Could It Be Progress?

All right, I’ve got to get that ugly-ass picture of Secada off my index page, so what follows is somewhat incoherent, but threaded through with contentment I haven’t felt in a while.

I had an awesome lunch today – grilled shrimp Caesar salad, and all of it was completely fresh and tasted awesome. We were even able to have our usual work bitching session without getting upset about it – we could actually laugh a little about it today. That’s good.

My mom just called from her office and said our whole family is missing. She wanted to know if I’d seen them at all this morning and I said I saw Ginny in bed on my way out the door, but I hadn’t heard from them. She didn’t reach anyone at home or on a cell phone. I think they probably just went swimming before Jay’s game, but we’re not going home in case our house was invaded by aliens.

You’re looking for a tall bearded man, a slightly-less tall flaky blonde teenager, a small mouthy brunette teenager, and a big dork probably wearing a John Mayer shirt in a wheelchair. They’ll probably be pretty hard to find.

Heh, actually that just gave me a memory. When I was younger, whenever my whole family went shopping (or even just my mom and sisters and I) and I got separated from them, I just had to stand still for a minute and listen for the loudest racket in the store – and then I’d follow my ears and find them.

I’ve been running again. Well, running and walking, actually, but I’m working up to running. I’m hoping to run a 5K in the first weekend of October. If I can do it, it’ll be a big deal because even in my best shape, I’ve been a terrible runner. So far I’m doing okay on my extremely slow and conservative training plan. My right inner knee’s bugging me a little but not badly enough to impede my progress, so I’m training at the same pace and keeping an eye on it. It used to bug me when I played volleyball (I landed on my knees WAY too much as a vball player) and I was always able to practice and play through it. But if it gets bad I’ll stop.

I’ve kept my room clean for almost two weeks now. That’s a huge deal, ’cause I’m pretty disorganized and tend to leave clothes and books scattered all over the place.

I have a ridiculous travel schedule lined up for the next few weeks. Witness:

July 16-17: drive Ginny to attend a wedding in Richmond, stay overnight

July 24: drive to Raleigh
July 25: fly to New Hampshire, rent car, drive to Dartmouth
July 25-29: work conference thing at Dartmouth (living in dorms)
July 29: drive to Manchester, fly to Raleigh, drive back to Lynchburg

July 31-August 1: attend wedding in Lynchburg, stay overnight

August 2-6: drive to far southwest VA for band camp again.

August 7: possibly attending yet another wedding

2nd, 3rd, or 4th weekend in August: quick trip to Chicago.

God. Just typing that out makes me tired.

I’m a little anxious about flying. That’s never happened before. When I went to Rochester in January, we had a connecting flight at LaGuardia. It was really, really rough in the air that day and I’d never flown into LaGuardia before, so I didn’t know that the majority of our descent was over open water. And it was bouncy. And I got really, really sick – that level of sick where you start to wish you could puke just to get it out of your system, and then of course you can’t puke. I staggered off the plane, green as pea soup, and was in such bad shape I could barely walk to the next gate. I forced myself to sleep on the plane home, but now I’m anxious about flying again because I’m afraid I’ll get that sick. So I have been thinking I need to take something to settle me down and/or prevent the motion sickness before all these flights in the next few weeks. Any ideas?

I’d better get back to sticking Post-It Flags on reports.

8 Replies to “Could It Be Progress?”

  1. Oh manchester is a great place to fly into and its really quick and safe. Plus you love it up at dartmouth. Are you going to go to school there?

  2. I am SO glad you are running a 5K (or training for it); that's terrific. Remember, three days a week of running are all you need, especially if you can gradually increase the length of one of the runs. Anything beyond 3 is gravy! Go Lorie!

  3. HUGO! You've got to tell her to try and put in some pool time to/and/or work on stregnthing the muscles in her thighs (esp. inner) to support the knee! (You know, lie on your side while watching the tube and lift your leg just a few inches and hold it – repeat.)
    You're supposed to tell her that if it's the actual knee that hurts “a little” that it's going to be too late to just stop when it hurts “a lot”. Tell her knees never heal.
    I miss running. I'm okay when I do it but I often push myself too hard; which is to say that I push my knee too hard sometimes. Of course, it's the knee missing most of the cartilage. Still – watch yourself so you don't have to stop abruptly never start back up. Rock the track – rock the track.

    /apologizes for the knee-jerk reaction to mention of knee pain. (Is that a storm settling over New Mexico, I could have sworn I felt something of a twinge just now.)

  4. ~A, knee pain is not always knee pain — you can overuse injuries, but you can also have general soreness associated with raising your training level. Taking glucosamine helps.

  5. I am an expert on nausea. I would say buy some dramamine for motion sickness. Take 2 1 hour before your flight. It might make you sleepy. Or, you can take benedryl. That helps combat nausea as well. Anything peppermint also helps, gum, mints, tea…You can also buy those wrist band things, they work with the accupressure, they hit the point on your wrist that affects that part of your brain that controls nausea. At health food stores you can buy ginger tablets, these too will help with nausea, and you can take them on top of the dramamine if you start feeling queasy. If you are really concerned, you doctor can write you a script for Compazine or something else to the equilvant. I have a script of compazine and it works wonders. Also eat before you leave, you are much less likely to get queasy with a full stomach, its when you haven't eaten anything and you have an empty stomach along with low blood sugar you can get yourself in a mess. Hope that helps a little bit.

Leave a Reply to Sammi Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.