Today's appointment

Blog

Happens every year. I know it does. Doesn't mean I have to like it. Or go willingly. Kicking and screaming and grabbing hold of door jams and holding on for dear life, I wandered to my yearly appointment. For the first time in I don't know how many years, I actually arrived on time to the appointment.

I was doing fine in the appointment, explaining that no, I was happy with not having kids, but, no, I wasn't going to start using birth control because, well, let's face it, if I'm not pregnant by now, I'm not getting pregnant without some serious divine intervention, and I'm pretty sure whatever deity there may be, She really doesn't care about about my fertility one minor iota. Or one micro iota. Really.

At the end of the appointment, after all the parts that I should have been embarrassed about, after the breast massage for lumps, after the scootch to the bottom of the table with my feet way up, the blinding lights warming up my nether regions, after the moments of having someone not my husband looking not only down there, but in there, too, after all of these should be, but really weren't, embarrassing moments, the doctor told me she was done and I could get dressed.

I hopped off the table, and started dressing, still talking to her when I noticed her eyes flick down and back up quickly. My eyes followed her quick look down, and I realized I was wearing perhaps my most rattiest, thread worn pair of underwear I owned. One of the very, very few which had escaped the wrath of doggie teeth.

And, at that moment, I was finally embarrassed.

Mirabelle visit

Blog

Mirabelle stopped by this morning to visit with me. She sent her mother off after about ten minutes, letting her know that she would be fine, mostly by saying, "Ma! Ma? Ma. Ma. Ma! Ma?"

Mirabelle started her visit, once again, by inspecting the cleanliness of our kennels. Once she peered in, however, she discovered we actually keep dogs in our kennels. A surprise to her to be sure. Annie came out to greet her.

Mistaking Annie for a daemon, and feeling a little nervous, Mirabelle decided the best course of action was to perform an in-house rain dance, complete with sticks and drums. She set up her bowls, turned them upside down, and began a one-time-only ritual drumming.

A good first step, but the natives were still restless. What better way to sooth the savage beast than with food? And where better to find food than an organic garden? Where, indeed.

Mirabelle was incredibly giving with the tomatoes. Once I pulled a few off the vine for her and handed them to the dogs through the fence, she picked on the process very quickly, pulling her own tomatoes off the vine, then picking off the stems before handing the tomato through the fence.

We stopped when she started going after my bell peppers. Hey, they're red, too.

There just aren't as many of them.

After the feedings, Mirabelle confirmed the savage beasts were, indeed, soothed, by threatening to wrestle Annie.

Soon after the dog wrastlin', incident, we went off for lunch. Mirabelle was playing it coy.

Tyler is dumb

Blog

When practicing at Cherry Chase a few weeks ago, Tyler rolled his ankle. Rather than taking care of it like any normal person would do, he continued to play on it, and the following weekend, injured it again, as well as the other ankle.

Fine. Well and good, it's his ankle, whatever.

Except last weekend, he played on it AGAIN, in a tournament, and he, what do you know? When you don't rehab an ankle, and you don't even freaking wrap the injured ankle, you injure it again. Is this surprising to anyone but Tyler? Injury + no care = WORSE injury.

Boys are dumb. Especially Tyler.

I've had some bad ankle sprains. Any idea how sucky it is to sprain your ankle playing at a park, start limping home and twist your good ankle in a hole, spraining that one, too? Well, I have a good idea what it's like, and that's the on-going story of my ankle injuries. I get them, I rehab from them, I keep playing.

So, a few days after the tournament, I checked in with Tyler. Had he started his rehab? Was he elevating his foot? Was the ankle always in compression? Was he icing regularly? Did he need any rehab exercises?

Answers? No. No. Yes. No. Heck yes.

I gave him some easy ones, like write the alphabet with your foot as big as you can keeping the knee stationary, using only the ankle joint. Do this once an hour. I also offered gentle resistance exercises with a band. Paul offered standing on one foot, building up to a minute, then doing it with eyes closed. All three brilliant suggestions.

Come practice today, had he done any of them? "I wrote the alphabet twice."

Twice.

In a week.

When I commented very loudly that no one on the team should enable Tyler's retardness further by throwing with him, he became all pissy about it. Honestly, if a player is going to be retarded, it's the team's responsibility to educate him. If he wants to run after discs on an injured ankle, it's the team's responsibility not to throw to him. If he can't take care of himself, and it's very obvious he can't, the team needs to step up and do it for him. That's pretty much why a team exists: to work together to a common goal.

Our goal should be, "Stop being retarded."

Kris' wisdom

Blog

"In baseball, they don't make football analogies."

If I didn't already know Kris' favorite sport, I would now.

Mission Peak

Blog

When I worked at VA, one of my coworkers, Richard Lee, would hike to the top of Mission Peak on a semi-regular basis. It was the closest mountain to climb to both work and his house, so it had its charms. I had intended to go several times, but never quite made it out.

Andy suggested the hike as "something short this weekend, how about Mission Peak?" A few friends were also hiking it this weekend, and meeting up with them, one of whom had a dog, would be fun. We didn't know quite what we were getting in for, and thinking it would be similar to the Mt. Diablo hike we went on 5-6 years back.

Yeah, other than the straight up, not so much.

We arrived slightly late, having left our house slightly late, having woken up slightly late. Yet, even with our late arrival and walk from the most distant parking spot, we still arrived before the rest of the group. Looking up the hill, we couldn't see the top of the hike, as the whole area was covered in smoke from the Henry Coe wildfire and some level of morning fog. There was little green, and lots of exposed areas, explaining why Andy wanted to start early. He had never come on the weekend, so was a little surprised at the number of people on the hike. There were a lot

The first three miles were uphill, with maybe 50 yards of the hike level, and none downhill.

Just before the peak, the path turned from a 12' wide, flat, practically paved dirt road to a series of rocks, not unlike the path to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland. Just as I approached the base of the rocks to climb up, another group paused to look up the rock path. Andy chose that moment to run up the path. Like a mountain goat, he pounced from rock to rock, dashing up the side of the mountain with grace.

The group next to me watched him for about twenty seconds, then simultaneously turned to look at each other, a look of incredulity on their collective faces. I saw the looks, and turned to them. "Yeah, we think he's crazy, too."

"I'm tired just watching him," was the response.

The smoke and haze so stifling from the bottom of the hill was below the height of the peak, so we had great views of, well, cloud and smoke coverage of the Bay Area metropolis to one side of the peak, and smoke covered rolling East Bay hills to the other side. The top was, as Andy told us, windy, but pleasant. We went down the back side of the peak, away from the crowds, which was nice. We passed through a creek a couple times, and convinced the dogs to jump in a couple times. I would have taken pictures of the way down, but, well, the camera died at the peak.

Pages