Focusing on the word Cardio and not actually reading the words Boot Camp, I accompanied S to the gym to take an early afternoon class. I figured it would be something different, it would help with the pants situation, and because she had guest passes, it would be FREE. After sitting in traffic for over an hour, walking to the gym was a luxury. We signed in, found a locker and figured out how to lock it without much effort, and then walked around the gym until we found the right room.
We saw a few people in the room. The woman at the door was like, You're here for class? And I was like, Cardio? And she was like, Yes. Then as soon as we'd entered, she told everyone, Grab a step. I looked at S like, This is step aerobics? We both decided to use one set of bracelets (I don't know if that's what they're actually called, but that's what I've always called them. They are the thingies you put under a step to make it a level higher). S was like, these looked like the ones from gym class. I was like, They totally are. She was like, There's only one step? I was like, Only one like this.
Flashback: we took step aerobics in gym class in high school. It was the only time I ever enjoyed gym class. All the other times, you know, like, playing volleyball and taking the Presidential Physical Fitness test during which I couldn't hold myself in a chin up position for more than a second, those times--not fun.
So the music came on and the instructor was like, Just tap your feet on the step. Then two people were outside the door she'd locked, so she told us to keep going as she let them in. One of them stood in the front, and the other set up her step back to the left of me, which was a bit too close. Then she left. She came back a few minutes later with a tissue. Of course she did.
Then we went from tapping the step to basically jumping up and down over and off of it. There was a lot of jumping, running on top, running around, hopping, kicking, jumping over and around, jacking and straddling, and of course, stepping up and down. There wasn't a dance component as this was not step aerobics. This was, indeed, a boot camp. S was bright red and I looked like I had never worked out a day in my life. The room was also very hot, as was the rest of the gym, so I stopped a few times, a few seconds each time, for water and to make sure I wasn't going to pass out. This is becoming a trend with me working out in public places.
During the class, the woman who had come in late and put her step too close to me was making it her own whenever she was actually moving. However, she spent a good amount of time blowing her nose. She also spend some time sitting on the step and then positioning herself in a way that I can describe only as napping. The instructor kept telling us to go at our own pace. When the instructor was close to the Napping/NoseBlowing woman behind me, I heard the woman say something to her, and then the instructor responded, Then you shouldn't be doing that at all. I don't know what she told the instructor or what the "that" is, but I can make a really good guess that the "that" was Working Out.
The instructor told us at one point to grab a heavy weight. My heavy weight was five pounds. Other women grabbed eight and ten. Nope. No thank you. We did a series of moves that involved arms and steps and turning and lifting and it was a whole lot of weight stuff that was toning and cardio all in one.
The instructor made her way around the room a few times. S described her instruction style as the Billy Blanks version: doing the move once or twice, and then not doing the rest of the reps. I suppose you can't do Boot Camp every day all day as an instructor, but I looked at the schedule and she'd had some sort of Chair Fitness class right before ours. She could have worked! (Okay, I don't know her life. Maybe she was on her way to marathon training afterwards).
Towards the end, there were mat exercises like push-ups, walking planks, and then a series of ab movements that also involved leg lifting and lots of reaching. Then we had to use a lighter weight to do some of the moves. I used my five pound heavy weight as the lighter weight, too.
I looked at the clock during one of the transitions and S caught me and laughed, saying that it made her feel better that I was looking to see if it was all over yet. I was like, Yes, I'm dying, and I'm apparently not a fit person.
That's not to say that other people weren't struggling. Some were struggling more than others. Like the woman behind me who had left at least once more and continued to nap and blow her nose.
We all clapped when the class was done. Then S and I went to find a place to sit. She suggested that maybe this class as a first class had been too ambitious. Why? Because it's friggin Boot Camp. Still, we got through it. AND we walked back to her place afterwards. That's where I devoured an apple and some turkey slices and then headed home to sit for a while. Sitting is good sometimes, too.
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Health. Show all posts
Thursday, April 7, 2016
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Mandolin Lessons
I almost bled out after chopping off my pinky finger in a cooking accident.
We English professor types call that "hyperbole." It is still very close to the truth.
I was using a mandolin to slice zucchini. The mandolin comes with a thingie that you attach to veggies that you are slicing so you don't put your hand near the blade, but a zucchini is a long veggie, so slicing it at one end while holding it at the other works fine.
Unless you are me. In which case, it doesn't work fine this one time when I somehow make a ballet-like sweeping motion with the zucchini and the corner of my pinky finger comes across the blade as if it, too, is a vegetable.
I'll give you a moment to let out that gasp and relax whatever it is that got all clenched up when you read that.
I threw stuff down and yelled and cursed a lot. Eddie came running in and took me into the bathroom to run water over it. It would not stop bleeding. We got a towel for me to hold on it and I clamped down over the cut, holding both hands way above my head. Eddie went back to the kitchen to inspect the mandolin. He turned it over a few times and said, No blood--it's fine. He's obviously a gourmet chef. I told him to put it in the sink.
I could tell he thought I was over-reacting. I knew if we kept looking at it, it would simply keep bleeding since I was releasing pressure, but he really thought it was a little tiny cut. We decided to pour some peroxide on it. I almost passed out. The pain. No words.
We wrapped it tightly with a bunch of band-aids and he went off to work. I got myself dressed, all the while watching blood start to seep through the band-aids. Before heading to work, I stopped off at my parents' house to ask my mom to help me re-wrap it. We had a hard time getting all the band-aids off, so there was more pain in the pulling and pushing. Then it started bleeding all over again. We decided Neosporin on a band-aid was a better idea. I wasn't going near peroxide again. We wrapped it in two band-aids.
At work, I wrapped it again in a third band-aid as I saw the blood start to ooze through. My creative writing class was having their final session, which was a reading of their best and favorite work. I write each student a letter, and this was going to be an issue with my now crippled finger. I held it up for them to see as I explained they might not get the letters I promised. I explained, I'm bleeding out. They felt sympathy and asksed how I did it. I was like, Do you know what a mandolin is?
One guy offered, It's a guitar. I was like, True, but there's another kind, to which another guy responded, It's a kitchen tool for slicing things. I nodded and everyone cringed as I made a motion of sweeping my hand across the blade.
Go ahead and let out that gasp again.
At around 3:15, my finger felt like it would be better off if it were no longer attached to the rest of me. I swung by my parents' house and got my mom to come with me to Urgent Care because I wasn't about to fill out a bunch of forms and bleed all over them.
The doctor was hilarious. Not in a cheesy make him stop way, but in a genuine wow he's funny way. He cut off the three band-aids and my finger kind of bled but it didn't gush the way it had been. He held it up and turned it over. Then he said, Go rinse that off. As I did so, he explained that my skin had wrinkled up under the band-aids and blood had gotten into the wrinkles, so at first, he thought I'd gone across the blade several times and wondered what kind of cook I was. See? Funny.
As I got back on the exam table, he was saying that I'd probably need a stitch or two. Then he looked more closely and said, Okay, there's nothing to stitch. I'd taken off a small chunk of my pinky. There was nothing to put back together. He instead gave me some weird styrofoam looking thing that had gel on it that would make the bleeding stop. Then he wrapped it up with a lot of gauze. We all agreed that I could get a lot of sympathy for this.
He also asked several times about my history with tetanus shots. I knew what was coming. I was getting a tetanus shot. He asked which arm and I said my right. It didn't hurt too badly, but he assured me, It's going to hurt tomorrow, a lot.
When I got home, I texted this photo to Eddie.
Later on, he felt a bit more sympathetic, admitting he'd thought it was only a tiny cut. This is only because he can break a bone and not realize it until three days later. We have different levels of pain tolerance.
At work the next day, I told the story of the mandolin maybe 84 times. Of those 84 times, I also explained how I did not get cut on a guitar and that a mandolin is a cooking tool about 79 times. Conclusion: Most people do not know what a cooking mandolin is.
The fun part was not getting it wet. The two days I had the gauze on, it rained, so keeping it dry was an interesting challenge. Also a challenge? Showering.
In addition to the keep-it-dry debacle, I was practically crippled in my right arm from the shot. That doc was not joking. I couldn't lift my arm to shoulder level. This proved really interesting while trying to wash my hair with a hand that couldn't get wet and an arm I could not lift.
Two days later, I returned to urgent care. A doctor took off the gauze and inspected my finger. He asked if I had numbness. Nope. Could I bend it? Yup. Then he happily said, All you need now is a band-aid. I unhappily responded, That's going to garner much less sympathy.
The cut actually healed pretty quickly. I changed the band-aid like three times a day and smothered the cut with Neosporin. That goop works wonders. Looking at the cut from the side, it was becoming less and less gross. Looking at my finger from the front, however, was a different story. There is clearly a small chunk missing. It'll grow back, the doctors reassured me. I hope it does, soon, because my typing is suffering.
The zucchini--the part that I made later on using a simple knife and creating uneven slices--was delicious.
We English professor types call that "hyperbole." It is still very close to the truth.
I was using a mandolin to slice zucchini. The mandolin comes with a thingie that you attach to veggies that you are slicing so you don't put your hand near the blade, but a zucchini is a long veggie, so slicing it at one end while holding it at the other works fine.
Unless you are me. In which case, it doesn't work fine this one time when I somehow make a ballet-like sweeping motion with the zucchini and the corner of my pinky finger comes across the blade as if it, too, is a vegetable.
I'll give you a moment to let out that gasp and relax whatever it is that got all clenched up when you read that.
I threw stuff down and yelled and cursed a lot. Eddie came running in and took me into the bathroom to run water over it. It would not stop bleeding. We got a towel for me to hold on it and I clamped down over the cut, holding both hands way above my head. Eddie went back to the kitchen to inspect the mandolin. He turned it over a few times and said, No blood--it's fine. He's obviously a gourmet chef. I told him to put it in the sink.
I could tell he thought I was over-reacting. I knew if we kept looking at it, it would simply keep bleeding since I was releasing pressure, but he really thought it was a little tiny cut. We decided to pour some peroxide on it. I almost passed out. The pain. No words.
We wrapped it tightly with a bunch of band-aids and he went off to work. I got myself dressed, all the while watching blood start to seep through the band-aids. Before heading to work, I stopped off at my parents' house to ask my mom to help me re-wrap it. We had a hard time getting all the band-aids off, so there was more pain in the pulling and pushing. Then it started bleeding all over again. We decided Neosporin on a band-aid was a better idea. I wasn't going near peroxide again. We wrapped it in two band-aids.
At work, I wrapped it again in a third band-aid as I saw the blood start to ooze through. My creative writing class was having their final session, which was a reading of their best and favorite work. I write each student a letter, and this was going to be an issue with my now crippled finger. I held it up for them to see as I explained they might not get the letters I promised. I explained, I'm bleeding out. They felt sympathy and asksed how I did it. I was like, Do you know what a mandolin is?
One guy offered, It's a guitar. I was like, True, but there's another kind, to which another guy responded, It's a kitchen tool for slicing things. I nodded and everyone cringed as I made a motion of sweeping my hand across the blade.
Go ahead and let out that gasp again.
At around 3:15, my finger felt like it would be better off if it were no longer attached to the rest of me. I swung by my parents' house and got my mom to come with me to Urgent Care because I wasn't about to fill out a bunch of forms and bleed all over them.
The doctor was hilarious. Not in a cheesy make him stop way, but in a genuine wow he's funny way. He cut off the three band-aids and my finger kind of bled but it didn't gush the way it had been. He held it up and turned it over. Then he said, Go rinse that off. As I did so, he explained that my skin had wrinkled up under the band-aids and blood had gotten into the wrinkles, so at first, he thought I'd gone across the blade several times and wondered what kind of cook I was. See? Funny.
As I got back on the exam table, he was saying that I'd probably need a stitch or two. Then he looked more closely and said, Okay, there's nothing to stitch. I'd taken off a small chunk of my pinky. There was nothing to put back together. He instead gave me some weird styrofoam looking thing that had gel on it that would make the bleeding stop. Then he wrapped it up with a lot of gauze. We all agreed that I could get a lot of sympathy for this.
He also asked several times about my history with tetanus shots. I knew what was coming. I was getting a tetanus shot. He asked which arm and I said my right. It didn't hurt too badly, but he assured me, It's going to hurt tomorrow, a lot.
When I got home, I texted this photo to Eddie.
 |
| Just a tiny cut, my ass |
At work the next day, I told the story of the mandolin maybe 84 times. Of those 84 times, I also explained how I did not get cut on a guitar and that a mandolin is a cooking tool about 79 times. Conclusion: Most people do not know what a cooking mandolin is.
The fun part was not getting it wet. The two days I had the gauze on, it rained, so keeping it dry was an interesting challenge. Also a challenge? Showering.
 |
| I will survive! A shower! |
Two days later, I returned to urgent care. A doctor took off the gauze and inspected my finger. He asked if I had numbness. Nope. Could I bend it? Yup. Then he happily said, All you need now is a band-aid. I unhappily responded, That's going to garner much less sympathy.
The cut actually healed pretty quickly. I changed the band-aid like three times a day and smothered the cut with Neosporin. That goop works wonders. Looking at the cut from the side, it was becoming less and less gross. Looking at my finger from the front, however, was a different story. There is clearly a small chunk missing. It'll grow back, the doctors reassured me. I hope it does, soon, because my typing is suffering.
The zucchini--the part that I made later on using a simple knife and creating uneven slices--was delicious.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Retreating!
Writing had slipped away from me for quite some time. Work does that. I don't get to read much either. I spend most of my time reading student papers, so reading for leisure and finding time to write are not of interest or really very accessible. Who wants to work on their own writing after hand-cramping through a hundred student-written works? This semester is a bit of a breather because I'm teaching mostly Creative Writing, so I'm not grading essays. I'm reading creative stuff. And it's actually good stuff. However, I'm still policing grammar and I'm still reading a tremendous amount, and since I'm an MA/MFA Creative Writing alum, I can't help but offer more feedback than anyone would ever read.
Plus, there were the doctors. Speedy Baddriverson's wrath still haunts with back aches and tight hips. Between work and medical visits, writing was not an option.
Then serendipitously, when I was thinking that I needed to really escape this odd life that had become to be mine, I clicked on an email from a creative writing listserv by accident. I usually delete most of the emails from that listserv, but here was one opening almost on its own. It was an announcement for the a Writers' Workshop. It was in April. It was in Newport, RI. It was writing. It was yoga.
It was my dream come true.
Fast forward to driving around Newport, trying to find Mill Lane, finding Mill Lane, and then realizing I'm supposed to be at OLD Mill Lane, which is quite different.
Then me pulling up into a driveway at Old Mill Lane and seeing it's a house and wondering if I'm about to walk in on some rich Newport family with my poetry boots on.
Nope, I was in the right place. The retreat directors flew to the door to welcome me as they put up a sign on the door to indicate that this was the home of the retreat. This was better than I thought it would be. I thought we'd be in the conference room of some hotel. Instead, we were in a cozy little sea-adjacent cottage, decked out in cool blues and sea shells and hard wood floors and a fireplace (that had a sign in it indicating that no fires were to be lit). This? Was heaven.
I would soon meet the rest of the retreaters, both participants and staff, and to make heaven even better, we totalled ten. An intimate retreat. A real in-your-face-in-a-good-way writing intensive. Kicked off with a dinner of pasta and the tastiest bread ever and a huge salad and some champagne (that I had one sip of--more on why I can no longer drink some other time). So really, my Whole 30 nutrition plan would not be appearing on this retreat as that bread lasted well through the last day, and I ate several pieces of it whenever I walked into the house.
We began right away. I talked a bit about how my back injury had taken me away from writing, and how what I was working on was all about that stupid back pain. So, you know, positive vibes. Everyone had interesting reasons for being there. It was a mixed bag of genre and purpose.
The next few days began with exhilarating yoga. This was the first time I was taking a yoga class outside of my own personal practice in my living room (aside from half-assed, ass-pain-so-bad-I-was-dragging-my-leg-around yoga during summer solstice). The first morning I eased into it. I'd woken up at 5:30 AM--not really having slept from the night before. I ate my free hot breakfast at the hotel, packed some snacks, pumped my own gas (I'm doing that now and the car has not yet exploded!), and headed towards the retreat house. Some people were staying there and some were staying at a different hotel, but I'd booked this hotel before lodging was included and I like my space. And my free hot breakfast. So every day I took my yoga gear and clothes to the retreat house and then wrote and read and listened. Our yoga instructor gave us yoga pamphlets and took us through alternate nostril breathing and made me realize that even though I can't get my body to do what it used to do pre-Speedy Badderiverson, I am still doing yoga and it's still good for me. Fitting a bunch of adults into one small room to yoga away was a challenge, but also a bit funny and very worthwhile.
The writing workshops evolved into thrilling and borderline surrealist events. The first night, through my uncontrollable yawning (most writers stay up til the wee hours--I go to bed at 10:30/11, so this was a challenge in and of itself, writing at 9 PM), I participated in a workshop of Evocative Objects. We each pulled an object out of a bag and wrote about it without naming it. Mine was a fake mini tree that you would find in a diorama. Turns out that most things in the bag were wedding favors, mostly odd wedding favors. Which is a great prompt for the future--write about every wedding favor you ever receive from all weddings you ever attend.
Throughout the week, there were some other gems...
Literary Taboo was the game of taboo without the buzzer. We picked a word and had to write about it without using the "taboo" words on our cards, and instead focusing on the five senses to evoke what the object would be. Most of us chose two words and incorporated them into one piece--mine were lighthouse and crocodile. The lighthouse part was easy. If I can't describe a lighthouse in at least a hundred ways, then I should have to move off of Long Island. Crocodile wasn't as easy, so I chose to incorporate Elton John lyrics, which I found are not exactly poetic.
Page To Performance was amazing. A two-parter, we watched and listened and discussed how to make our works come to life. Enter the amazing video of Uh Oh Plutonium by Anne Waldman.
There was other stuff, too, but this was just my jam.
We got to play around with instruments. The next morning at 6 AM, I went into my car with the idea of playing a sea chanty as background to my poem, but it didn't work because I couldn't play the chanty from my phone through my car's bluetooth and record at the same time. Instead, I recorded my poem over radio static that became unstaticky at the end of the poem, which was totally unplanned but worked a whole lot.
I shared with them my love of Momentage, the app that lets you put sound to photos. I use it for my poetry sometimes. It's neat!
Theatre of the Impossible and Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories were the playwrighting sessions with Stephen. I'm not a script writer. I loved taking script writing as an undergrad, and I adapted plays in high school, but scripts are not what I automatically do--same with fiction--they are not my jam (but Uh Oh Plutonium totally still is). I passed on the Theatre of the Impossible prompt having no mojo for it at the time (more on why in a second), but I still loved learning about all the seemingly impossible stage directions that appear in scripts. You know: Exit pursued by a bear. The second session helped me figure out how to be a better teacher. In Creative Writing, I teach four major genres, and with script writing, I teach Freytag's Pyramid and in medias res for structure. Now I can share all these interesting patterns, showing a variety of what's out there that can structure a play. So helpful!
Now we all know that if the crazy is lurking somewhere, it's finding me. Enter the guest. The guest, a writer not on official staff, came to give us feedback on our manuscripts. A day before the retreat, we were to send three pages of what we were working on and a summary of the entire piece. I sent three problematic poems and a summary of my full manuscript, a collection of poems that reflect different ways to deal with chronic ailments. When she met us, she had already read the pieces we'd sent in, so she identified with that. She met me and exclaimed, Oh the car accident lady!
Now that could have been fine and it was actually funny. But then when she met everyone else, she commented on their writing instead. To me, that meant she didn't care for my stuff. And that's okay. The stuff I sent in was meant for critique. Because this was a workshop retreat.
When we got into the feedback portion, Things. Got. Weird. She saved me for last. After giving much praise to many writers, she said that my work was not honest and I was avoiding dealing with what I wanted to say. She asked, Why not write about the accident? I said, I have. She said, Why isn't that here? I said, because I'm actually happy with that stuff and I gave you things I'm not sure about. So she said, Well, you have to do your research because these poems don't work and you don't know Simone Weil's work at all. Then she said, It's as if you're afraid of my criticism so you didn't want to hand me the work about what you're writing about.
Um. If I were afraid of criticism, why would I hand in works that were problematic?
And, that whole Simone Weil thing that she said I had to research? Well, one of the poems is about how I know nothing about Simone Weil and I'm too lazy to research her, so I make things up. I think the point was missed.
So she told me to write something new and give her something for the next day. Then she asked who the accident lady was, I raised my hand as everyone pointed at me, and she said, No, you're the car accident lady--I mean the other accident.
Yes, this all happened. And then there's the second session. The second session was a bit late the next day. Theatre of the Impossible was the first session, and having sat through the oddest critique in history (or so I thought), I wasn't up for writing much. I'd pulled out a poem that I liked from my manuscript and wrote a quick unfinished one for the second session the night before.
Second session--it went on forever. I ate some bread. I picked at my nails. I stifled yawns. I liked hearing about everyone's work, but it was dragging. Then came my turn. She asked me to read the poem I liked out loud and I did and she said, Yes there you have it! Then she asked me to read the unfinished one out loud and told me it was unfinished and it needed more. I said it was a first draft and she went into a discussion of how our first drafts were not as good as their first drafts (don't ask me who they are--I do not know). She asked if I had gone deep into that place of writing. I responded that I did my best. She then told me I was an angry person.
I'll say that again. She said I was an angry person.
I was like, I certainly hope not! And everyone kind of laughed. And then she went on. Then she said she didn't know me personally but she thought that I used anger to get over and out of the pain I'd been in. I agreed with that.
Then she said that I was probably very funny.
What? The? Hell?
She said that she and I would probably sit back and laugh together if we knew each other better.
What? Is? Going? On?
Then she said that I should make a chapbook of all the poems like the one I already knew was good.
So to summarize: I'm afraid of writing about what I want to write about. I fear feedback. I'm an angry person. And I am quite funny. Oh! And at some point she also said I'm very sensitive. Clearly.
When I wrote up my evaluation, I wrote that in workshop, I never use "you" when I talk to others about their work. I use "this piece," "this word," "this sentence," "this paragraph," "this line."....
The last morning, one of the coordinators pulled me aside to personally apologize and said that the critique was really unhelpful and it was more of a personal attack. Then she said, When she suggested you were an angry person, we looked at each other like, what is going on???? I was like, I didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, so I let it go.
I've been through this kind of thing before. I can recognize absurdity before it even emerges.
That was the only drawback. Two sessions out of the whole retreat, and I got to eat bread during one of them? That's nothing. Plus, the director didn't need to apologize for the actions of someone else, yet she did. That's class.
The fortunate twist is that the absurd feedback got me talking to one of the other writers about our manuscripts and we exchanged our work and went off on our own late night writing workshop together and decided we'd continue to exchange work because we are so on the same vibe of writing. It was spectacular. I stayed up into the wee morning hours to read her stuff. I am a writer after all!
To top it all off, well, two things.
1. Too Many Cooks. Fair warning, if you watch this, you will remember it forever, and the song will haunt you for days.
As an experiment in collaborative writing and performance, we watched this and then made our own recording. It was probably the most fun I've ever had yelling out the names during opening credits.
2. The last morning, the retreat directors made french toast and eggs for breakfast. As we finished up yoga with some long meditative poses, the sweet scent of breakfast wafted into the living room. The clanging of pots and pans became the soundtrack to savasana. More heaven on earth.
Breakfast was wonderful. We decided we'd keep the writing going. We will give prompts and write things and offer feedback and support each other. So in addition to my workshopping partner, I also have the group's work every week to look forward to.
With one accidental click of an email, my writing life is back. It's nice to be home again.
Plus, there were the doctors. Speedy Baddriverson's wrath still haunts with back aches and tight hips. Between work and medical visits, writing was not an option.
Then serendipitously, when I was thinking that I needed to really escape this odd life that had become to be mine, I clicked on an email from a creative writing listserv by accident. I usually delete most of the emails from that listserv, but here was one opening almost on its own. It was an announcement for the a Writers' Workshop. It was in April. It was in Newport, RI. It was writing. It was yoga.
It was my dream come true.
Fast forward to driving around Newport, trying to find Mill Lane, finding Mill Lane, and then realizing I'm supposed to be at OLD Mill Lane, which is quite different.
 |
| Extra large cows! |
 | |
| Frost's Mending Wall |
 | |
| Now imagine driving in the fog at night |
 |
| Nothing but nature |
Nope, I was in the right place. The retreat directors flew to the door to welcome me as they put up a sign on the door to indicate that this was the home of the retreat. This was better than I thought it would be. I thought we'd be in the conference room of some hotel. Instead, we were in a cozy little sea-adjacent cottage, decked out in cool blues and sea shells and hard wood floors and a fireplace (that had a sign in it indicating that no fires were to be lit). This? Was heaven.
 |
| A Room With A View |
 |
| Retreat House! |
I would soon meet the rest of the retreaters, both participants and staff, and to make heaven even better, we totalled ten. An intimate retreat. A real in-your-face-in-a-good-way writing intensive. Kicked off with a dinner of pasta and the tastiest bread ever and a huge salad and some champagne (that I had one sip of--more on why I can no longer drink some other time). So really, my Whole 30 nutrition plan would not be appearing on this retreat as that bread lasted well through the last day, and I ate several pieces of it whenever I walked into the house.
We began right away. I talked a bit about how my back injury had taken me away from writing, and how what I was working on was all about that stupid back pain. So, you know, positive vibes. Everyone had interesting reasons for being there. It was a mixed bag of genre and purpose.
The next few days began with exhilarating yoga. This was the first time I was taking a yoga class outside of my own personal practice in my living room (aside from half-assed, ass-pain-so-bad-I-was-dragging-my-leg-around yoga during summer solstice). The first morning I eased into it. I'd woken up at 5:30 AM--not really having slept from the night before. I ate my free hot breakfast at the hotel, packed some snacks, pumped my own gas (I'm doing that now and the car has not yet exploded!), and headed towards the retreat house. Some people were staying there and some were staying at a different hotel, but I'd booked this hotel before lodging was included and I like my space. And my free hot breakfast. So every day I took my yoga gear and clothes to the retreat house and then wrote and read and listened. Our yoga instructor gave us yoga pamphlets and took us through alternate nostril breathing and made me realize that even though I can't get my body to do what it used to do pre-Speedy Badderiverson, I am still doing yoga and it's still good for me. Fitting a bunch of adults into one small room to yoga away was a challenge, but also a bit funny and very worthwhile.
The writing workshops evolved into thrilling and borderline surrealist events. The first night, through my uncontrollable yawning (most writers stay up til the wee hours--I go to bed at 10:30/11, so this was a challenge in and of itself, writing at 9 PM), I participated in a workshop of Evocative Objects. We each pulled an object out of a bag and wrote about it without naming it. Mine was a fake mini tree that you would find in a diorama. Turns out that most things in the bag were wedding favors, mostly odd wedding favors. Which is a great prompt for the future--write about every wedding favor you ever receive from all weddings you ever attend.
Throughout the week, there were some other gems...
Literary Taboo was the game of taboo without the buzzer. We picked a word and had to write about it without using the "taboo" words on our cards, and instead focusing on the five senses to evoke what the object would be. Most of us chose two words and incorporated them into one piece--mine were lighthouse and crocodile. The lighthouse part was easy. If I can't describe a lighthouse in at least a hundred ways, then I should have to move off of Long Island. Crocodile wasn't as easy, so I chose to incorporate Elton John lyrics, which I found are not exactly poetic.
Page To Performance was amazing. A two-parter, we watched and listened and discussed how to make our works come to life. Enter the amazing video of Uh Oh Plutonium by Anne Waldman.
There was other stuff, too, but this was just my jam.
We got to play around with instruments. The next morning at 6 AM, I went into my car with the idea of playing a sea chanty as background to my poem, but it didn't work because I couldn't play the chanty from my phone through my car's bluetooth and record at the same time. Instead, I recorded my poem over radio static that became unstaticky at the end of the poem, which was totally unplanned but worked a whole lot.
I shared with them my love of Momentage, the app that lets you put sound to photos. I use it for my poetry sometimes. It's neat!
Theatre of the Impossible and Against Aristotle: New Structures for New Stories were the playwrighting sessions with Stephen. I'm not a script writer. I loved taking script writing as an undergrad, and I adapted plays in high school, but scripts are not what I automatically do--same with fiction--they are not my jam (but Uh Oh Plutonium totally still is). I passed on the Theatre of the Impossible prompt having no mojo for it at the time (more on why in a second), but I still loved learning about all the seemingly impossible stage directions that appear in scripts. You know: Exit pursued by a bear. The second session helped me figure out how to be a better teacher. In Creative Writing, I teach four major genres, and with script writing, I teach Freytag's Pyramid and in medias res for structure. Now I can share all these interesting patterns, showing a variety of what's out there that can structure a play. So helpful!
Now we all know that if the crazy is lurking somewhere, it's finding me. Enter the guest. The guest, a writer not on official staff, came to give us feedback on our manuscripts. A day before the retreat, we were to send three pages of what we were working on and a summary of the entire piece. I sent three problematic poems and a summary of my full manuscript, a collection of poems that reflect different ways to deal with chronic ailments. When she met us, she had already read the pieces we'd sent in, so she identified with that. She met me and exclaimed, Oh the car accident lady!
Now that could have been fine and it was actually funny. But then when she met everyone else, she commented on their writing instead. To me, that meant she didn't care for my stuff. And that's okay. The stuff I sent in was meant for critique. Because this was a workshop retreat.
When we got into the feedback portion, Things. Got. Weird. She saved me for last. After giving much praise to many writers, she said that my work was not honest and I was avoiding dealing with what I wanted to say. She asked, Why not write about the accident? I said, I have. She said, Why isn't that here? I said, because I'm actually happy with that stuff and I gave you things I'm not sure about. So she said, Well, you have to do your research because these poems don't work and you don't know Simone Weil's work at all. Then she said, It's as if you're afraid of my criticism so you didn't want to hand me the work about what you're writing about.
Um. If I were afraid of criticism, why would I hand in works that were problematic?
And, that whole Simone Weil thing that she said I had to research? Well, one of the poems is about how I know nothing about Simone Weil and I'm too lazy to research her, so I make things up. I think the point was missed.
So she told me to write something new and give her something for the next day. Then she asked who the accident lady was, I raised my hand as everyone pointed at me, and she said, No, you're the car accident lady--I mean the other accident.
Yes, this all happened. And then there's the second session. The second session was a bit late the next day. Theatre of the Impossible was the first session, and having sat through the oddest critique in history (or so I thought), I wasn't up for writing much. I'd pulled out a poem that I liked from my manuscript and wrote a quick unfinished one for the second session the night before.
Second session--it went on forever. I ate some bread. I picked at my nails. I stifled yawns. I liked hearing about everyone's work, but it was dragging. Then came my turn. She asked me to read the poem I liked out loud and I did and she said, Yes there you have it! Then she asked me to read the unfinished one out loud and told me it was unfinished and it needed more. I said it was a first draft and she went into a discussion of how our first drafts were not as good as their first drafts (don't ask me who they are--I do not know). She asked if I had gone deep into that place of writing. I responded that I did my best. She then told me I was an angry person.
I'll say that again. She said I was an angry person.
I was like, I certainly hope not! And everyone kind of laughed. And then she went on. Then she said she didn't know me personally but she thought that I used anger to get over and out of the pain I'd been in. I agreed with that.
Then she said that I was probably very funny.
What? The? Hell?
She said that she and I would probably sit back and laugh together if we knew each other better.
What? Is? Going? On?
Then she said that I should make a chapbook of all the poems like the one I already knew was good.
So to summarize: I'm afraid of writing about what I want to write about. I fear feedback. I'm an angry person. And I am quite funny. Oh! And at some point she also said I'm very sensitive. Clearly.
When I wrote up my evaluation, I wrote that in workshop, I never use "you" when I talk to others about their work. I use "this piece," "this word," "this sentence," "this paragraph," "this line."....
The last morning, one of the coordinators pulled me aside to personally apologize and said that the critique was really unhelpful and it was more of a personal attack. Then she said, When she suggested you were an angry person, we looked at each other like, what is going on???? I was like, I didn't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, so I let it go.
I've been through this kind of thing before. I can recognize absurdity before it even emerges.
That was the only drawback. Two sessions out of the whole retreat, and I got to eat bread during one of them? That's nothing. Plus, the director didn't need to apologize for the actions of someone else, yet she did. That's class.
The fortunate twist is that the absurd feedback got me talking to one of the other writers about our manuscripts and we exchanged our work and went off on our own late night writing workshop together and decided we'd continue to exchange work because we are so on the same vibe of writing. It was spectacular. I stayed up into the wee morning hours to read her stuff. I am a writer after all!
To top it all off, well, two things.
1. Too Many Cooks. Fair warning, if you watch this, you will remember it forever, and the song will haunt you for days.
As an experiment in collaborative writing and performance, we watched this and then made our own recording. It was probably the most fun I've ever had yelling out the names during opening credits.
2. The last morning, the retreat directors made french toast and eggs for breakfast. As we finished up yoga with some long meditative poses, the sweet scent of breakfast wafted into the living room. The clanging of pots and pans became the soundtrack to savasana. More heaven on earth.
Breakfast was wonderful. We decided we'd keep the writing going. We will give prompts and write things and offer feedback and support each other. So in addition to my workshopping partner, I also have the group's work every week to look forward to.
With one accidental click of an email, my writing life is back. It's nice to be home again.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Whole 30 and Beyond
Inflammation was the one thing the chiropractor said over and over whenever I saw him. He couldn't understand why the adjustments and treatments wouldn't hold, and he suggested I take tumeric. Then my No Fault insurance ran out and I stopped going to the chiropractor (also, the holidays and the snow had begun, so getting myself to Brooklyn was challenging--I'll go back for a looksee soon). Since my back injury, everything else about my health started to head to a place it had never been. Unhealthy. Basically, I felt like shit all the time.
I found Whole 30 through Dr. Oz. I rarely watch Dr. Oz, so this seemed serendipitous. Also on the show were Chris and his wife, the trainers from that weight loss show, and they, too, had a nutrition plan that was high-low carbs. That sounded easier, but I chose Whole 30 because it seemed like the only thing that would get rid of inflammation. I had to try it. To get me motivated, I started following Whole30Recipes on Instagram.
Cooking used to be part of my life. I don't like to cook. I'm not one of those people who go to the kitchen to whip something up when I'm bored. However, I don't mind cooking for myself, I can follow a recipe, and I used to do it all the time as part of my wellness routine.
I never drank anything other than water and tea. I never ate sweets as part of a routine. I rarely ate bread and pasta. These ideas had been long gone for quite some time.
With Whole 30, I got back to the kitchen. I also started keeping track of everything I ate, and I started thinking about all the things I'd been eating before starting Whole 30, and I realized that everything I'd been eating was contributing to everything that was wrong with me. What I've been eating that is Whole 30 Approved is everything that can make it and keep it right.
After 30 days, I didn't feel completely better. I did feel a lot better. The pain in my back has been reduced greatly.
As an unintentional bonus, I lost some of the chub that latched on probably around the time I was slowly finishing a crumb cake from the holidays on a daily basis. Eddie says I'm ripped. My muscle tone is back and my pants are not tight anymore. Bloating gone. Chub gone.
My hair and nails are not shining like a sunbeam and my skin is my normal skin, but the results of eating healthy have been beneficial anyway.
I'm continuing to eat mindfully. I have incorporated some off-plan items back into my diet. Every day, I use cooking spray, which I couldn't use on-plan because it uses soy lecithin. Twice a week, I go off-plan, allowing for good carbs and maybe even a sweet treat.
The sweet treats are not exactly treats anymore. On Valentine's Day, Eddie and I had our normal waffle dinner, and then we split some chocolate lava cakes. As I was eating the dessert, my head was feeling weird, my whole body was feeling weird, and then the aching started. I kept eating, thinking that I was enjoying what I was eating, but then I realized it was simply too sweet to enjoy. Idiotically, I scarfed it down, and then felt like I couldn't move ever again. I'll be backing down on the serving size of sweets in the future.
Eating out now will be easier because I won't have to wonder if something was made with butter, but eating at home is also easier now that I'm back on track. My back is back on track, too.
I found Whole 30 through Dr. Oz. I rarely watch Dr. Oz, so this seemed serendipitous. Also on the show were Chris and his wife, the trainers from that weight loss show, and they, too, had a nutrition plan that was high-low carbs. That sounded easier, but I chose Whole 30 because it seemed like the only thing that would get rid of inflammation. I had to try it. To get me motivated, I started following Whole30Recipes on Instagram.
Cooking used to be part of my life. I don't like to cook. I'm not one of those people who go to the kitchen to whip something up when I'm bored. However, I don't mind cooking for myself, I can follow a recipe, and I used to do it all the time as part of my wellness routine.
I never drank anything other than water and tea. I never ate sweets as part of a routine. I rarely ate bread and pasta. These ideas had been long gone for quite some time.
With Whole 30, I got back to the kitchen. I also started keeping track of everything I ate, and I started thinking about all the things I'd been eating before starting Whole 30, and I realized that everything I'd been eating was contributing to everything that was wrong with me. What I've been eating that is Whole 30 Approved is everything that can make it and keep it right.
 |
| Eddie: "That looks really good. For people who eat stuff like that." |
After 30 days, I didn't feel completely better. I did feel a lot better. The pain in my back has been reduced greatly.
As an unintentional bonus, I lost some of the chub that latched on probably around the time I was slowly finishing a crumb cake from the holidays on a daily basis. Eddie says I'm ripped. My muscle tone is back and my pants are not tight anymore. Bloating gone. Chub gone.
My hair and nails are not shining like a sunbeam and my skin is my normal skin, but the results of eating healthy have been beneficial anyway.
I'm continuing to eat mindfully. I have incorporated some off-plan items back into my diet. Every day, I use cooking spray, which I couldn't use on-plan because it uses soy lecithin. Twice a week, I go off-plan, allowing for good carbs and maybe even a sweet treat.
The sweet treats are not exactly treats anymore. On Valentine's Day, Eddie and I had our normal waffle dinner, and then we split some chocolate lava cakes. As I was eating the dessert, my head was feeling weird, my whole body was feeling weird, and then the aching started. I kept eating, thinking that I was enjoying what I was eating, but then I realized it was simply too sweet to enjoy. Idiotically, I scarfed it down, and then felt like I couldn't move ever again. I'll be backing down on the serving size of sweets in the future.
Eating out now will be easier because I won't have to wonder if something was made with butter, but eating at home is also easier now that I'm back on track. My back is back on track, too.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Speedy Baddriverson and Me: One Year Anniversary
It's not surprising and quite fitting that my hip hurts today. Every day, it's something new. One year ago today was a sunny crisp day with clean, dry streets, quite different from the day before that brought about a snow day for the first day of Spring semester 2014. Before one year ago today, I was active, healthy, on top of the world. So this was the second day of school but the first day we had classes, and I was driving home, content, and then, Speedy Baddriverson rear-ended me.
2014 turned out to be a year of dealing with doctors and therapists and no-fault insurance. It was all ice packs and heating pads and stretches and stupidity. I got advice like, You should stretch and strengthen your abs, from doctors whom I'd just told, I taught yoga before the collision. I got advice like, Take tumeric. So I've added tumeric to everything. I've learned that too much tumeric can lead to heartburn.
The orthopedist did not help my back spasms, but physical therapy did.
The pain moved to my lower back when the spasms stopped. The physical therapy ran out then, anyway, so I went to a chiropractor.
My summer was consumed by three appointments a week, going to see the chiropractor for adjustments. The stress of slow results and pain moving from lower back to mid back and then back down again wreaked havoc on me. I got pains in my stomach. I was always tired. I was always achy.
I got a second chiropractic opinion that offered less aggressive adjustment, more alternative experiments. The drawback: he's in Brooklyn, and in traffic on the Belt, that means traveling 40 minutes to get there. But he was positive and determined to get me better, so I went. He sent me to get an MRI, something I swore I'd never do, but I did it (and it really was not as confined as had been described to me). I did cupping. Oh, the cupping. I got gentle adjustments. I got electro-tingly therapy. It was good when I was getting it. I was still achy, though.
Basically, if I tried to go back to living the same way I was with super duper workouts, I fell back into pain.
And then the insurance ran out. The no-fault doctor told Geico that I was fine. It's fine to be in pain every day.
I keep stretching. I keep moving. I can't get into the full yoga positions I used to, but I don't stop. The elliptical finally arrived from the old place and it's now in the home gym for me to use for a low impact high results workout. And I've been on a Whole 30 nutrition plan aimed at reducing inflammation, the culprit the second chiropractor was after. He told me I'd get better.
Here I am a year later, and I am not cured. However, I'm 22 days into Whole 30 and there are less aches, which means that I might possibly have less inflammation. Eddie says I've been complaining less, which means either I've simply gotten used to feeling this way or I'm getting better. I'd like to think I'm getting better. The aches move between my lower back and my hips. Because I've had so much of a problem with my lower back, I haven't been able to stretch out and open my hips the way I used to, so basically anything attached to my pelvis still is not back to what it was.
But it's better. A year later, I don't wake up with spasms in my back and I don't ache every minute of every day. For that, I'm thankful. Now if I can get my insurance company to cover chiropractic care, I can go back to the second chiro just a few more times and maybe make some magic happen. Until then, I'm continuing the Whole 30 to day 30 and then while I won't keep it as strict, I will not go back to the malnutritious well of inflammation I'd created.
As for Speedy Baddriverson, I hope she's taken some lessons in How Not To Crash Into Other People's Cars.
Back to me, here's where I'd like to be, and I'm getting there.
2014 turned out to be a year of dealing with doctors and therapists and no-fault insurance. It was all ice packs and heating pads and stretches and stupidity. I got advice like, You should stretch and strengthen your abs, from doctors whom I'd just told, I taught yoga before the collision. I got advice like, Take tumeric. So I've added tumeric to everything. I've learned that too much tumeric can lead to heartburn.
The orthopedist did not help my back spasms, but physical therapy did.
The pain moved to my lower back when the spasms stopped. The physical therapy ran out then, anyway, so I went to a chiropractor.
My summer was consumed by three appointments a week, going to see the chiropractor for adjustments. The stress of slow results and pain moving from lower back to mid back and then back down again wreaked havoc on me. I got pains in my stomach. I was always tired. I was always achy.
I got a second chiropractic opinion that offered less aggressive adjustment, more alternative experiments. The drawback: he's in Brooklyn, and in traffic on the Belt, that means traveling 40 minutes to get there. But he was positive and determined to get me better, so I went. He sent me to get an MRI, something I swore I'd never do, but I did it (and it really was not as confined as had been described to me). I did cupping. Oh, the cupping. I got gentle adjustments. I got electro-tingly therapy. It was good when I was getting it. I was still achy, though.
Basically, if I tried to go back to living the same way I was with super duper workouts, I fell back into pain.
And then the insurance ran out. The no-fault doctor told Geico that I was fine. It's fine to be in pain every day.
I keep stretching. I keep moving. I can't get into the full yoga positions I used to, but I don't stop. The elliptical finally arrived from the old place and it's now in the home gym for me to use for a low impact high results workout. And I've been on a Whole 30 nutrition plan aimed at reducing inflammation, the culprit the second chiropractor was after. He told me I'd get better.
Here I am a year later, and I am not cured. However, I'm 22 days into Whole 30 and there are less aches, which means that I might possibly have less inflammation. Eddie says I've been complaining less, which means either I've simply gotten used to feeling this way or I'm getting better. I'd like to think I'm getting better. The aches move between my lower back and my hips. Because I've had so much of a problem with my lower back, I haven't been able to stretch out and open my hips the way I used to, so basically anything attached to my pelvis still is not back to what it was.
But it's better. A year later, I don't wake up with spasms in my back and I don't ache every minute of every day. For that, I'm thankful. Now if I can get my insurance company to cover chiropractic care, I can go back to the second chiro just a few more times and maybe make some magic happen. Until then, I'm continuing the Whole 30 to day 30 and then while I won't keep it as strict, I will not go back to the malnutritious well of inflammation I'd created.
As for Speedy Baddriverson, I hope she's taken some lessons in How Not To Crash Into Other People's Cars.
Back to me, here's where I'd like to be, and I'm getting there.
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| Finished P90X twice! Check out that bicep. |
Monday, June 30, 2014
Almost Yoga
I figured free yoga on a Saturday would be wall to wall sweaty people on very long lines. Our train was late, so we hiked very quickly to the sign in point. The line was practically non-existent even an hour before the class started while in the past, I had to arrive at least and hour and a half to get on a line already wrapped around the block. Hmmm, maybe since the classes began at 5:30 AM and ended at 9 PM, everyone who wanted to go was spread out over the day. We were on line in the shade. Our tickets got collected quickly. We received our first bit of free stuff: Chia something or other. Very exciting. (My excitement faded on the train ride home when I tried it and almost threw up because I was not expecting it to be chunky. It's chunky.)
We then got our yoga mats as the line quickly moved forward. We'd brought a mat each because in past years, the mats they handed out were sticky mats with no cushion. This year? Real squishy mats. So we now had four cushiony mats to use between the two of us. I was in my free stuff glory as we were herded into the yoga practice area and Eddie was amazed at how close we had to get to each other. Then we noticed the couple next to us and agreed that the girl had dragged her guy there as well. That guy was sitting on a mat wearing jeans. Eddie had worn shorts and immediately took off his sneakers and socks to sit on his mat. This guy was all about not doing that. We were in the hot hot sun and this guy just sat in his jeans and sneakers and socks and t-shirt next to his girl who was all yoga'd out in yoga gear.
We waited for a pretty long time for the class to start. While waiting, a dragonfly wizzed by a few times and then landed on some girl's bag in front of us. The whole time, the two of us were ducking like children. Everyone else was in awe of how pretty it was. Clearly, we were not among people like us. We refrained from swatting at it. Instead, we silently cringed. Then I went through my free stuff we got in our goodie bags.
When the session began, the instructor started talking about her pregnancy. Amazingly, she was instructing the class while being like eight months pregnant. It's quite a feat. But then? She kept talking. Then she talked some more. What was she talking about? Mostly about being at one with the world and being separate from it and how being pregnant made her realize the difference. But then I tuned out. Eddie says she was also talking about giving light to the sun instead of taking light from it. Impressive! He listened more than I did.
Then she said, Let's all snuggle up and hold hands.
Clearly, this was a violation of Eddie's terms. I quickly whispered to him, I've never had to ever touch anyone else in all my years of coming to this! He gave a half sigh, and grabbed my hand along with the hand of the girl next to him who grabbed her guy who was still in jeans and sneakers and socks in the hot sun. The woman on my other side was very bubbly and happy to grab hands.
Finally, we got to some yoga. The sitting part was easy. The balancing stuff was easy. All the other stuff? Not so. Eddie was challenging himself in all the poses, doing really well for being the most inflexible person in the world. I was not doing well because my back was tweaking and I had to stop everything and not do the poses. The two of us pretty much laughed at each other the whole time, and it wasn't a very long time because the talking had taken up most of the session, so in no time we were seated again, during which time we were supposed to reach our arms out to the side and Eddie purposely put his arm across my neck, causing the woman next to me to crack up. Then we were laying down in savasana. It's Eddie's favorite pose. I like it, too.
Then we all sat up. Then we were told to hold hands again. Everyone take your grubby sweaty hands and touch each other. Fun times.
Then it was over and we clapped and we did our best to roll up our four mats and not appear to be bogged down by them.
We headed into the yoga village to get more free stuff. I skipped the line for the coffee and headed straight to get SmartWater and coconut water. I also got a Weight Watchers ice cream pop that I had to eat immediately before it melted.
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| That lady looks like she could use an ice cream pick-me-up, too. |
The next day, my ass hurt. My ass hurt so bad that I could barely move off the couch. The pain was coming from the place in my back that's the tightest. I was happy that I'd made the appointment with the chiropractor because hopefully he'd help me climb out of this pain because yoga--something the ortho told me could help--clearly was not working. Still, I couldn't be upset. I was surrounded by free stuff.
Oh, and on the train ride home, Eddie made a friend. This woman could not wait to get off the train, and so her ass was in his face for a good five minutes.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
The Back Issue
Remember when Speedy Baddriverson whacked the back of my car with her car back in January? Perhaps you've forgotten. You know what hasn't forgotten? My back. Six months later, it's worse than it was.
Originally, I went to an orthopedist. He gave me a booklet of exercises to strenthen my core even though I told him I'm pretty good with exercises that strengthen my core and stretch and relax my back. I tried them, figuring it couldn't hurt. I even incorporated Martha Peterson's Somatics of Pandiculation into my routine, something Eddie's back doctor told him to try for his back problems. So the two of us rolled around on the living room floor night after night pandiculating. That might sound dirty until you look up what pandiculation is. I won't do the work for you.
When I returned to the orthopedist two weeks later, my thoracic back spasms and lower back stiffness had not subsided. He gave me a prescription for physical therapy which included TENS, massage, and movement to gain core strength. So I went to a PT that was a pretty small and laid back place. Basically, appointments really didn't matter, and most of the stuff I could do on my own. They had me lifting three pound weights for bicep curls. My normal routine is three sets of curls using ten pound weights, so the three pounders I could basically throw across the room pretty far. However, I understood they were learning what I could handle and I wasn't going to throw myself into 10 pounds when I was injured.
Some of the exercises made sense like the inner and outer rotations for my shoulders and the cable pulls for my shoulders, back, and core. I couldn't make sense of why I had to ride a stationary bike for eight minutes, though. That was dumb, but I approached the entire experience as being able to go to a gym and have a personal trainer. The PT people are not personal trainers; they are medical professionals. But it was very similar, and I've always wanted to go to the gym and have a trainer. I did have one on one attention at times, but when the place got busy, the PT would run between person to person, checking up on everyone at different times.
I liked the people there. They were encouraging and knew their stuff. I was on my own for a lot of the stuff after a few weeks because I clearly knew what I was doing. Each session ended with fifteen minutes hooked up to the TENS. Ooooh, shoot electricity through my muscles any day of the week! I fell asleep sometimes.
In the meantime, I was taking muscles relaxers and anti-inflammatories whenever the pain and stiffness got really bad. I'm not a pill popper, so for me to take something, it had to be bad. At times, it was bad, so I took something, but overall, I laid off they pills.
However, after weeks of therapy 3 times a week and returning to the ortho, I was still having back spasms. I got a new script and returned to therapy and got a massage plus what I call a sonogram but it's not a sonogram. I can never remember the name of it. It's something that sends some sort of magic deep into the muscles. The therapist ran it up and down the spasms. After that, the spasms went away.
I continued therapy, my back feeling stronger but still stiff. One spasm happened over the course of a few weeks, which was a good thing because it wasn't one a day and it wasn't one that lasted an entire night, both of which had happened in the past. I finished out therapy about two weeks later.
Two days after therapy ended, I awoke in the middle of the night, my back in a spasm and my lower back experiencing searing pain. I had not been cured. I had been temporarily faked out.
Before returning to the orthopedist, I was sent by my no fault insurance to whom I'll call Dr. Quack. I got a letter saying I had to see an orthopedist approved by my insurance to evaluate my condition. The doctor was nice enough, explaining that she was not there to treat me but to evaluate me. She asked me to bend forward. I bent forward. She asked me to bend to the sides. I bent to the side. She asked me to bend backwards. I said, No, I can't. She asked me how far I could. I couldn't do it at all. My back was killing me. A lump of gross muscle spasm stuff had developed in my lower back. So gross. So painful.
A few days later, I went to the orthopedist and explained how the pain was mostly now in my lumbar spine and the surrounding muscles. He asked if I'd taken any anti inflammatories or muscle relaxers. I said that I hadn't, explaining that since the pain was different and in a different place, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. He told me he could prescribe more therapy. I said okay, but that it hadn't helped. Then he said, I'm going to give you a packet of excercises so you can strengthen your core.
I'd been holding things together pretty well until that moment. All this unexpected mayhem. All this health-related chaos. I'm a relatively fit person, and in not being able to do my normal workouts, in not being able to wake up feeling like a normal person, in not being able to do yoga--something that's supposed to help back pain--I was slowly not myself anymore. And it was pissing me off.
So I said to the doctor, I'm not sure that's going to help since I'm a certified yoga instructor and I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to do for core strength and back pain, and nothing is working and I just don't know what to do anymore. His response was, I'll get you that packet. He talked into his little tape recorder and his assistant came in with the same packet he'd given me months before.
I took the packet of core strengtheners, rolled it up, and swiftly beat him with it.
Okay, I didn't do that.
I took the packet, took the script, and then I left.
When I got home, I found a letter from my no fault in the mail. According to Dr. Quack, I was perfectly fine, and so my no fault would no longer cover orthopedic treatment or any secondary treatment--like pt--under the category of orthopedic. So on the day my own orthopedist, however idiotic he is, gave me a new round of PT and another packet of core strengtheners because my back issues were still present, Dr. Quack said the exact opposite.
I lost my shit. I called the insurance. I left a message saying exactly that: I'm not sure how your doctor says I'm fine when I'm in pain and my own doctor sent me to therapy.
I found out that while orthopedic treatment is no longer an option, I can still get treatment by other things like neurology, pain management, chiropractic, massage, and any other thing I can think of. The trick is that you can't ask in advance, will this be covered? You simply have to find a doctor that accepts no fault and have the doctor submit the claim to no fault and hope that it goes through. If it doesn't, then technically you're not responsible for it. However, when you go to any doctor, in the paperwork you have to fill out is a form that says you will be held responsible for any payment no fault does not cover. So really, it's a crap shoot of medical finance gambling. I'm thinking of moving to Canada.
Anyway, I started researching pain management until one of my friends sent me the info for her chiropractor, a doctor she raves about, and she's not a raver of the medical industry at all. This past week, I went.
I've met Eddie's chiropractor, and he's a very positive, very energetic guy. The guy I saw this week is just the same. Maybe there's a special kind of person you have to be to work on people's backs. When he took my history, he said things like, "that's not good," "I'm really concerned about that," and "ooh, you're too young to have that complaint." But then followed up everything with, we are going to work on that!
Two days before my appointment, Eddie and I had gone into the city for Summer Solstice In Times Square: Mind Over Madness. Details on that later, but for now, just know that I couldn't do it. It was a slow vinyasa class and I couldn't do most of it. Then the day after that, the day before my appointment, my ass hurt. It got progressively worse throughout the day to the point where I couldn't move and just stayed on the couch.
So when the doctor asked if the pain had radiated down anywhere, I grabbed my ass and said, Well I tried doing yoga over the weekend and now all of this hurts, and I feel how it's connected directly to the place on my back where it hurts most. Then when he found out that I can't teach yoga, he was like, Wow so this is affecting your work too. I explained that yoga wasn't my primary job, but it was nice to earn some pocket change over the summers, and now I can't.
He listened a lot. He was really sympathetic. He even asked if it was affected my mood (yes: I'm pissed off) and my marriage (yes: I can now empathize with the husband's back pain).
Then came the assessment. He had me lie down on my stomach and let gravity do its thing for a few minutes. When he came back in, he said, You're probably feeling where you're having the most trouble by now. Yup, exactly. He touched all the places where I was having problems without my having to tell him where I was having problems. It was like Pain ESP. He bent my legs, asked me to turn my head, and then said, There it is!, following up by asking me if my neck hurt. I said no. He asked, It doesn't hurt in here? And that small perfect touch in that one spot made me realize that yes, indeed, my neck hurt.
He had me stand on two scales, one foot on each. I carry my weight three pounds to the right, which isn't so horrible, but within one pound is better. He had me stand in front of a frame that had all different threads attached to it and asked me to look in the mirror: which ear is higher? which shoulder is higher? which hip is higher?
When he'd exclaimed, There it is!, he saw that when I turned my head to the left, my legs evened out, but with my head face down or to the right, one leg was shorter than the other. He found every single spasm and place of inflammation. One ear, one shoulder, one hip should not be higher than the other.
He used some sort of instrument on my back to find inflammation. I'm not sure what it's called so I'll just call it the Magical Heat Seeking Gun. He rolled the Magical Heat Seeking Gun up my lower back, mid back, and then neck. On the computer screen I could see orange and yellow pop up next to different vertebrae. That meant inflammation. Then he asked, Are you on muscle relaxers?
Me, the girl who never takes a pill, had taken a muscle relaxer for the ass pain the day before. I told him so and he said, It's still in your system because the inflammation isn't showing up right now. Next time, we'll do it again and see what comes up. And here I thought those things didn't work because they didn't make me feel any better. Apparently, all they do is make me tired and screw up data.
He also asked me if I had scoliosis at any point. Nope, not to my knowledge. He said that the muscles on one side of my spine were smooth and the others were in a large mound.
Basically, I'm all fucked up.
I laid back down on my stomach for another few minutes. He came back in to take X-Rays, triple checking that I wasn't pregnant. Dude, if I'm pregnant right now, I'm just giving up on life. Who can have a baby amid all this chaos? (really, who can have a kid ever? but that's another question for a different time).
He took a bunch of X-Rays, explaining to me what each one was for. The only drawback of the whole experience were his instructions to turn left and right. You see, I do not know my left from my right, especially in circumstances when I'm asked out of nowhere very quickly to turn in either way. So that was a mess with me asking which way again? but otherwise, it was a pleasant experience.
When all was said and done, he told me to bring Eddie back with me so he could hear all the results, too, and we could discuss my plan to get me back to better. He reiterated that I was too young and too fit to be having these issues. Then he said, Now I'm going to offer you a hydromassage before you go. I of course said yes because that sounded magical.
I want a hydromassage bed in my house immediately.
The receptionist-do-everything-the-office-needs-person at the front put me on the bed and dimmed the lights and told me, Just be careful when you get up. I don't know how long I was on it, but for however long it was, I was in heaven. Warm water rumbled under me and gave my back a fantastic beating. When it was over, I rolled myself off the bed all sad that I couldn't stay there forever.
And so I'm returning tomorrow to find out the news and the plan. What exactly is going on with my back and where. What exactly what I can do about it. How much it could cost. I'm pretty sure no fault will pay for at least some of it, but when I get that letter to go to Dr. Quack The Sequel, I'll know I'll be back at the crossroads of how much can I spend on my back to feel good while also being able to pay for things like water and lights. Which means I'm pretty sure I'll be entering into a third world I've never had an interest in: the wonderful world of litigation--from finding an attorney to suing Speedy Baddriverson to hoping it's all over soon. Well, I've already hoped it would be all over soon. The hope doesn't seem to be enough.
Originally, I went to an orthopedist. He gave me a booklet of exercises to strenthen my core even though I told him I'm pretty good with exercises that strengthen my core and stretch and relax my back. I tried them, figuring it couldn't hurt. I even incorporated Martha Peterson's Somatics of Pandiculation into my routine, something Eddie's back doctor told him to try for his back problems. So the two of us rolled around on the living room floor night after night pandiculating. That might sound dirty until you look up what pandiculation is. I won't do the work for you.
When I returned to the orthopedist two weeks later, my thoracic back spasms and lower back stiffness had not subsided. He gave me a prescription for physical therapy which included TENS, massage, and movement to gain core strength. So I went to a PT that was a pretty small and laid back place. Basically, appointments really didn't matter, and most of the stuff I could do on my own. They had me lifting three pound weights for bicep curls. My normal routine is three sets of curls using ten pound weights, so the three pounders I could basically throw across the room pretty far. However, I understood they were learning what I could handle and I wasn't going to throw myself into 10 pounds when I was injured.
Some of the exercises made sense like the inner and outer rotations for my shoulders and the cable pulls for my shoulders, back, and core. I couldn't make sense of why I had to ride a stationary bike for eight minutes, though. That was dumb, but I approached the entire experience as being able to go to a gym and have a personal trainer. The PT people are not personal trainers; they are medical professionals. But it was very similar, and I've always wanted to go to the gym and have a trainer. I did have one on one attention at times, but when the place got busy, the PT would run between person to person, checking up on everyone at different times.
I liked the people there. They were encouraging and knew their stuff. I was on my own for a lot of the stuff after a few weeks because I clearly knew what I was doing. Each session ended with fifteen minutes hooked up to the TENS. Ooooh, shoot electricity through my muscles any day of the week! I fell asleep sometimes.
In the meantime, I was taking muscles relaxers and anti-inflammatories whenever the pain and stiffness got really bad. I'm not a pill popper, so for me to take something, it had to be bad. At times, it was bad, so I took something, but overall, I laid off they pills.
However, after weeks of therapy 3 times a week and returning to the ortho, I was still having back spasms. I got a new script and returned to therapy and got a massage plus what I call a sonogram but it's not a sonogram. I can never remember the name of it. It's something that sends some sort of magic deep into the muscles. The therapist ran it up and down the spasms. After that, the spasms went away.
I continued therapy, my back feeling stronger but still stiff. One spasm happened over the course of a few weeks, which was a good thing because it wasn't one a day and it wasn't one that lasted an entire night, both of which had happened in the past. I finished out therapy about two weeks later.
Two days after therapy ended, I awoke in the middle of the night, my back in a spasm and my lower back experiencing searing pain. I had not been cured. I had been temporarily faked out.
Before returning to the orthopedist, I was sent by my no fault insurance to whom I'll call Dr. Quack. I got a letter saying I had to see an orthopedist approved by my insurance to evaluate my condition. The doctor was nice enough, explaining that she was not there to treat me but to evaluate me. She asked me to bend forward. I bent forward. She asked me to bend to the sides. I bent to the side. She asked me to bend backwards. I said, No, I can't. She asked me how far I could. I couldn't do it at all. My back was killing me. A lump of gross muscle spasm stuff had developed in my lower back. So gross. So painful.
A few days later, I went to the orthopedist and explained how the pain was mostly now in my lumbar spine and the surrounding muscles. He asked if I'd taken any anti inflammatories or muscle relaxers. I said that I hadn't, explaining that since the pain was different and in a different place, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. He told me he could prescribe more therapy. I said okay, but that it hadn't helped. Then he said, I'm going to give you a packet of excercises so you can strengthen your core.
I'd been holding things together pretty well until that moment. All this unexpected mayhem. All this health-related chaos. I'm a relatively fit person, and in not being able to do my normal workouts, in not being able to wake up feeling like a normal person, in not being able to do yoga--something that's supposed to help back pain--I was slowly not myself anymore. And it was pissing me off.
So I said to the doctor, I'm not sure that's going to help since I'm a certified yoga instructor and I've been doing all the things I'm supposed to do for core strength and back pain, and nothing is working and I just don't know what to do anymore. His response was, I'll get you that packet. He talked into his little tape recorder and his assistant came in with the same packet he'd given me months before.
I took the packet of core strengtheners, rolled it up, and swiftly beat him with it.
Okay, I didn't do that.
I took the packet, took the script, and then I left.
When I got home, I found a letter from my no fault in the mail. According to Dr. Quack, I was perfectly fine, and so my no fault would no longer cover orthopedic treatment or any secondary treatment--like pt--under the category of orthopedic. So on the day my own orthopedist, however idiotic he is, gave me a new round of PT and another packet of core strengtheners because my back issues were still present, Dr. Quack said the exact opposite.
I lost my shit. I called the insurance. I left a message saying exactly that: I'm not sure how your doctor says I'm fine when I'm in pain and my own doctor sent me to therapy.
I found out that while orthopedic treatment is no longer an option, I can still get treatment by other things like neurology, pain management, chiropractic, massage, and any other thing I can think of. The trick is that you can't ask in advance, will this be covered? You simply have to find a doctor that accepts no fault and have the doctor submit the claim to no fault and hope that it goes through. If it doesn't, then technically you're not responsible for it. However, when you go to any doctor, in the paperwork you have to fill out is a form that says you will be held responsible for any payment no fault does not cover. So really, it's a crap shoot of medical finance gambling. I'm thinking of moving to Canada.
Anyway, I started researching pain management until one of my friends sent me the info for her chiropractor, a doctor she raves about, and she's not a raver of the medical industry at all. This past week, I went.
I've met Eddie's chiropractor, and he's a very positive, very energetic guy. The guy I saw this week is just the same. Maybe there's a special kind of person you have to be to work on people's backs. When he took my history, he said things like, "that's not good," "I'm really concerned about that," and "ooh, you're too young to have that complaint." But then followed up everything with, we are going to work on that!
Two days before my appointment, Eddie and I had gone into the city for Summer Solstice In Times Square: Mind Over Madness. Details on that later, but for now, just know that I couldn't do it. It was a slow vinyasa class and I couldn't do most of it. Then the day after that, the day before my appointment, my ass hurt. It got progressively worse throughout the day to the point where I couldn't move and just stayed on the couch.
So when the doctor asked if the pain had radiated down anywhere, I grabbed my ass and said, Well I tried doing yoga over the weekend and now all of this hurts, and I feel how it's connected directly to the place on my back where it hurts most. Then when he found out that I can't teach yoga, he was like, Wow so this is affecting your work too. I explained that yoga wasn't my primary job, but it was nice to earn some pocket change over the summers, and now I can't.
He listened a lot. He was really sympathetic. He even asked if it was affected my mood (yes: I'm pissed off) and my marriage (yes: I can now empathize with the husband's back pain).
Then came the assessment. He had me lie down on my stomach and let gravity do its thing for a few minutes. When he came back in, he said, You're probably feeling where you're having the most trouble by now. Yup, exactly. He touched all the places where I was having problems without my having to tell him where I was having problems. It was like Pain ESP. He bent my legs, asked me to turn my head, and then said, There it is!, following up by asking me if my neck hurt. I said no. He asked, It doesn't hurt in here? And that small perfect touch in that one spot made me realize that yes, indeed, my neck hurt.
He had me stand on two scales, one foot on each. I carry my weight three pounds to the right, which isn't so horrible, but within one pound is better. He had me stand in front of a frame that had all different threads attached to it and asked me to look in the mirror: which ear is higher? which shoulder is higher? which hip is higher?
When he'd exclaimed, There it is!, he saw that when I turned my head to the left, my legs evened out, but with my head face down or to the right, one leg was shorter than the other. He found every single spasm and place of inflammation. One ear, one shoulder, one hip should not be higher than the other.
He used some sort of instrument on my back to find inflammation. I'm not sure what it's called so I'll just call it the Magical Heat Seeking Gun. He rolled the Magical Heat Seeking Gun up my lower back, mid back, and then neck. On the computer screen I could see orange and yellow pop up next to different vertebrae. That meant inflammation. Then he asked, Are you on muscle relaxers?
Me, the girl who never takes a pill, had taken a muscle relaxer for the ass pain the day before. I told him so and he said, It's still in your system because the inflammation isn't showing up right now. Next time, we'll do it again and see what comes up. And here I thought those things didn't work because they didn't make me feel any better. Apparently, all they do is make me tired and screw up data.
He also asked me if I had scoliosis at any point. Nope, not to my knowledge. He said that the muscles on one side of my spine were smooth and the others were in a large mound.
Basically, I'm all fucked up.
I laid back down on my stomach for another few minutes. He came back in to take X-Rays, triple checking that I wasn't pregnant. Dude, if I'm pregnant right now, I'm just giving up on life. Who can have a baby amid all this chaos? (really, who can have a kid ever? but that's another question for a different time).
He took a bunch of X-Rays, explaining to me what each one was for. The only drawback of the whole experience were his instructions to turn left and right. You see, I do not know my left from my right, especially in circumstances when I'm asked out of nowhere very quickly to turn in either way. So that was a mess with me asking which way again? but otherwise, it was a pleasant experience.
When all was said and done, he told me to bring Eddie back with me so he could hear all the results, too, and we could discuss my plan to get me back to better. He reiterated that I was too young and too fit to be having these issues. Then he said, Now I'm going to offer you a hydromassage before you go. I of course said yes because that sounded magical.
I want a hydromassage bed in my house immediately.
The receptionist-do-everything-the-office-needs-person at the front put me on the bed and dimmed the lights and told me, Just be careful when you get up. I don't know how long I was on it, but for however long it was, I was in heaven. Warm water rumbled under me and gave my back a fantastic beating. When it was over, I rolled myself off the bed all sad that I couldn't stay there forever.
And so I'm returning tomorrow to find out the news and the plan. What exactly is going on with my back and where. What exactly what I can do about it. How much it could cost. I'm pretty sure no fault will pay for at least some of it, but when I get that letter to go to Dr. Quack The Sequel, I'll know I'll be back at the crossroads of how much can I spend on my back to feel good while also being able to pay for things like water and lights. Which means I'm pretty sure I'll be entering into a third world I've never had an interest in: the wonderful world of litigation--from finding an attorney to suing Speedy Baddriverson to hoping it's all over soon. Well, I've already hoped it would be all over soon. The hope doesn't seem to be enough.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
What Happened In February?
Basically, I have no free time any more because any free time I used to have is now dedicated to getting my back better. February was filled with trips to the orthopaedist and the physical therapist. Three time a week, I have been going to physical therapy. I do a little bit of a workout to strengthen my muscles for support, and then I get hooked up to a machine that makes my back muscles pulse and contract and release. Sometimes, I get a massage! Once, I got something else that I always call a sonogram, but that's totally wrong and not what it's called but it deals with some kind of frequency going into my back muscles via a wand hooked up to a machine.
The Olympics happened! We all know how I love them, so C and J came over to watch the opening ceremonies. Since they were so friggin long, they left before the torch was lit. Eddie and I fell asleep but awoke in time during that very long and awkward run from the stadium to the torch the two people had to jog to light it. I had the games on in the background whenever I was home. I think that maybe I'll be an Olympic athlete next time it comes around. We'll see how my back is by then.
The SuperBowl happened. Eddie had a massive card game during the day. We all watched at night. I bought five boxes and almost won money but did not win money, and my dad wound up winning the quarter I would have won. Nice job, dad. SMM and AF brought guacamole. It was a highlight.
We went to the Ranger Game. We did not sit in the wheelchair section.
I got super sick and was not able to go to work. I actually took two sick days in a row. I had to have my mom drive me to the doctor because I could barely walk let alone drive a car. That all happened right before a snow day and then Winter Break followed, so I was out of work for two weeks in a row. I started feeling better in the middle of break, so I spent it catching up with what I hadn't done the week before. Thankfully, two colleagues jumped in to sub for my classes so my students didn't fall even further behind.
By the by, if you know of ancient remedy that will ward off germs, send it my way. I cannot keep getting sick. My alternative plan is to build my own air-filtered bubble a la John Travolta's The Boy In The Plastic Bubble flick.
I got my car fixed! After Speedy Baddriverson collided into my back bumper, my back bumper needed repair, and it was repaired by the very nice and efficient folks over at the collision place in Island Park. It was a Geico Express place, so I also got my rental car there. The rental was brand new and very pretty, but it made me realize just how high up my own driver's seat is as all other cars have sunken seats and I can pretty much see only an inch above the steering wheel. I'm happy to have my car back. They got it washed too! That, for me, was the best part.
Eddie and I celebrated Valentine's Day by making waffles. Something happened with the waffles. We don't know what. They still tasted yummy even though they came out more like scrambled waffles. He bought me a rose the night before Valentine's Day because he's amazing. I bought him a mini terrarium to grow beans that say "I Love You." We planted them and nothing has grown. Nevertheless, we still love each other.
Lots of snow days.
Some free stuff.
Short month. The end.
The Olympics happened! We all know how I love them, so C and J came over to watch the opening ceremonies. Since they were so friggin long, they left before the torch was lit. Eddie and I fell asleep but awoke in time during that very long and awkward run from the stadium to the torch the two people had to jog to light it. I had the games on in the background whenever I was home. I think that maybe I'll be an Olympic athlete next time it comes around. We'll see how my back is by then.
The SuperBowl happened. Eddie had a massive card game during the day. We all watched at night. I bought five boxes and almost won money but did not win money, and my dad wound up winning the quarter I would have won. Nice job, dad. SMM and AF brought guacamole. It was a highlight.
We went to the Ranger Game. We did not sit in the wheelchair section.
I got super sick and was not able to go to work. I actually took two sick days in a row. I had to have my mom drive me to the doctor because I could barely walk let alone drive a car. That all happened right before a snow day and then Winter Break followed, so I was out of work for two weeks in a row. I started feeling better in the middle of break, so I spent it catching up with what I hadn't done the week before. Thankfully, two colleagues jumped in to sub for my classes so my students didn't fall even further behind.
By the by, if you know of ancient remedy that will ward off germs, send it my way. I cannot keep getting sick. My alternative plan is to build my own air-filtered bubble a la John Travolta's The Boy In The Plastic Bubble flick.
I got my car fixed! After Speedy Baddriverson collided into my back bumper, my back bumper needed repair, and it was repaired by the very nice and efficient folks over at the collision place in Island Park. It was a Geico Express place, so I also got my rental car there. The rental was brand new and very pretty, but it made me realize just how high up my own driver's seat is as all other cars have sunken seats and I can pretty much see only an inch above the steering wheel. I'm happy to have my car back. They got it washed too! That, for me, was the best part.
Eddie and I celebrated Valentine's Day by making waffles. Something happened with the waffles. We don't know what. They still tasted yummy even though they came out more like scrambled waffles. He bought me a rose the night before Valentine's Day because he's amazing. I bought him a mini terrarium to grow beans that say "I Love You." We planted them and nothing has grown. Nevertheless, we still love each other.
 |
| To this day, it's still a pot of dirt. |
 |
| Playing with my PopAGraph App |
Lots of snow days.
 |
| Courtesy of S |
Some free stuff.
 |
| I have yet to claim this because I can't find anyone who sells it. |
 |
| Eh, free is free, right? |
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
How To Do Vegas In Three And A Half Days, Day 2, Part II
While moving between casinos, we made some new friends:
After making the boys do the can-can (the scavenger hunt told them to), we stopped in Paris for food. For some reason, they chose to get pizza in the Parisian-themed casino, and they were shocked that the dough tasted weird. I tried a bite of Eddie's (I was full from the Parking Lot IHOP indulgence), and told them, The crust tastes like French bread...because we're in France.
While they ate, I walked up and down the same hallway about ten times looking for a statue. We couldn't find it anywhere when we first walked in, so since I wasn't eating, I took off, determined. And lookit:
We cut the hunt short because it was nearing the time to get ready to see The Mentalist. We met up once more later on a very long and confusing line where the theatre was for the show. There were hordes of people everywhere, and I had vouchers and reservations, but not physical tickets, and there was no sign that said that. There was one sign that said Tickets. Not. Helpful. Really, the entire process of getting the stupid tickets had been very confusing, but I'd rather go onto Travelzoo and get tickets for 10 bucks than pay almost 70 for each one. Yeah, that's right--when I can't get things for free, I find a discount.
The show? Was pretty entertaining. The theatre was small and cold and again the waiting on the line was confusing and the finding seats was odd, but overall the show was fantastic. Basically, The Mentalist shows off his ability to use intuition and other subtle techniques to figure out stuff about strangers while blindfolded. He also shoots himself with a nail gun. Eddie got to throw a ball into a hoop from his seat. The show was also really short (another reason I'm happy we paid 10 each instead of the full price), so we were out of there and ready to eat in no time.
We ate at some place where the servers were dressed like cheerleaders. One of them seemed to not be wearing underwear, and I know this not because I was trying to see up her skirt but because her skirt was a little too small for her and her butt was pushing it up, making it too short in the back. So we got a second show at dinner. And Eddie made yet another friend:
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