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2月16日 38 sucks.Yesterday I threw my back out.
I have always heard this term used by folks I knew but never really had a good idea of how totally this experience impacts every aspect of your life. I have been injured - sprains, fractures and torn ligaments galore - but always to extremities - never to a central part of my core that impacts so many different types of movement.
The gory details are just stupid. I think it started with a snowboarding fall a few weeks ago (trying to show my 12-year old how cool I could be riding a box in the park) that seemed innocuous but was exacerbated by a couple of heroic driving days last week that left me sore but still functional. Feeling better yesterday, I was dumping concrete rubble from our remodel at the transfer station, tugged on a piece that was bigger than I expected while bent over and felt something give way all across my lower back. Dropping the concrete chunk, I gingerly made my way down from the truck bed and shuffled around the truck a few times, breathing deep and trying to reset whatever had moved out of place near my spine. After a couple of minutes I could breathe normally and move anything that wasn't anchored to the lower part of my back.
Unloading the rest of the truck was a delicate process where I was acutely aware of my back position and definitely moved slower than before. The drive home, emerging from the car, trying to sit, bend or move anything above my hips resulted in either no response or shooting pain that inspired the rest of the muscles to lock up protecting the tender spot.
As I moved through the rest of my day I marveled at how quickly my body adapted to it's new state. I consciously kept my back rigid and squatted to pick things up. Entering and exiting the car became upper-body exercises as I lowered and raised myself into and out of the seat with my arms. The toughest adjustments were tweaks to walking and finding a comfortable position to sleep in. I kept waking myself up that night by rolling over or moving to cause my back to twinge.
I am hoping it won't last forever as this experience is definitely no fun. It feels that my age is partially responsible for this experience and I had a dismal flash in the down part of the day where I saw this as the beginning of a slow slide towards incapacitation as systems in my body wear out or shut down one by one. I know I am a long way from the grave yet however 38 feels like it's geting closer to that halfway point (all my grandparents are well into their 80s now and I expect to share this trait with my family) and I am noticing a larger number of physical complaints showing up this year. Knee, hip now back. I just want to hold it together long enough to ride again on what little snow we have left. 2月9日 Lost the puppies.Last month we had several weeks of uncharacteristic weather - deep freeze and dusting of snow. One of these evenings I left work an hour before rush hour started and it still took me two hours to make it home. My wife had come up from t-town with the baby and the dogs just before the snow hit and kindly gave me a heads up as to what was on the way. When I wearily walked in the door we had a bite to eat and I sat down to play legos with Mr. Bodhi.
After about an hour of decompressing I realized it was awfully silent from the back yard. When my wife went to let the dogs in, she found the gate open and dogs gone! A quick search of the immediate street and neighbors yard was fruitless and, following the advice on finding lost pets on the local animal shelter site, we bundled up the baby and began a 20-block slow-drive search calling the dogs names and asking pedestrians if they had seen our pups.
Of course the search turned up nothing and after the 16th block we both realized it was fruitless.
Back home we realized it was dark, snowing and neither of the dogs had tags or licenses. They were chipped at the rescue shelter but that takes extra equipment to figure out. Of all the nights for the dogs to spend outside, this was probably the worst in my mind as I saw them lost and wandering with wet fur, finally curling up with each other under a loading dock or deck for warmth but falling asleep and freezing to death in the wee hours of the morning. Dramatic I know but these are pretty young dogs who aren't car smart and I have no idea of how well their homing instincts are developed.
As it got darker and darker, both my wife and I regretted all the days we had scolded the puppies for chewing, barking, jumping or peeing on the floor. I read through shelter sites on what to do if your dog escapes and remembering my meager search and rescue training went back out again with the baby to drive the streets looking for the puppies. My wife stayed home to post dog lost notices on local bulletin boards (the internet is so cool). I talked to every dog walker I saw and had no reports from several blocks around from anyone who had seen our dogs. Everyone was kind and promised to keep an eye out. Later I realized this was a sign that the pups were not at large since they have a tendency to swarm strange people and dogs on sight (don't have good stranger manners yet).
I went home and put together some "Lost Dog" signs and hit all the major intersections before going to bed. Both my wife and were distraught at not knowing where the pups were but she had faith that someone in our neighborhood probably took them in for the night since that the type of area we live in.
Next morning my wife was on the phone with the local shelter the minute they opened and, sure enough, one of our neighbors a few blocks over had found the dogs running free, knocked on doors to see if anyone recognized them and then took them home for the night when he didn't find a match. Turns out he actually talked to the folks next door who didn't recognize our larger-size pups (they doubled in weight over the past thirty days). End of the story is that we met at the park and the dogs - far from looking like they suffered from their adventure - appeared to have been better fed than when they were at home.
Needless to say we were all happy to have them back and we've invested in collar tags with my cell number on them. 1月2日 Lid came back!About a week after the windstorm, the lid magically appeared back on the trash can. I had forgotten that all cans issued by the city have house numbers painted on top and one of my kind neighbors obviously discovered the wandering lid in their yard and returned it to it's rightful place. I thank you neighbor!
The crows are mad. 12月15日 Lost the trash can lid.Big windstorm in PNW last night. Everything is standing in the current and next houses. I still have the justification to buy a chainsaw though to take care of the last tree that went down. Worst effects of the 55mph gusts were 1) lawn chair blew across the deck outside the bedroom and I thought the BMW had fallen over again 2) trash can lid is just gone. No sign of it up or down the street and now the darn crows are digging in the trash can. I am not even sure how to get a new trash can for the current house since there are all sorts of rules and regs concerning what size and type. Guess power is out all over where the new house is. Good justification to buy a generator. 12月14日 The spirit is willing......but the flesh is weak.
Traditionally used to lament the difficulty in living up to self-imposed high moral standards (Matthew 26:41 - www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/371000.html) I have been thinking of a more physical interpretation recently. I have 4 living grandparents whom I have all known as long as I have been alive. I understand that this is a relatively rare occurance and how fortunate I am to have had these folks in my life. As I have watched them age I see a struggle ensuing between intention and ability as various ailments or other affects of aging appear. As I myself near middle age, I am starting to find places where I am no longer sure my body will always be there to do what I ask of it. Unfortunately this causes me to re-think what I do and I don't like already self-imposing those limitations before getting started.
I had a conversation with a good friend about watching his father grow older. For years they had talked about hiking parts of the Appalacian trail together but never found the time. Before realizing it, a couple of decades had passed and my friend realized that this event would never happen. Not so much because his dad was not capable, rather it no longer sounded like a good idea. Whether this was due to comfort, safety or other interests it's not clear. What was clear was that his dad had gone from thinking a long hike over rugged terrain carrying a heavy load sounded like fun to a place where it didn't sound like fun anymore.
I totally understand this as it relates to my knee. I recently had a massage and realized that my hamstring on the right side was tighter than it had ever been. The massuse suggesed the muscles were compensating for the stretched tendons and I realized that I favor that leg without even thinking about it. Knowing my body takes care of itself without conscious thought is somewhat comforting although I don't feel so good about the day where sleeping outside no longer sounds like such a good idea to me. 12月12日 I got Carhartt.For my recent birthday the over-riding gift theme was Carhartt.
Inspired by my wifes love of the functional fashion of work clothes and the impending move to the country - Dad told me I was on my way towards being a 'gentleman farmer' and my longtime carpenter Gramps asked me if I was finally going to start working - I ended up with jeans, coats and the first pair of overalls I have worn since about the age of three.
Of course *I* see these - overalls especially - as my uniform for some sort of bohemian, anarchist, art collective - to be worn with boots in the pursuit of building livable treehouses and bowling-ball topped hay-bale fences. Feels almost like being 17 again. Must be my mid-life crisis. New bike wish list.The impending move will double my commute mileage (14m => 28m) and adds a daily ferry trip to the journey. While pursuing the socially and environmentally responsible avenue of joining a vanpool, the option of joining the pack of motorcycles leaving the boat every morning is very enticing. Having been a daily motorcycle commuter for years (3-season post-wedding as I gave up rain riding once I had a wife and family) I am looking at moving forward ~30 years and adding an MG V11 to the stable. I test rode a Ballabio and was pretty impressed with the fuel injection and other modern updates to the standard MG v-twin engine. The model lived for about 5 years for the short period of time that Aprilla owned the MG mark and production. Standard amount of new machine issues plagued the first couple of years but the 2002-2005 models seem to have worked the bugs out. Despite my wife's inappropriate appropration of the names ("The dog ballabioed on the floor again!") I am narrowed to the 2004 Ballabio or the limited edition 2002 Scura. Both are variations on the same machine with slight advantages and can be found reasonably (in my view) priced used. Think this will be pursued post new year and remodel completion after the dust has settled, the bank account stabilizes and the volume of things being moved has been settled on. In the meantime, here is a Scura I have been watching, an older confederate that would be in the stable but for lack of funds, space, time and lack of a good reason and a newer confederate I will never be able to afford (50k-77k).
12月11日 How are we doing?In general I find that photo posting is the catalyst for driving new posts. Unfortunately with the impending move I have been way lax about tracking new images - just dump the card and clean up later. I think part of the issue is that I have this idea of building a master backup system (picked up a new LaCie backup drive) for all the computers but have yet to implement. I think I am waiting on two things: 1) when we actually move since I'll need to backup and then re-setup at that time anyway 2) purchase and installation of Vista.
I may have said it before but maintaining a single machine is roughly equivalent to the time required to maintain a room in the house.
This is all a long-winded way to say that there are many images to come - just not right now. 11月13日 Ramping up the complexity.So there has been a marked gap in my postings since August. As per the usual blogging cliche "things have been really busy" with lots of big changes in the wind. Things were kicked off by the realization that we were tired of being landlords coupled with a re-organization at work right about the time that my wife and I went to the Strawberry festival. Now we have been talking about moving into a more rural place for some time and have even looked at North Bend, Index, Whidbey for potential cabins or getaways. Around the first of August my wife came up with the bright idea of looking on Vashon - close but yet so far - a solution more attractive by the ferryboats at both ends. My oldest has family in T-town so a 15 drive to drop him to the ferry boat is much preferable to the 2 hour stop and go on the 5 every other weekend. Believe it or not, in my 30 years as a resident I had never been to Vashon so we figured we should check out the strawberry festival and see if we liked it. The following week I found online an interesting house and land plot and we were off. In the past 90 days we:
Not to mention the job change, new dogs etc. Each of the line items is a saga in itself, there are many more to get through before we can move and a bunch of people are pretty irritated that we are moving out of Ballard (I've been here 11 years) but we are still doing it. I know the commute will be longer and I will be at the mercy of the ferry schedule. I know we'll miss our neighbors, kids and family who are close. I know it will be a struggle for me to pare down my remaining boxes and piles of equipment as we move to a smaller location. None of this worries me. I had some good advice from a friend of mine in the middle of the summer. He told me that if you practice sitting still for awhile and listen a voice will come to you from when you were much younger that can tell you what you should be doing. I had forgotten but I have always wanted to live in a place with enough space to have a bunch of little buildings and tents and treehouses and ropes and stuff. I spend hours every day growing up in the watershed near my parent's house and this place is pretty much that exactly. I guess my voice spoke up. Crap. We got dogs.I'm still not quite sure how it happened but somehow over the course of the past weekend, we added two puppies to our existing 4-person, 2 animal family. This brings the ratio of bi-peds to quadrapeds even so I supposed we can now all hold pickup soccer games without anyone having to sit out.
We have been talking about getting dogs for over a year now but I have always had the upper hand by pointing out the minimal amount of room left in our lives after raising a 2 year old, a 12 year old, handling house chores, vehicles, working & special projects - not to mention relaxing or enjoying each other's company. Since we are right in the middle of a major living situation change - more in another post, my wife of course happened upon a rescue situation last week for exactly the breed of dog we have been looking for. Seemed like a long shot so I said yes we should follow up and of course there turned out to be a secret stash of puppies and before I knew it we had two enroute by car from Idaho.
My thought on dog ownership was that it would be easy once we moved with more fenced space etc. etc. Problem is we are about two months ahead of schedule. The dogs arrived Saturday afternoon - 7-8 weeks old - and of course are a delight. They romp and play, are fluffy and affectionate, have the sharpest puppy teeth in the world, routinely beat the tar out of each other and of course are having trouble figuring out the difference between inside and outside.
My wife has given up on the carpet - it's was already on it's way out I figure. We are working on the crate training and leash, clicker etc. I have to keep reminding myself that they are the equivalent of the toddler and just don't know any better. That said, when they earnestly fight for control over the pigs ear or the one chair dogs are allowed on, they are almost as fun as having another toddler. No photos handy but i'll post some shortly. 10月23日 20-year reunion resultsThank you to all who requested results from my cliff-hanger at the end of the summer. Didn't realize that anyone was actually reading. Now I have the writers equivalent of performance anxiety feeling the pressure of writing something entertaining or weighty. Take a deep breath.
The reunion was great! Much less complicated than the 10-year, smaller turnout but still great to see the folks who did show up.
Friday night was and informal gathering in one of those nameless eastside bars that show up in a strip mall (this one shared a building with a tire shop and a Jack-in-the-box). I have always felt a bit jarred when the cinder-block and plate glass architecture of a strip mall bay is used for a bar - seems so out of place to have the consumption of alcohol near to the epitome of innocuous consumerism. I went with my pal Feliks - we have known each other since fourth grade and were pretty inseperable in high school. Walking in the place was a bit disorienting since the usual Friday night clientele was present as well as the reunionees. Most of the regulars were a decade younger than the alumns but it was still hard to discern who I knew from high school. Fortunately someone had the bright idea of bringing name tags and, once affixed, made it easy to span the years.
We arrived late and were several drinks behind many of the folks there however I had great conversations with some people whom I didn't know very well in high school and caught up with some folks I haven't seen since the 10-year. People had more experiences logged - kids, job changes, figuring out what they wanted to do, figuring out what they *didn't* want to do - and generally were more flexible with the ups and downs of life. Ambience was as expected for a sports bar - loud and crowded but a good harbinger of the following evening.
The second night was a more formal event - catered dinner, music etc. It seemed to be more lightly attended (Scheduling co-incided with the largest civic festival in our town thus a dearth of accomodations were available for out of town alumns) than expected but some folks who didn't make the Friday event were there.
I was late due to the complexities of getting kids to bed and thus missed dinner and the memory presentation. My first encounter was with a woman whom I knew from Junior high school track who was carrying her 9-week old baby girl in a sling. We had a great conversation about what she was up to, admired her baby and generally checked in. The rest of the evening tone went about the same. I had other great conversations with:
Finally my favorite were the couple who live up the street from my parents, work in insurance and the dental industry, have kids and what appears to be a great marriage and life. I had a great time with them 10 years ago and a great time this year. I am definitely signed up for the 30th. 8月3日 20-year reunionThis weekend is my 20-year high school reunion (go Kangs!). Have had the expected bouts of ambivelence, avoidance and animosity about the event as I have seen it looming closer. I watched Grosse Point Blank again last weekend and realized that no matter how excruciating it is, at least I'm confident I won't have to kill a guy with a pen. That made me feel better.
While discussing the go/no go decision with my wife, I realized reunions spark an interesting physiological phenomenon. Something about the idea of congregating the collection of people you attended high school with stirs a conflict within between the adult of today with the awkward teenager you were. The body rebels against going back to that time where basically your frontal lobe is offline. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/interviews/todd.html)
Once again my lovely wife saved the day. Her suggestion was to go with the intention of meeting someone that I like today. 20 years can contain a lot of growth and interesting events - someone is bound to have done something fascinating between then and now. My mission is to find that person. I'll report back after the weekend. 8月2日 Grandparents.In the next three weeks I will participate in at least two full family reunions and a few partial events. One thing I marvel at is that my boys currently have between 8-10 grandparents each. I have personally known both sets of my grandparents and they plus our parents all know the fourth generation. Among my peers this is pretty unusual. We are a fortunate family. Painting the house.We are finally getting the awful, patchy 70's brown off the house. My wife, the color picker extrordanaire, chose a wonderful dusty purple for the body and a dark red for the trim. Since the last paint job was a do-it-yourself by the previous owner, I hadn't realized how spotty and worn it was until I saw the results of the first coat. The body is complete, trim nearly done and we just need the accent colors and the decking finished. Of course with the siding looking so good I am starting to see the surroundings in need of a good upgrade. Staining the fence, planting the beds, pressure washing the patio and driveway. Seems like house improvement only begats more house improvement.
I'll post photos when it's done. 8月1日 Fisherman's terminal penny (quarter) arcadeIn our travels, B and I came across a museum of vending machines from over the past 100 years. Lots of cool mechanical animated dolls. Some HUGE dioramas of carnivals and farms hand built around the turn of the century that were the size of an automobile and had hundreds of little people doing all sorts fo stuff. The baby was of course enthusiastic since he got to stick coins in slots and watch things move. For the most part he did well - not scared except of an animated alcoholic 'scary man'. One of the oldest was a moral cautionary tale involving (what I assume was) a notorious crimminal being hung in prison. My favorite was the monkey band. SF TripsOver the course of several months this spring and early summer my wife was enrolled in a class down in Berkeley which required her to travel for extended weekends every 5 weeks. Since the baby wasn't quite 2 yet and hadn't spent a night away from mom yet, he and I tagged along and wandered the city while mom was in class.
Added a "SF Trips" album with select snaps from said wanderings. Borrowing dogs.So this past weekend we were emergency dogsitters for some friends who were called suddenly out of town. Now I fully support dog sitting as it gives my family a feeling for what it will be like to have a dog around the house before we fully commit - kind of like taking in your niece or nephew before you have kids. Being the only one of the family who was relatively responsible for the care and feeding of a canine while growing up, I don't believe that the rest of the dog enthusiasts in the family fully recognize the time, effort and attention required to include a dog in the family. Already having more projects on deck than we can complete, adding a full-time dog seems like folly to me.
The dogs in question are great test subjects to prove this point. It's not because they are awful dogs - to the contrary, both are very sweet and fit into the family pretty easily - it's that having two medium to large size dogs in our daily life really shows what is required in the care and feeding of additional family members. Boiled down to a cost and benefit list, the weekend looked like this:
Benefits:
Costs:
All in all I can see living with dogs as a positive thing - unfortunately time managment states that we probably have too much going on so a time-share dog would be a better bet. I figure we'll either improve our dog-proofing of the house and keep borrowing this set or we'll send the 12 year-old on dog recon around the neighborhood for other breeds we like and offer our house as a sort of doggy motel. 5月31日 Reading habits.I just looked at my book list and realized that there are always more than a half dozen titles going at once. I have always read in parallel and have a habit of frequently re-reading books I have read before. I'll look up a passage get engrossed, read to the end and then figure I might as well start from the beginning to complete the project.
I like having lots of books around and handy. I keep some in my work bag, some by the bed, some in the kitchen so I always have something to read. MS reader and my PDA are turning out to be a real enabler for me. Finding free ebook sites where text that are out of copyright can be found allows me to work my way through all those 'classic' titles I never got around to reading when I was younger. I can read a few pages while waiting to pick folks up from the airport or anywhere I have a few minutes to stand around.
Made it through Wuthering Heights last month. Working on Moby Dick. Broken Goose.So it's been nearly a month since the newly tuned LAPD tossed it's shift linkage on the 520 leaving me to double clutch the rest of the way homeward in 4th gear. The smell of roasting clutch plates bummed me out enough to consider unloading all the old, rickety vintage iron in the garage in favor of some new ABS-ized commuter bike. After simmering down however I realized that I kind of like tinkering with these simpler machines. Also you can't beat them size-wise and cost-wise. Now that I am reaching a state of less density in the garage I can put together a bike workbox and have the space to start a project. The baby enjoys putzing around the garage with tools when I am down there and he'll take a screwdriver to the motorbike given half a chance.
The fix shouldn't be bad - just need an extra set of hands to shift back down to neutral and untangle the shift linkage then make sure it's tightend when slipped on the spline. After that it's all detail work - trim for toolbox, attach second box to lightbar, get gasket for original tank cap, swap out a few rusty bolts with stainless.
Of course the guys at the shop told me the next step would be bigger carbs... 5月22日 What's up!Been a busy month+ here. Couple of trips to SF, trip to AZ, working on the cabin, cleaning out the garage (will it ever be done?) workworkworking. I have some updates coming - snaps etc. Stay tuned. |
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