Teleidoscope

Thu, Jan 10, 2008

Cranky

Posted at 9:39 pm MST to Miscellaneous

Two very busy days.

A full day of work yesterday, followed by a stop at Costco to pick up my med refills and a two hour session at my massage therapist. And preceded by some strenuous housework: I hauled 6 12-gallon tubs of manga books down to the basement and did some other reorganizing of the house in the absence of the holiday decorations. (The house seems very dark without the lights.)

I am noticing the problems in my left hip and leg more as the rest of me is get loosened up and stretched out. On Monday when I tried a yoga leg lift (part of the ABS yoga routine) something went 'twang in my left thigh. Marti says it is the IT band (IlioTibial) and agrees I should probaly not do those exercises while my leg is still tweaked. I don't want to mangle something by straining the soft tissues while the bones are out of allignment.

This afternoon, I felt a couple of odd twinges in my hip, as if things were trying to change position and not quite able to stay there. I'll take some Advil before bed: on one occasion in the past my hip pulled back into position during the night once the inflammation was knocked down.

It actually seems really odd to have my hip out and not have lower back pain. Despite the gradual fading of my exercise routines during the years of travel, I haven't completely lost the benefits of my few years of activity. The muscles in my back are still strong enough to keep the tweaked hip from pulling the iliosacral joint out with it.

Today started with AM yoga and weight lifting. Then bill-paying, and time on the telephone. I made an appointment with a chiropractor/physical therapist to try to do something about the bad hip.

Then I spent way too much time on the phone with the organizational incompetents at Xcel. The fix to my address in their records -- which was promised for December -- still has not happened. And neither, of course has the change of my power from overhead to underground. Xcel is not just a case of their right hand not knowing what their left is doing. I think they are a centipede...

I eventually left a message to tell Ross, my electrician to get in touch with one of Xcel's departments, and headed out to squeeze as many errands as possible into the time before I had to be at my customer site.

I ate lunch in the waiting room at the place where they test cars' emissions.

Then I spent a long afternoon at work. I got a lot accomplished, but I was tired enough that I forgot to stop at the dry cleaners on the way home.

At this point, I am waiting to hear from Ross and Xcel, and also from the customer support department for my timeshare company. (At least the chiropractor returned my call promptly.)

It doesn't help in all this that my cellphone doesn't work inside my customer site. But I haven't received any voice mails on either the cell or the landline. I even tested the recorder on the landline and verified that it is working properly (the machine was flaky a few months ago, but I figured out that it is fussy about having it's clock reset after power outages).

permanent link || trackback || 0 comments || Add a comment

Candy Pelennor Fields

Posted at 8:22 pm MST to Media

The people who did the candy Battle of Helm's Deep last year have done a candy Siege of Minas Tirith and Battle of the Pelennor Fields this year. (I got the link from Andrew Wheeler).

The detail is amazing. So (again) is their candy budget. The mumakil are especially impressive (and have 'circus peanut' bodies, which seem oddly appropriate for elephant-ish creatures).

permanent link || trackback || 0 comments || Add a comment