I asked Mike today if I could exchange cars with him, handing him the new car for his Volvo station wagon. He laughed at me, and said sure, what's up? When I explained Kris couldn't drive a stick shift offered to show him the pictures, Mike declined.

I hadn't seen him in a while, with his being off at a client for the last, well, few months, so after exchanging cars, I kept talking. We chatted about life, the kids, the dogs, spouses, the company, our clients. Mike mentioned the client he's been working at has made him an offer that, well, having refused the previous two, is so good, he's inclined to take. "An offer you can't refuse?" "Yeah."

Honestly, after leaving with his car, I felt relief. I was happy that a decision had been made, that we were going to move forward with the company. Part of me was a little disappointed, as I had finally come to terms with the current work situation. That part is small, though. The overwhelming feeling is of excitement of opportunity.

So....

While working out yesterday morning, I noticed at one point during my box jumps that Kris was sitting off to the side next to Breanne instead of jumping on the box or slamming the ball. I thought it odd, but didn't head over to see what he was doing.

After the workout and throwing, Kris commented he banged up his leg, sure to expand the scar from Gino's. I pointed to the scar on his right leg, then the bandage on his left, and let him know that, no, he would have matching scars instead.

Fun!

Last night, he arrived home limping. Oh, boy, he said, did his leg hurt. After throwing down his work bags and other stuff, he hobbled into the bathroom to remove his bandage. A few moments later, I heard howling from the back of the house. Bella was sitting next to me in the living room. Annie was on the couch opposite me. Must be Kris.

When I arrived, he was standing outside of the tub with his leg inside the shower, getting his leg wet and trying to remove the gauze from the wound on his leg. Eventually, with sufficient water, he was able to remove the gauze, and I was able to see what he had done this morning.

Not for the faint of heart.

One look at the wound, and I told him to dry off and put a pair of shorts back on, we were going to the emergency room. Ha ha ha, he didn't believe me at first. How bad could the injury be? He finished the workout this morning. He worked all day with his leg propped up. Why did he have to go to the emergency room?

"Because you have an inch and half gash in your shin that goes down to the bone. Your muscle sheath has been torn. It's been twelve hours and it's still bleeding. You're getting stitches."

"Oh."

Close to our house, a medical clinic opened a few months ago. I've been fairly grumpy about the place, wanting a park on the location instead of more parking spaces and a gigantic medical clinic. The lights into and out of the clinic are very poorly timed, causing me to wait at a red light as I watch the next light cycle through six cycles. The amount of traffic in the area has increased. It's nothing but trouble in my mind.

Tonight, however, I was quite glad I had a medical facility close to home. Ten minutes after announcing our going to the clinic, Kris was hobbling into the front door.

We went into the back room quickly, the evening being a fairly slow night. The nurse looked at his leg and commented, "Oh, well, I guess I know why you're in here."

A few minutes later, the doctor came in. He looked at Kris when he walked in, and continued to look at his face as he asked the basic health history questions. After a few questions, he asked why Kris why he was in. "I was jumping at a workout this morning, onto a box, and missed." The doctor looked down towards Kris' leg for the first time, surprise registering on his face when he finally saw the wound.

After talking with us for a while, the doctor asked how old the wound was. Kris told him he injured it at 8:30, the doctor seemed relieved, only an hour ago. "AM," he continued. "Oh." The doctor then told us he couldn't stitch it up. Turns out, an injury less than 6 hours old can be stitched close completely. From six hours to twelve, a wound can be lightly stitched to pull any skin or skin flap loosely together, but not closed, as the risk of infection is too great. After twelve hours, they won't stitch at all, as the risk of infection is far too great, and way outweighs the benefits of closing the wound.

However, this would was so big, he had to recommend a gentle closing stitch.

Around this time, I commented under my breath, "Boys are dumb." Apparently, I didn't mutter quietly enough, as the doctor looked up at me, somewhat offended. Kris saw the look and explained the origin and let the doctor know that dumb is equal opportunity, girls can be dumb, too.

Sure, Kris. If you say so.

An hour later, we left the building and went home. As we were walking into the house, Kris turned to me and laughed. "I banged it up good, eh?"

"Yes. Yes. you did. Way to let me take care of you."

"No problem."

Today's Velocity Sports workout was all about jumping. Brynne and Heather were both already in class when Kris and I arrived, the whole group getting ready to go go go when we showed up late. The morning's workout was all about jumping, in decreasing sets. I was planning on taking a later train down south so that Kris and I could throw after the workout, to practice throwing when tired, concentrating on good form to establish good habits.

The workout circuit was:

Box jumps
Barbell twists
Ball slams
Burpees

The repetitions in the sets reduces by 3 from 21: 21 18 15 12 9 6 3

I'm not sure how we were supposed to do the box jumps other than land softly on the boxes. I jumped onto the middle height box, which is higher than I normally would jump, but I'm ready to start pushing myself. The season is almost over, I've played at Regionals without injury, which was my season goal, actually. So, why not push myself? An injury now wouldn't upset me as much as the one last January, so why not?

So, box jumps, landing lightly, middle height box.

Barbell twists were done holding one end of a barbell, with the other nominally anchored (really, just resting in the hole of a 45 pound weight plate). Starting straight armed with the barbell held in both hands to the right side, lift the barbell up to the side with both arms straight, over the head, and back down on the left side. That's one.

Ball slams were the same as normal: lift a weighted, non-bouncy ball over head (we used the D-balls), and, in one motion, push the ball down to the ground while squatting. The ball will bounce maybe a foot. Catch the ball in the squat position, and stand up, pushing the ball back up overhead. That's one.

Burpees are still the same: stand, squat, put hands on the floor in front of you, thrust legs out behind you into a plank position, do a pushup, thrust legs back up into a squat with hands on floor position, lift hands, do a jump squat with hands high in the air, land, that's one. However, I concentrated on looking up when I jumped up. I have a tendency to look down when I jump up. I don't know why I do that: the ground is going to be there when I land.

So, my squat jumps were higher than normal, but that's a good thing.

Kris and I threw afterward, but he wanted to sit, so not as much as I expected to do. I was tired, however, so fine with it.

As Kris, Annie and Blue were preparing to head off for the dogs' all-day, off-leash hike, I bundled up Bella and Shadow into my car and starting driving away this morning. We were going on the the short hike we went on before, mostly because it's short (about an hour long) and close (only about 20 minutes away).

As I pulled out of the driveway, Bella and Shadow in the back seat, I noticed the car smelled funny. I opened the vents, rolled down the windows, but nothing helped. I turned around to comment to Bella that she should stop farting, when I realized there was a pile of doggie puke, full of Bella's breakfast, in the back seat. Fortunately, she had chosen to throw up on the blanket I had in the back seat, which I removed after quickly returning home. Andy and Kris were puzzled when I returned after being gone all of one minute. Understandably.

Second try, we made it to the Open Space, and out of the car. Bella immediately began pull, pull, pulling. Shadow looked at me funny when I put the leash on him, but walked along beside me as we left the parking lot and started for the trail head. I wanted to keep the leash on him until we were at a minimum outside the obvious park rangers' locations. The parking lot is typically an easy place to catch dog owners with dogs off leash.

We managed to walk about 20 yards before Shadow was done with his leash. He stopped, dug all four paws into the ground, and tugged in reverse. Bella, meanwhile, was charging ahead, nose to the ground, straining to go faster. Three seconds later and my shoulders are taught with doggie tension, both pulling in different directions.

Assuming Shadow didn't want the leash on, I went back and took it off him. When I walked forward, he didn't follow. Dog! I walked fifty yards up the trail, then back the fifty yards to see Shadow sitting there, staring intently through the trees back at the parking lot. Nudging, pushing, cajoling, didn't help. He wasn't budging from that place.

Thinking this was going to be a really, really, really long hike, I put the leash back on him, and started tugging. Now, imagine a border collie on the end of a leash, digging in and pulling backwards with all his might. On the other end of the leash is a woman, with her feet dug into the ground, pulling backwards with all her might. In the woman's hands are not only the first dog's leash, but another leash with a smaller beagle dog howling at the two of them, "Arroooooooooo!" simply translated to, "Come ON! Let's go!"

Eventually Shadow lost the tug of war, and we started back up the hill.

For another 20 yards.

Then he dug his feet in again and pulled backward on the leash.

Well, crap. Maybe this hike wasn't such a good idea.

Shadow and I continued this leash on, leash off, digging, stopping, nudging dance for the next 300 yards, until I noticed behind us by about 50 yards was another hiker. With a dog. A dog Shadow wanted to herd.

Oh.

I let the other dog pass, and suddenly Shadow was a great dog. He walked along next to me except when Bella peed on a spot. Then he had to sniff, sniff, sniff that spot. Annoying dog.

We continued along the hike with Shadow behind me until we reached the crest of the hill and the start of the loop trail we walk. As soon as we reached that top and walked along the top ridge for 30 yards, Shadow realized hey, hey, this is a flat hike, and zoooooom! he was in front of Bella, in front of me, in front of us and go go going.

Bella and I followed our fearless Shadow leader for the rest of the hike, and finished just over the expected hour.

Andy offered to watch Bella for the afternoon, since he'd be home watching Shadow anyway, so I dropped the two doggen off at his house and went to work. Not paying attention to my phone, I missed a call from him. When I called back, he said, oh, Bella didn't look good for a while, but then puked again and seemed fine. Hi, let me drop off my sick dog for you to take care of. I was embarrassed, but Andy said, hey, its part of having dogs, this cleaning up of the doggie puke.

Uh, okay. You clean up. I'll be here, embarrassed.

A couple weeks ago, I contracted an infection under my left eye.

I have two bumps under the my eyes, closest to my nose, under where the tears drain into my nose, one for each eye. The bumps have been growing as of late, causing me to wonder if they're something worth looking at. They're under the skin, unlike the BCC, and seem to be growing over years.

The infection I had under my eye was caused, I'm sure, by my constant worry about the bumps. My worry about them has been increasing as for a while now, which means the amount I touch them increased, which means more dirt, more oil, more chances of infection.

And what do you know?

I couldn't tell if the infection was a boil or pimple or what. What I could tell was that I didn't want the infection to move to my eyes, so, thin skin under the eyes or not, I was going to clean up that spot.

Do you know how painful alcohol fumes are next to your eye? You don't? Well, don't find out.

When using rubbing alcohol on the bump didn't dry it out or fix the problem, I did what any nominally insane woman would do.

I cut it out.

Just as I had done when I was younger, I took a sharp object, cleaned it with alcohol, cleaned the short object with alcohol, cut the skin slightly, and cleaned out the puss next to my eye. While I was there, hey, why not remove the bump, too? It would mean only a slightly larger cut, and I could see what it was.

To my surprise, a gentle push on the bump caused it to move. I managed to move the bump down, and outside through the infected spot. Poof! Another bump gone.

The bump bothered me, though. I might have considered keeping the thing and having it analyzed, but that seemed weird. I asked Lisa if she had bumps under the surface of her skin, bumps that were hard, and clearly not pimples or acne or blackheads or anything reasonable that everyone knows what it is since junior high.

To my surprise, she said, "Oh, you mean like the calcium deposits like this?" and pointed to a bump that looked just like the one I had extracted a couple weeks ago. "Yes!" I exclaimed. She then went on to explain that yeah, they're normal. They happen. You can have them removed if you're likely to pick at them, thinking they're a whitehead.

Well, there you go.

Or rather, there I go.