still her boys. She got divorced before the second was born, and they have doted on her every day of their lives. Sometimes one will be there, then the other. She tried to keep them at bay, at a distance, making sure they have their own lives and not only take care of her. They dote on her nonetheless.

"That's what I want," I said to my cousin when I saw his brother hug my Aunt. The Boy was probably one at the time.

"A momma's boy?" he said.

The Boy used to be nice to me. Now, he is thirteen, and in some serious rebellion. He doesn't want me around very much. At times, he thinks I am fine and interesting and nice when I programmed the radio in the RAV to an 80's station. He loves music from the 80's when bands were bands with guitars and drum kits, not a singer with a track. This I know, I am an expert, though I'd rather listen to current pop than music I heard in middle and high school. I listen anyway, knowing the names of the songs and artists. REM and It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine). Madonna and Lucky Star. 

The Boy will show me a silly YouTube video from SNL or show me pictures of airplanes on Instagram. Otherwise, he is plugged into his phone, listening to music, playing games and checking how many "likes" he has on social media.

The house is so quiet when he is around, the opposite of how it used to be. I wonder if he breathes when he looks at his phone. I remember checking him while he slept before we knew he had sleep apnea and had his tonsils out. I'd go in his room and I would hear nothing. Those were the times he wasn't breathing when he slept. When he looks at his phone, it sounds the same: the sound of nothing. I try to be there when he awakens from his electronic induced coma, but it is hard when he is grouchy. I have awoken a bear.

I know that part of being a teenager is to be unpleasant most of the time, to find and define himself outside of me. I'll wait. I know he will come back someday. I'll miss him in the meantime.

Copa America and Practice Vacation

"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'" -- Kurt Vonnegut, as published in The Sun.


Last night, I had a practice vacation. Jack, the kids and I went to the quarter finals of the Copa America game where the U.S. National soccer team played Ecuador. Jack and I had been talking about going to the quarter finals before the U.S. made it as the game was scheduled on a night when no one had a school event. It is the end of the year, and almost every night one of the kids has had a band concert, soccer party or track potluck. The tickets were more expensive than an Seattle Sounders game, and when multiplied by four, it makes for a pricey evening.  Before the U.S. was going to play in Seattle, Jack had been hemming and hawing about buying tickets. When the U.S. got in, the Ticketmaster website was jammed with orders so we got seats in row Y in the upper deck in the end zone.

Normally, I believe life is too short to sit in the cheap seats, but there really aren't bad seats for a soccer game in a large stadium. And the first tier seats were $250 a ticket, which would have made for a $1000 night out for the family not including food and U.S. National Team "merch." (Before we left for the game, the Boy had said he wanted a scarf.)

My friend Hannah and her daughter were a few rows above us. There was one problem that I hadn't thought about when we bought the tickets, but Hannah saw it. "Why did Jack buy these seats with your knee?" We didn't think about the eight million steps I'd have to climb.

Steep and scary concrete steps to our seats.
These bad boys make the steps to my house look a like preschool playground.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I look at all stairs and see their tread length and riser height, like I am some kind of carpenter/architect. The rise on these aren't too bad, but the treads are terribly short. I had my usual death grip on the railing as I ascended. I would watch nervously as teen boys would bound up the stairs, holding piles of food. Please don't fall! I'd think. As I've mentioned a several hundred times in my posts, going down stairs is worse than going up. It is

Once I sat down, I feared leaving. Jack was kind enough to get food. We needed food since we'd hadn't yet had dinner and the Boy's mood is not pleasant when he has not been fed. Jack figured he'd be faster than me. Claire Adele helped, while the Boy and I watched the game. I felt terrible sending Jack to get food when I did. He was gone for three minutes when the US scored. The Boy later commented, "When a team scores in basketball, everyone is like 'Yay!' When they score in soccer, the crowd goes 'YAAAAAAAYYY! Woooo-hoooo!!!' and carries on." He is right. Fortunately, the US team scored again while Jack and Claire Adele were in their seats.

During halftime, the cameras scanned the crowd and scenes were played on the Jumbotron. "Hey, that looks like Evan," I said. Evan is my physical therapist. I thought it was him, or it was another hipster who looked just like him and he was three rows back. I couldn't really tell. Evan is much more reserved at physical therapy than the guy on the screen who was decked out in red, white and blue and screaming. If it were him, I bet my family that there was an 85% chance my PT appointment would be canceled for the next morning. We'll see.

Actually, I wouldn't be disappointed if my appointment were canceled. My knee could use a little break today. Going to the game was like a practice for our upcoming vacation to France. We will not be renting a car in Paris, so we will be walking and taking public transportation to get around.  Last night, we walked to the bus, which took us to the Husky Stadium Light Rail station. We had to go up and over Montlake, and then down to the subway. I was lucky to get a seat. When we got to the stadium, there was a lot of walking and we had to go up lots of flights of stairs to get to our seats. We missed the entrance with the ramps that herd fans in like Temple Grandin's cattle runs.

I was worried about leaving the stadium, fearing I'd get plowed over by people behind me who moved faster. I was lucky--the crowd was so thick, it moved like molasses down those stairs. I also saw one person wearing a leg brace like I wore pre- and post-surgery and two people on crutches wearing orthopedic boots. I was impressed. They must have been die hard fans. There is no way I would have gone to an event like this while on crutches unless one of my kids were playing. I found the ramps to get down, and I felt like the slowest salmon in the stream. I hung the right on the ramps, letting people pass on the left, and I was fine. We walked the 1.3 miles home from Husky Stadium. My daughter even asked if my "quad was firing" during the walk, as I often talk about my misbehaving muscle. I felt okay, and I iced my knee twice before going to bed and first thing when I woke up this morning as a preventative measure against swelling and stiffness.

This was the most exciting sporting event I've ever been to. It was a tournament so it was do or die for both teams. The U.S. was leading 2-0, but Ecuador scored making it 2-1. The last twenty minutes of the game were as intense of a competition as I've ever seen, with the U.S. goalie earning his paycheck, saving everything including an almost self-goal from a defender who erroneously deflected the ball in the wrong direction.

I suppose I will feel about my vacation like I felt about this game: it was worth the effort. My family was patient with my slowness. They were all happy to be where they were, it didn't matter how fast I was moving. We were together and everyone was glad to be there.

If the evening wasn't nice, then I don't know what is.

Dreams, Stairs! and News

The other night I dreamt I was running. I was running down a gravel road when my neighbor across the street saw me and happily yelled, "Lauren you are running!" As soon as I heard her, I fell and crashed into the small red rocks on the road. It was a strange dream, as dreams often are. I am not a big fan of long distance running, but I love little sprints to get across the street or to hit a tennis ball. That is what I miss.

While running is not in my immediate future, I need to get in shape for my trip to France in less than two months. I've gotten in shape for ski trips and mountain biking vacations, but it is strange to think of needing to get into shape to go to France, the food and fashion capital of the world. I could lose a few pounds so I can buy new clothes, or lose a few so I can gain them back in cream sauce and dessert. Mais non--I need to get into shape for these vacation goals:

• Bronze Level: Walk ten hours a day without my knee mutinying against me and my family.
• Silver Level: Climb the stairs around Mont Saint Michel.
• Gold Level: Climb down the 704 steps of the Eiffel Tower.

I must be the only person who has vacation goals. Isn't vacation suppose to be be time without goals?

With the exception of my friends who climb stairs for charity, going up and down stairs isn't an exercise that one loves or hates, but you do it because you need to. I've been able to go upstairs alternating legs for several weeks, but alternating while going down hasn't happened until this week. At physical therapy two weeks ago, I practiced going downstairs on their stairs, which have very long treads and handrails on both sides. My arms have gotten stronger since my accident, and I could carry myself down the stairs using both railings and while my legs dangled below, with my toes grazing the tops of the steps. (It wasn't quite that dramatic, but almost.) I about died when Jason said "You can do it without the railings!" Surprisingly, I could. Still, I was hesitant to try going down stairs outside of the physical therapy studio with their magical steps.

Last week, I tried the outside steps at the NE Library Branch. They have a low rise and a long tread, pull a nice handrail in the middle. Since my skiing accident last December, I have become an expert on noticing different types and ranges of stairs. It has become my hobby to study them. The library stairs were easy to descend. I would make a point of going up and down them a few times each time I visited.

This week, I have been trying to go down regular stairs alternating legs. By regular stairs, I mean ones with standard tread lengths and rises heights, and not ones with long treads, low rises, nor in narrow stairwells where there are handrails on both sides where I can hoist myself down.

Today I climbed down six flights of stairs alternating legs! This is a major milestone, one that I have been trying to accomplish for a while. I feel like a normal person, not one who is still recovering from surgery. I was slow, and I had to ice my knee before and after going down the stairs. I had to pause between steps sometimes, but I could do it! As my kids would say, "Go me!"

Perhaps this is what is next in my training program. I can't remember where I got Seattle Stairway Walks by Jake and Cathy Jaramillo, but it looks cool. It has to be--the first walk in Ravenna Park and it goes past my house!

That is my good news. I am sorry there has been so much bad news around lately. My kids have smart phones and computers with internet access, so it is almost impossible to avoid bad stuff. I am not talking about front page catastrophes like the shooting in Orlando, but less big news like the kid who was killed by a crocodile at Disney World, the stories that used to make page 3 of the newspaper. You had to make an effort to open the paper to know that kind of thing happened. Now, you just open your social media account and there it all is. Will this be good or bad for our kids? Will this make them better informed citizens, or will this age of "Too Much Information" make them fearful so they never leave their homes?

Given all of the bad news, I thought I'd post a nice soothing picture of some clouds.

World Romance

I was reading my Lonely Planet's French Phrasebook & Dictionary the other day to brush up on my French. In the "Social" chapter, they have a section on "Romance." I find this odd, as I did when I was listening to the Pimsleur CD's and they had a conversation discussing "When will your husband be back?"

i

Why do I find this odd? I can see how people who don't speak the same language can fall in love, but I assume that one of them speaks the other language, at least a little bit. This book has phrases to help you when you are in an intimate spot. Really? Do you really want to be reading a phrasebook during that time? Or, are you supposed to read it ahead of time so you can practice? How can you fall in love with someone if you can't communicate with them? What if you think they are whispering sweet nothings into your ear, and they are really saying, "You remind me of my great aunt Mildred. She smells bad and has a wart on her chin"?

This book even has the phrase "Will you marry me?" in it. Would you marry someone if they proposed to you in a language you didn't understand and you had to flip to page 129 to figure out what they said? I suppose it is good to know in case someone proposes to you in France. You don't want to nod along and answer yes to everything even if you don't understand.

While in one sense I can't imagine how someone could fall in love (maybe lust) with someone with whom they share about twenty vocabulary words, might it be easier? There would be little to fight about, and if you wanted to fight, you really couldn't. But could it last?

Which is Scarier and More Violent: "Finding Nemo" v. "Sweeney Todd"

Warning: There might be some spoilers in here in case you haven't seen Finding Nemo or Sweeney Todd.

My daughter has joined an art club at her school and they each have chosen a character in Finding Nemo as their avatar. Claire Adele then wanted to re-watch the movie, a movie she loved when she was five and watched dozens of times. She now says that movie was the movie of her childhood. The Boy was two years old during her Nemo phase and he was terrified of it. He would stand outside of the living room, listening to the horror of Marlin being chased by a shark. He refused to watch. (He used to swap the syllables and call it "Mone." It was so cute.)

Last weekend, my daughter's high school performed Sweeney Todd, the musical by Stephen Sondheim. I asked the family via group text message if they wanted to go, and they all said yes. The Boy asked, What's it about? I had never seen the show before, but I had heard about it. I told him it was a horror story/musical about a barber who kills people and then turns them into meat pies. Last year, the high school drama department did The Little Mermaid and Mary Poppins, both of which are suitable for little kids. This one said ages 12 and up. He said okay, but I was worried. Would this be too much for him?

The night before Sweeney Todd, Claire Adele, the Boy and I watched Finding Nemo. None of us had seen it in ten years. I was thinking back to when the Boy was two or three and scared of the movie. I now know why. Like many Disney movies, it is bright and colorful but also would be rated R if it were live action with humans. I began to wonder: which was scarier Nemo or Todd?

About two hours before Sweeney Todd was to start, the boy was looking kind of pale. He decided he didn't want go. "It sounds kind of disturbing," he said. "I don't want to go." Rather than have the Boy have nightmares for two weeks, we let him hang out with a friend instead.

The production of Sweeney Todd was amazing. The young man who played Todd had a deep and wonderful baritone. It was hard to believe he was in high school. Mrs. Lovett was sufficiently deranged, which was a surprise considering the same actress played Mary Poppins last year. I cried at the end.

When I got back, we tallied up the Nemo scenes and compared it to Sweeney Todd. Which is more violent and scarier: a Disney movie or a horror musical?

Finding Nemo	Violent/Scary?
Mother gets eaten by a barracuda	Yes
Nemo gets kidnapped by a human	Yes
Marlin and Dory get chased by sharks	Yes
Undersea bombs get blown up	Yes
Marlin gets eaten and then regurgitated by an anglerfish	Yes
Nemo tried to escape the tank and nearly gets sucked into the spinning blades of the filter	Yes
Marlin and Dory meet a nice school of fish	No
Dory gets stung by a jellyfish and nearly dies	Yes
Dory and Marlin meet nice sea turtles	No
Marlin and Dory get eaten then regurgitated by a whale	Yes
Marlin and Dory get eaten then regurgitated by a pelican	Yes
Nemo tries to escape becoming Darla’s pet	Yes
Marlin and Dory get picked up and taken to the dentist by a pelican	Yes
Marlin sees Nemo and thinks Nemo is dead	Yes
Nemo goes down the drain	Yes
Nemo finds Dory	No
Nemo finds his dad	No
Dory gets caught in a fishing net and Nemo tries to save her	Yes
Total (crude estimate)	14

Sweeney Todd	Violent/Scary?
Benjamin Barker/Sweeney Todd gets off boat from Australia with Antony Hope	No
They sing about London	No
Todd meets Mrs. Lovett who tells him his wife drank poison	Half
Todd wants revenge on the judge who stole his wife and daughter and then sent him to prison for 15 years	Half
Anthony Hope finds Todd’s daughter Johanna	Half
Todd goes back to his old barbershop	No
Todd is on the streets London	No
Todd kills his first victims	Yes
Mrs. Lovett makes bad pies	No
Mrs. Lovett uses people in her pies	Yes
Todd murders loads of people	Yes
More singing and dancing with Anthony Hope	No
At Home with Todd and Lovett	No
Johanna gets sent to the lunatic asylum	No
Anthony rescues Johanna from the asylum	Yes
The Judge visits Todd	Yes
Tragic Ending	Yes
Total (crude estimate)	7.5

I find it deliciously ironic that for the total number of scary scenes in the movie, Nemo is almost twice as violent as Sweeney Todd. The protagonists in spooky and gaunt Todd is a mass murderer, but he really doesn't start acting up until the second act. As far as the characters go, Nemo wins for cheerfulness. The Todd characters are spooky and odd. Nemo has a happy ending while Todd is a tragedy. As my son said, Sweeney Todd was disturbing and I don't think I would show it to a six year old.

Nevertheless, seeing these two back-to-back made me think. No one really gets too badly hurt in Nemo, yet they are constantly in perilous situations. The heroes in Nemo are brave, while Todd is deformed with revenge. But still Nemo is kind of crazy. I've seen action movies with less action. It is surprising what kids will consume when it is presented as a colorful cartoon.

Cheating, and Tired is Your Reward

Today, I discovered I was cheating at physical therapy. I knew I had (have, if I am honest) an issue with recruiting my other muscles instead of my quadriceps. I was doing deep squats and pulling myself up using straps attached to the ceiling. Instead of using my quads to stand, I was pulling myself us using my arms. I should have just been using the straps for balance and not using my arms to pull me up.

This was sad and so obvious that I recognized it after the fifth squat. I can see recruiting my calves and hamstrings to pull myself up, but using my arms was ridiculous. I have been rock climbing before I learned a good way to climb is use your legs to push up, not to pull yourself up using your arms. I know experienced climbers use their arms, but a beginner like me used my legs. When I was rock climbing, I avoided using my arms muscles and maximized my legs. Here, I was doing the reverse. How badly does the rest of my body not want my quads to work?

Evan, my physical therapist, always asks how I am doing. I know he is a nice guy, but that is part of his job. I complained that I was tired.

"Tired is your reward," he said.

What?

"Tired is your reward from working out," he said. "You should be tired."

Oy. I am looking forward to the day when I am not tired, when I am feeling peppy and energetic. I want to feel better after I work out, not like I've spent an hour in the Gulag. Or worse, the next day feeling like I spend the entire day before in the Gulag.

I need to get into shape. My daughter set a new goal for me: climbing down the 700 steps of the Eiffel Tower. (They don't let people climb up the Tower, but you can climb down from part of it.) Seven hundred steps is a lot. I've done it before, and it is kind of cool. The problem is I am not yet going down stairs properly where I alternate legs with each step. I've gone downstairs in physical therapy, so I must be strong enough. Confidence is my problem. I am not confident enough to alternate legs going down a regular flight of stairs. I fear if I make a mistake, I'll get hurt and set myself back. I do not want that.

I am starting to feel almost as good as I did before the surgery, which bodes well for me making my goal. I am feeling well enough that I don't believe it. I was feeling good before the surgery, and then I had the surgery and felt much worse. While I logically know I am on an upward trend, I still have this vague feeling that I will get worse.

Tennis Shoes

My tennis shoes are making me jealous,

Reminding me of the game

I cannot play.

Gray is Good

I was at physical therapy yesterday when I overheard one of the therapists talking about a photoshoot the center was doing to promote their services.

"I am not in the shoot," one of the middle age therapists said. "Ten years ago, maybe, but now I am losing my hair and going gray. Let Scott do it. If it were my company, I'd pick Scott." Scott is younger, taller and in good condition. None of the physical therapists at this place are unattractive. In fact, I was a little intimidated when I walked in and saw all of these fit people--clients and therapists--gathered in one place. You don't see it that often in America. Exercises in front of the mirror are torture here because everyone nearby has a perfect BMI, whereas mine could use a little help. But this is okay.

My friend Lynn and I were talking this weekend. Lynn and I go to the same physical therapy place. Her BMI is in the perfect range, and still would be if she gained ten pounds. She is my age, and last week when working with her PT, he implied she wasn't in that great of shape and she was kind of old. The same thing happened to me last week with Jason. These folks aren't being mean--just honest. They spend a lot of time working with younger people who are serious athletes, not duffers like me who got hurt while skiing. I asked Jason about my progress. "If you were younger and a professional athlete, you would have a different plan," Jason said. "We have athletes who come in twice a day for physical therapy." Lynn's physical therapist said something similar. I almost wanted to bark back for both Lynn and I: "At least we were in good enough shape to get hurt doing something athletic!" But I wouldn't. Jason is exceptionally sweet and gentle (except when he's cranking on my knee), and I can't imagine him ever intentionally saying anything mean or nasty. He is right: I am not a twenty-something or a professional athlete.

Lynn and I both decided though, we'd rather go someplace where we are compared to people twenty five years younger than us than twenty five years older. Agism works in a million ways, unfortunately, but this is what I would take. When it comes to getting back into physical fitness, I'd rather be compared to someone who is much better shape than I am. Perhaps age is contagious. I was at the YMCA today where the demographic is on the older side. When I am at the YMCA, I am one of the younger people there, and yet I don't feel young. At the University gym, I am one of the older people there but I don't feel old. A man in his sixties or seventies was on a recumbent bike and I said hello as I passed.

"I am just trying to get younger!" he said.

I laughed. "Me too."

Then I thought about the photoshoot. Sure, Scott is tall and fit, but gray is good, as I learned back in my consulting days. I was in my twenties and the partner I worked for was in his mid-forties, probably a little younger than I am now. The managers between me and the partner were in their thirties. As with all consulting, you have to meet the clients where they are at. Many clients were flexible, and it didn't matter who they worked with. In other cases, we'd match level for level. There were clients who had their twenty-something manager take care of business, I would often be the point of contact for those people.

I remember at one internal meeting, the partner said he would go to the meeting.

"The client wants some gray hair in the room," he said. The client didn't want to just see the whippersnapper just out of college telling them what to do. They wanted to talk to someone with twenty plus years of experience.

I would go back to the middle age therapist and tell him not to rule himself out of the photoshoot. Gray is good.

Indoors and 3.5 Months

Walking Outside: Back and forth between home and U Village (1.6 miles) in 85 degree weather

Recumbent Bike Inside: 45 minutes

Today was a warm and beautiful day. Usually I do my cardio work in the morning and then do my isometric exercises in the evening. I was booked this morning meeting friends for coffee, which was good. When my day gets off to a busy start, it is hard to get motivated to exercise, especially when the weather is nice and I have to exercise indoors. Like most people in Seattle, when the weather is nice I want to be outside. While many Seattleites get outside in the drizzly weather to hike, bike or jog, the winter and fall are great times to catch up on reading, knitting, jigsaw puzzles, cleaning closets or binge watching Netflix. When the weather turns pleasant, boom--the entire town is on the Burke Gilman Trail. Except me. This kind of sucks. Usually spring and summer motivate me to exercise because I love being outside. Now exercise is not at the top of the list because I have to chose between Vitamin D and riding an elliptical at the gym. Sunshine wants to win.

I was meeting a friend for coffee this morning who had a partial tear in her ACL. It isn't a full tear, so she is on the fence as to whether or not to have surgery. She is going to physical therapy and doing her home exercises to strengthen her leg. She is going to give it a few months, see how she progresses, and then decide if she wants the surgical repair. While I am able to walk and generally move around better, I was bemoaning that I am not as far along as I'd like to be. My healing process hasn't been linear, and I feel like I am slightly sliding backwards. Let me rephrase--as I am reigniting my quad, my knee isn't too happy with this extended effort and it is swelling and getting stiff. My plum--the fluid filled bubble under my kneecap--has come back. It is not as bad as before, but it is there. I am sad about this because for a while, the plum was gone. My gait was almost normal. I was picking up my son from a band field trip and everyone asked about my knee, I am guessing because it was obvious by the way I walked. A few weeks ago, I felt guilty using my disabled parking pass. Now, I am back to being glad that I have it as I limp out of the grocery store.

"I thought I'd be better by now," I complained to Lynn. "I know this healing process is supposed to take nine moths, but I thought I'd be further along than I am."

"You thought you would be a three or four month-er," she said. "You thought this would be like school, playing the piano, or preparing for a marathon. When you work hard, follow the directions, and are committed to the process, you are supposed to do well. That is how most of life works, but it seems to not be holding true for recovering from surgery. You thought after three and a half months you'd be doing everything except doing running leaps down the street."

"Yes!" I said. "That is exactly right. I thought I would follow along, do my exercises every day, and then I would be doing most things except hopping on a pogo stick.

This thought was depressing. Even when I didn't want to work out or do my exercises, I did them anyway. I have been reasonably faithful, but lately I have been losing steam. I can see why people drop out of high school. At some point, why bother? Carl, my carpenter, tore his patellar tendon and was laid up for six months. He needed to get back into shape to work. He said he was religious about his physical therapy. I thought I would follow the same plan, even though I don't need my knees to pay my mortgage. I though it would be a little like old time religion--say your Hail Mary's, go to church on Sunday, follow the Ten Commandments and viola--entrance to Heaven! I thought physical therapy would be like that, but it isn't. I can see why people say Screw it, I am done.

But alack and alas, I didn't drop out of high school. I often stick with potentially losing battles perhaps longer than I should. In some cases, that persistence and tenacity has paid off and I've been able to turn those losing battles around. I can be stubborn.

Which I why after Jack, Claire Adele and I walked Fox all the way to U Village and back, I decided to go to the YMCA and do my cardio exercises. I really didn't want to go, but not going would be worse. As much as most of body hates my left knee, it knows it needs to get better. I can't give up, because the alternative doesn't get me where I need to be, even if what I need to do to get there is a slow and annoying slog.