A t-shirt for every day (The Cool Spot)

A friend noticed that while on vacation, I wore a different ice cream shop t-shirt everyday. She asked if I had one for every day. I do not own 365 ice cream t-shirts. I do own several shirts. In fact, I had 3 shirts that I packed but didn’t end up wearing during that trip.

I took the opportunity in Frankfort, MI to buy a T-shirt from The Cool Spot. They sell Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream.

I rate Ashby’s as good to very good ice cream.

Weekly (?) Run

Strawberry Park in Pasadena, TX. It’s 87oF and I feel inspired to run. I don’t know why, I guess it’s all these Texans walking and running dressed like it’s 65oF. I’m over here with my sleeves tucked under the straps of my sports bra like a 49 year old woman having a heat flash. Wait.. that might actually might be me.

I ran some. I can’t run straight for 20 minutes without my heart rate going up to 220 bpm. So, when Fitbit tells me I’ve entered the danger zone, I walk until I get it back down. Truthfully, it’s a lot of walking.

Each week, I say I’m going to run every other day. Truthfully, most weeks I don’t even walk. I’ve been averaging one run a month. However, it’s the second week of June and I’ve run, at least, once in both weeks. Hurray! Ultra Marathons here I come! 😆

Strawberry Park is one of the busiest parks I have ever been to. From where I am sitting, I can see a volleyball game, tennis match, little league baseball, and a soccer game in progress. Not to mention that the children’s playground looks like an ant covered cookie crumb that I dropped on the back deck. My hat is off to Pasadena for being outdoorsy people.

I need to get going. I passed what I thought was an ice cream place 3 times tonight. I’m definitely getting ice cream now.

Barefoot Rose and the ants

I conquered the world.

I ran again today.

No, I conquered the world today!

I went shopping last night. I bought bigger sizes.

No, I took over the world last night!

Blurry but happy!

We’ll see how the foot feels later.

I still conquered the world!

Little Man and Milkbox

I am going to reveal a secret…

I LOVE ice cream.

Oh, you already knew that? You mean EVERYBODY knows that?!?

Of course, everyone knows that. I only gush about ice cream as often as I can.

I’m in Denver for a convention and Mike B., whose son lived in Denver until just 3 weeks ago, announced that he would be taking a scooter to dinner because he needed to make a pit stop. I was all for the adventure of riding a scooter when I found out that the side stop was the LittleMan ice cream shop. Yeah, I’d already had gelato during the afternoon happy hour but it wasn’t going to deter me.

This post is about ice cream but I have to mention that there where a few minutes as a first time scooter rider in Denver, like when I couldn’t get my scooter to go because it was still locked, when I was pretty sure Mike was going to get me run over or ticketed. The scooter goes, at least, 17 mph unless you are going up hill. I had my foot ready to assist just in case.

Little Man

Once at Little Man, Mike bought a shirt and I got in line for ice cream. I love ice cream but I tend to stick to traditional or mostly traditional flavors. I tasted Buttermilk Cupcake and strawberry. I passed on the Earl Grey tea flavor. Then I heard a bunch of twenty somethings giggle about how the extra little serving size was for dogs, little kids and women over 35. I took my strawberry and rolled my eyes.

Little Man review: cute place, Ice cream is good but not as good as Plainwell Ice Cream. Buttermilk Cupcake was bland, Strawberry was good/ok. 14 flavors with vegan options.

Today, the convention is over. Mike recommended taking the train from Union Station to the airport. There’s so much of this experience that reminds me of traveling in Europe. The station is a national historic landmark that just happens to host several businesses including Milkbox ice cream.

Milkbox Ice Creamery

I tasted French toast and got a small cup of Raspberry Chocolate Chip. Then proceeded to hang out in Union Station for an hour or so.

Milkbox Creamery – Almost as good as Plainwell but why Earl Grey Tea again? The French toast ice cream has great flavor but the Cinnamon French toast cereal pieces have a soft and stale feeling. I had to pass. The Raspberry Chocolate Chip is very good. It’s made with real berries and thick chocolate chip pieces.

See it pays to love ice cream.

Which room?

When I arrived on Sunday night, it was past midnight and I was exhausted. I went straight to bed after getting into my room. I worked all day Monday and didn’t return until after 10 pm. I got off on the 5th floor and walked to my room… or what I thought was my room. When, after about 10 tries, the door didn’t open to my key card, I knew I was going to have to walk back down to the lobby and admit that my aging mind was too tired to remember my room number.  

But.. it was such a long walk to the lobby and my feet were killing me from standing all day plus walking 18,000 steps in dress shoes.  I was debating on breaking into tears or curling up into a ball in the corner of the hallway on floor 5.

Then I remembered putting out the do not disturb sign that morning. Door 512 did not have a Do Not Disturb sign.  What would it hurt if I checked a few other doors before resigning myself to the long trek back to the lobby?  A few doors down, I found another Do Not Disturb sign, so, I reached from around the corner to see if my card would unlock this door….Nope.

I walked to the next set of doors and, again, reached from around the corner to scan my card. No, again.  The next set…no, again.  I hadn’t realized prior to this that nearly every door on floor 5, except 512, had a Do Not Disturb sign.  This was harder that I thought it would be.

After checking a few more doors and being denied entry, I was beginning to wonder if I was even on the right floor. I was resigned to go to the lobby right after I checked the last few doors.

Imagine my surprised and stunned shock when 532 opened.  Never in my clear mind, did I recall the number being 532.  I, honestly, thought I was going to find a guy wearing a wife beater t-shirt and boxer shorts asleep in the bed.  Instead, I just found my back pack and computer nonchalantly resting on the desk top as though they hadn’t been playing hide and go seek with me for the last 20 doorways.

Now, I understand why people carry around card with the room number on it. I’m also thankful that no one called hotel security on me.

Latvian Day 4 – Kazas: Storks and Dikli Pils

Before we can talk about the whole excuse reason for going to Latvia, we have to talk about storks. Have you ever seen a stork? I mean, other than a drawn picture of a stork carrying a baby in a sling from children’s story book? I hadn’t realized until I was looking at my very first stork in Latvia on the grounds of Dikli Pils that it was, in fact, my very first real life stork! Perhaps it was a bit like seeing the colloseum in Rome…like…Caesar might have been an actual person? I thought storks were just fictional animals created to distract children away from where babies really come from.

I learned from Liene that storks eat frogs that hang out in the ditches along the roadside and their nests can be frequently found upon the top of the nearest utility pole. Huh? Who knew? Wait, there’s still no babies being delivered?

Not every castle has spires or towers or dungeons. Dikli Pils, the location of the wedding reception and our nightly accommodations, is more suited to the description of a large manor house. That’s not to say it wasn’t grand. Within Dikli Pils sets, at least 9 ornate and distinct fireplaces. I am quite glad the Russians didn’t destroy these functional beauties. It was like finding an Easter egg every time I entered a new room at the castle.

Dikli Pils doesn’t have a dungeon in the basement, instead it has a restaurant where Mikel had the best hamburger ever. Honestly, I can’t remember what the rest of us ate, just that tempting burger. It was so tempting that we had planned to go back to the restaurant for lunch before the wedding so that the rest of us could have our mouth watering burger. For some reason, the restaurant closed the day of the wedding. I suspect the chefs had something more important to cook for.. anyway, that lead us to town the village store for provisions for lunch which ended up being an ordeal because that was before chip cards were used in the US and the village store didn’t know how to swipe a credit card. This was not a tourist town so English didn’t get me anywhere. I don’t recall how we paid for the stuff but I do recall making two trips to get it all figured out.

The walk was quite pleasant giving us a Dikli Pils photo op.

We also had some opportunity before the wedding to lounge around the castle grounds.

Latvian Day 3 – Pils

It only seems right that a vacation that felt like a wish granted to me via my fairy godmother would include castles.  Let me tell you, Latvia has castles.  If you happen to watch the TV miniseries of War and Peace from 2016, you might recognize Rundālei Palace that is actually located in Latvia.

We did not visit Rundāle palace while we were in Latvia but the pils we visited were pretty amazing in their own right.

First thing on Friday morning, I picked up the  rental car I reserved months prior to give us the freedom to drive where ever we wanted in the countryside. As it turns out, my forethought to reserve a car was pretty darn smart. Other family members that rented cars that day, out of necessity due to missing the party bus to the wedding location (due to being out with the wedding party till the wee hours the previous night)  paid premium rental prices because of a music festival out in the country side.  Maybe it was the Positivus Festival? 

Anyway… Our target was was Cēsis, LV. Before heading out to Cēsis castle, we stopped at a hotel in town for a nature break. We had expected that once we got out away from Riga, we’d be more successful communicating in Latvian. Well, once again, tourism won out. English was more easily understood than Latvian.  Either way, we found the toilet and took care of business.  Fortunately, this hotel was just a pit stop, not our destination. A bit farther out is Cēsis Pils.  Before you are able to take in the wonder of the ruins of Cēsis Pils, you need to enjoy the new Cēsis Pils. 

Can I just say now that very few of my pictures do justice to the real beauty of Latvia?

Behind new Cēsis Pils is the old castle ruins.    There are enough walls and bricks remaining to aid your imagination into visualizing how the castle was laid out and what the delightful views one would have from the towers.  There are two other castles in the vicinity of Cēsis Pils.  One of which you can see in the distance of the picture below, however, Cēsis was the only pils we visited that day. One can hardly ignore hungry tummies, especially when the skies continue to darken and threaten rain.

 I’d be remiss not to admit how awed I was of the modern scenic ampitheather that was been created out of the ruins. It must be amazing to watch a performance in that atmosphere. 

A view of inside the castle grounds from the tower

By the time we returned to town for lunch, there was a torrential downpour going on. This made it quite difficult to discern if a cafe had suitable fare for lunch. After running from one cafe to the next, we slumped into the grocery store next to the sports bar that didn’t allow minors in the middle of the day.   Turns out that the grocery store had a cafeteria type restaurant and, honestly, it had some of the best Latvian food we had the whole trip.  We ordered carbonade ( pork chops),  kartupeļi (potatoes), and probably maize (bread, likely rye) or/and sula (juice). Should I mention that we were drenched from the rain, like leaving a trail of puddles through the cafeteria line? 

Once we were done eating and with time to kill, we hit the grocery store to do some shopping.  Afterall, no trip is complete until you pick up a box of Prozit for each person back home. You only need to hope you keep the chocolates in one piece while traveling home so that the liquor inside the chocolates doesn’t escape.  

Castles are not the only thing worth visiting in the Gauja River area.  As is often done in the US, we visited the boyhood home of a man of historical significance.  Well, he was significant to us and many that we know, that’s for sure.  Ivars met us along the roadside and guided us to the boyhood home of Andrejs Kengis, PK’s dad, which is called Sietiņi.  

Childhood home of Andrejs, Ginta (pictured on the right), Aija and Janis

The family still owns land in the area but we are not allowed to go up to the actual house and it’s not visible from the road. Luckily, the barn, built by PK’s grandfather, is still visible from the road. 

The Kengis family doesn’t talk much about the literal story of leaving Latvia.  Essentially, there came a point in the occupation when the Russians began to send farmers off to Siberia (or did other things to them).  The family had been visiting another household when they received word that if they went home they would be killed. So, the Kengis family fled for safety in the middle of the night.  I now realize why Sound of Music has a special place in my mother-in-law’s heart. 

We inquired about where the name Sietiņi comes from. Ivars then guided us to the nearby sandstone cliffs along the Gauja River.  Sietiņi translates to sieve or strainer. 

Ivars recommended that we make a stop at the local cemetery before moving on to the wedding location. I admit, I was reluctant.  What could be so interesting about a cemetery (besides ancestors).  In hindsight, I regret that I did not take more pictures. This cemetery was like a botonical garden on castle grounds.  It was quite amazing. 

Site of Piedkalns: Augusts, Milda and Marija

There was one more castle that we visited that day, but since it was also the location of Matiss’s wedding, I think it’s best to save those impressions for the next chapter, Kāzas (wedding). 

By the way, it rained most of the day.  But, who’s to let a little rain get into the way of fun? 

Mighty Mighty

I looked in a full length mirror today…

So, here’s today’s workout T-shirt 

I’m in Malvern, PA.  I was walking on the treadmill when a couple of good tunes came across the earbuds. 2.5 miles for the day.  Barefoot no less (literally not possible to be less)  Now, I’m hanging out in my hotel room having a little dance party. 

Soon, I’ll switch over to more mellow music and work on my mobility work.

These hips will be constant work but I am better off than I was.  After all, I drove 3 hours yesterday, left the house at 4:30 am to catch a 7 am flight to Philly. I spent all day sitting on ill fitting chairs in meetings. Considering my past, my inability to get through a day like that without groaning, I am so much better off now.  

Time to sign off for a little Someday I Suppose by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. You can watch it on YouTube. 

Even though I’m going to dance to it, my oneday needs to be today. 

A Sigh of Relief

A man in a small town lays down in his bed at the end of the day and lets out a sigh of relief.  He realizes as he stares at the clumps of dust clinging to the textured swirls in his ceiling that he has been letting out this sigh of relief for so many nights in a row that he can no longer recall how many times he has done it. Or, even why. 

This morning, he woke up, got ready for work, wished his family to have a good day then got into his grey sedan and drove his 30 minute commute to work. There was traffic on the highway but not enough to prevent him from having enough time to collect a medium regular coffee from the drive through just three blocks from his place of employment.

He pulled the grey sedan in the sixth parking space in the lot to the left of the building. Parking in the sixth space, he found, kept him in the good graces of Alice in Accounts Payables who liked the fourth parking space because of the shade provided by a medium sized silver maple, the only tree on the parking lot, on an abundant sunshine day in the dog days of summer. He really wasn’t sure if Alice cared about parking under the medium silver maple on a cold, cloudy March day, but the man was unwilling to test his luck when there were so many important invoices that he would need paid.  

He gingerly carried the regular coffee through a labyrinth of cubicles narrowly missing the rush of a human resource admin on her way to a copy machine.  Once in side his own cubicle, he placed the regular coffee next to an endless pile of papers. The pile wasn’t very tall but he never seemed to make enough headway to get rid of it completely.  He spent most of his day responding to emails from customers or working on mundane tasks his boss had assigned.  Often, the man took mini breaks to check his Facebook.

 At 4:30 pm, he climbed into his grey sedan and pulled out of the parking lot to drive the 30 minute commute back home again.  

At home, the kids came and went to practices or study groups or hanging with friends, whatever it was that kids do these days.  The man ate his dinner on the lumpy stained couch next to his wife while watching some reality TV show where the people in the show were required to eat bugs. The man felt lucky that he was eating processed frozen chicken sandwiches instead of beetles. On commercial, the man and his wife exchanged pleasantries about their days but there was no real time for discussion before the show came back back on.  

Laying in his bed, staring now at the spot in the corner where the textured ceiling was pealing away due to a water leak, he realized that his day was neither bad nor good. It was just a regular day of a regular guy with a regular life.  And, while he clearly needed to look into getting the water leak fixed before mold started to grow, he really wasn’t all that anxious about it. So, what, he pondered would make him breath a sigh of relief? 

Miles and miles away, in another state, a petite brunette sits at a table in the corner of  brightly colored room where the eyes of the subjects in the artwork displayed on the walls watch the radiation from the fireplace dance in the diamond earrings hanging from the petite brunette’s  ears.  The petite brunette sets about her final task of the evening.  She is holding a non-descript doll that she made many months prior.   She gently smooths the hair of the non-descript doll before placing it inside a small box wrapped in plain, brown packaging paper. And, with the doll secure in its plain little box, she places the lid on the box as she lets out a sigh of relief.  

————
Truthfully, this shitty story isn’t even remotely done with the editing but I’m tired of writing it. 

FAI:The Great In Between

I’ve read so many horror stories on the Facebook FAI pages that I have a hard time believing how my situation is going to turn out.  You could say that I have accepted that I probably won’t be able to do many of the wilder things I’ve been doing in the last few years.  But, that’s not such a bad situation if that means one can do 90% (aka more normal things) of what they used to do. 

However, this past week, someone from a snowy climate posted that they went skiing for the first time since surgery and indicated that their hips might have even been ready at 5/6 months post-op, if there had been snow.  I was so relieved to read that post.  It means I have hope that when this is all said and done, I will do what I want to do.  

Surgery Day- wake up and take last shower for days where I also shaved my legs for the last time until further notice, arrival at outpatient, get into gown with a plunging back so low it looked like a hospital gown, get super warm and cozy blanket from the warmer, have super sexy thigh high Ted stockings put on, make joke with nurse about eating SPAM, kiss the husband good-bye, talk to anesthesiologist about nerve blocks and good knock-em out drugs, talk to Dr. Komanduri and ask him if he’s had his coffee yet, yes, that’s why he was late, go to OR, transfer to weird looking table then have all memories erased, ask husband three times “how long have I been here?”, finally come to – sort-of, attempt to pee in bed pan, continue to lose memories, fall asleep on drive home, too woozy to use crutches so I used a wheel chair, got into bed, ordered 10 piece chicken McNuggets meal, devour meal, sleep, use ice machine for 6 hours straight, watch This Is Us with K-man, say a cheery hello to my friend who made lasagna for us to eat, go to sleep, again. 

Up to 3 weeks post-op

I don’t have the brain capacity to recount the last three weeks post-op chronologically so I’m going with the main points. 

For me, the pain has been minimal. They said the nerve blocker would only last 12-24 hours. I couldn’t tell you when the nerve blocker wore off.  However, I have malfunctioning nerve endings.  Which means that there are plenty of times when I don’t feel pain properly and sometimes when I can’t feel at all.  I’m not pain free, it’s just very minimal pain. I don’t think I’ve ever been above a 3 on the pain scale this whole time. I also used the ice machine for nearly every minute the first several days. 

On the other hand, when I moved, I had someone help me move my leg so that I wouldn’t cause any pain or cause anything to go wrong, like, when I needed to pee, and that need occurred often in the first day or so.  Over the following few days, I could tell my hip was getting stronger so I slowly transitioned away from needing help to moving it on my own. 

When I was up on my crutches, I moved a little more. My doctor put me on 10 days no weight bearing restriction with a brace that only allowed me to bend my hip joint 70 degrees.  I found that when I was on crutches I could swing my leg, just a little, without any pain or other indicators of illadvised movement.  So, every time I peed, I made sure to swing my thigh back and forth and even in small circles. 

I elevated my feet constantly the first 5-7 days. I did not have any swelling. 

While I was laying about the rest of the time, I read up on blogs of others who have been throughout scopes for FAI.  The post-treatment ranges on what patients are allowed to do.  An example is some doctors saying no crutches are necessary to some saying 4 weeks on crutches.  About the time I hit 5 days post-op, I was ready to move.  I woke up in bed with an aching back. I decided that I would do two things. 1 I would do some of the exercises mentioned in blogs where PT started immediately after surgery. 2. I would make broccoli and cheese soup for dinner.  1. The exercises included things like slides, raise up on elbows, cobra, prone glute raises, etc. 2. The soup included so much cheese it might be better called cheese soup with broccoli.  

When I finally got to start PT, I was so anxious, I called ahead of time to make an appointment for the same day as the doctor’s follow up so there would be no further delay in my active recovery.  The follow up appointment was very interesting. The doctor walked in, asked me how I was doing then opened the door and told me to walk down the hallway.  No brace. No crutches. I was not expecting that but I was excited to try it. I was as graceful as a two minute old foal.  Doc gave me directions to use crutches as needed.  I went directly to Walmart and drove the amigo while I shopped.  Who wants to be a foal in China shop? 

I am now one week pre-surgery #2. My right hip is doing great.  I’m walking around home with no crutches. I’m still icing for hours every day to keep all inflamation at a minimum as I push to get stronger. The therapy isn’t what I expected but, today, my PT added some exercises and stretches.  It feels good to graduate to the next level. I even drove to PT today which was 5 minutes away.  

I’m beginning to think about everything I have learned from the first time around.  I worry and fret that #2 is going to crash and burn or I’ll tear up #1 in the process.  I’ve trusted my doctor thus far, I no reason not to now.  I started working with my pull-up bar at home to strengthen my shoulders, arms and hands for a second go on crutches.  I worry but I am ready. 

At home exercises for PT–Flex/point toes, glute sets, hamstring sets, quad sets, squeeze a pillow between knees, pelvis rockers, bridges, seated leg raises, raise up while on stomach, slow buttkicker while in stomach.  

~2 weeks post op. 3 little holes.