"It JUST happened, you guys!"

Welcome to the Eno River, y'all.

The Eno is Durham's river, running (among other directions and places) between downtown and the northern suburbs and country area.  I live north of the river, but quite close to it.  Because of this, whenever I have some time to burn on a nice day (or a rainy one, for that matter!) I often head out to one of the many hiking trails along its length. Sometimes barefoot.

This time of year the woods by the river are just about as close to heaven as I can get.  Everything is absolutely bursting with verdant life.  There are tiny little toads the size of your pinky nail - no, really! - hopping around everywhere, and I caught a frog in a water-filled crevice in the rock today.  And when the sun slants down and hits it just right, the whole forest just glows.

The best part about trekking around the woods right now is that, even though our September days are still pretty sticky-sweaty, you can always just dunk in the river and cool right down.  Matter of fact, it's a Durham County ordinance that you have to at least wade every time you go to the Eno.  Totally true fact.

So I usually end up immersed whenever I go there.  I don't have a bathing suit that fits and if I did I doubt it would be very comfortable to hike in.  Solution: I just swim in my clothes and keep a towel in the car.  In this case, I had on the normal uniform: high-cut black sports bra, ankle-length loose black pants and a ratty shirt that doubled as a foot-towel so I wouldn't have to re-shoe with muddy feet.  Walking back from my swimming hole (some distance upriver from the adorable but loud children), I wore everything but the shirt, which should be understandable.

Let me clarify that I was by no means in the running for the Most Skin Showing award.  It's a holiday weekend, which means lots of people.  Lots of shorts.  Lots of bathing suits.  And I swear I saw a miniskirt (which, in the woods, just kinda makes you go bwuh?).  But it should be clear that I'm more covered up than the majority of these people.

So I'm walking back, right?  I see these people coming the other way - a group of a couple families, with two sets of parents each walking a dog, and three boys of approximately 10 years of age following a little ways behind.  I say hello to the parents, let the dogs sniff me and smile at the boys as I go past.  And then I hear, in a low tone that is pure holy-shit-you-guys-someone-pinch-me, the following:

"I just saw.  A naked woman.  Walk past me."

Oh, little anonymous boy in the woods.  I'm not sure whether to congratulate you on your admirable imagination, ask you how I can get my own pair of x-ray contacts, or just call you a creeper.

In other news: OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THE MAN IS FINALLY IN THIS STATE!!!  He and his fam went straight to his aunt's house down south a ways, but he is LESS THAN 100 MILES FROM ME!!!  I'm making a list of all the fun Triangle-based activities I'm looking forward to sharing with him and his family:

• go to the Eno to hike and swim and catch tiny toads and then let them go again
• and also to go kayaking
• and probably camping at some point
• toss paleo to the winds and take them for lunch at Cosmic Cantina, with dessert at Locopops
• catch some music downtown at Motorco on a night when all the food trucks are there so we can get tater tots fried in duck fat
• stroll around Duke Gardens
• head over to Chapel Hill to see the always jaw-dropping Paperhand Puppet Intervention, if we can schedule it soon enough

Any other ideas?  Leave them in the comments!

-N

Update part 2: Time crunch

I left off right when we were headed up to Ohio.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos to illustrate this next portion, but I hope my wittily sparkling prose will make up for that.

The reason we were headed up to the frozen North in the first place was a mini-convention about Mrs. Murr's exercise methodology of choice, T-Tapp.  Anyone heard of it?  I hadn't.  From the teeny little bit I read about it beforehand, most of which mentioned core stability and activation, I'd imagined a series of Pilates-esque balancing sorts of movements.  Well...not quite.  There's a lot of standing in one place and moving in various directions and ways, focusing on activating whatever muscle group you're working on despite the lack of actual resistance.  The deal is that you "become your own weight machine" by doing this.  A few of the moves I remember are very slow shallow lunges (decent), a move that approximates that machine where you rotate your arms to pull the levers together in front of you - don't know what it's called (I could only do this one-armed) and the "hoe-down," which can only be illustrated with a video.



The magic really starts at about 39 seconds.

I think it might be the fact that I don't actually like real weight machines, but this didn't float my boat too much.  It's obviously worked for Mrs. Murr and the other attendees of the event, and they're all immensely happy with it, and I wish them mountains of continued success.  But I think this just illustrates the fact that it's really not the methodology that matters - it's whatever works for you and with you to get you to the point, both in physical health and happiness, where you want to be.

(That said, as for me and my house, we will lift heavy things and run around barefoot.)

While in the Land of the Burning River, I also got to stay with The Man & fam for a little while, and the two of us met up with my lovely friend Liz for lunch, conversation and a perusal of an awesome little vintage store, "The Funky Hippie."  Check it out if you're ever in Akron.  Here's my haul:

 I eyed this gorgeous long dress as soon as we got in the door, but didn't actually think to try it on until The Man suggested it.  It's a stretchy velour-type fabric, but not at all scratchy on the inside.  Even better: it fits me like a glove.  As in, I don't need to wear a bra with it.  Given, I've only tried it on for brief stretches, but I think I could do a few minor alterations to ensure the comfy fit and coverage stay indefinitely. 

 The super-fantastic owner of the shop (whose name I unfortunately didn't catch) talked to me about swimming in ponds and driving to/through North Carolina and other bits of randomness, and then threw these earrings in for free when I bought the dress.  They are made of pure sparkle and reach to my shoulders, and swing every which way whenever I turn my head.  I'm wearing them right now and I keep swishing them back and forth.






And zomguh look at the BACK!  It's obviously sheer (which makes the lack of a need for underpinnings even more serendipitous) and just holy gods look at it, it's so PRETTY!  It makes me smile :)








By the way, the reason I talk about the dress and other trivial things so much is mostly that I actually have pictures of it, unlike The Man or Liz or the ridiculous amounts of 50-cent McDonald's ice cream cones I ate, paleo be damned.  I need to change this - it's so much easier to remember events when there are images to spark the memory - but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to be so caught up in actually having the fun times that you forget to document them for posterity.

Here's a little tidbit I do remember pretty well, though.  So Liz, The Man and I were all in the same computer science classes and labs during one year at Hiram.  Liz and I were totes buds, but for some reason The Man and I never actually hung out then, just occasionally worked on lab papers together.  I remember one long night the three of us spent writing our papers in the computer lounge, with us girls on one side and him on the other, and he kept zooming across the room backwards in his rolling chair to compare notes.  We were reminiscing about that very night, and then everyone paused just to remember it.  Then I started to ask Liz,

"Did you ever thi-"

"Noooo.  Nope.  Never." (she said, in the sweetest way possible).

 Honestly, neither did I.  It's not that I thought about and scoffed at the possibility, it's just that I didn't even consider it.  And now, I realise that of the years since that day, we've been together for the majority.  And...well...let's just say that my collection of pond creatures is growing.

Gosh, we are just too saccharine for words.

Next up: my triumphant return (sans sling!) to the Land of the Pine, various experimentation with fermentation (delicious!), a big huge pile of old drawings (flying squirrel dragon, anyone?) and...preparations for the first day of school.  Which is this coming Monday.  That's right, bitches.  I'm back in the world of higher education, and I'm gonna totally destroy it.  Wish me luck.

-N

PS: Caitlin, I an a mega stupid-head for not seeking you out on this latest visit to Ohio.  As soon as I can manage another trip, I'd really really love to see you, if you can spare the time.  And hopefully we can have cakes and ale and bonfires, if you catch my drift :)

Update part 1: Army of Chickens

OH EM GEE!  I'm back again, from another ridiculously long absence!  Please don't throw anything at me. 

 I have been zipping all over the place!  As you know, I've been beslinged of late, and unable to do necessary things like, say, drive myself to get food.  So, since my parents were going out of town (to the Isle of Wight for their 30th anniversary, yay them!) I got shuffled off to Wake Forest, NC to spend some time getting taken care of by my godfamily, the Murrs, a couple of whom (Laura and Eamon) I introduced y'all to way back at Christmas.  I spent most of my time there eating.  Mrs. Murr is a fantastic cook, and plied me with (among varied delectables) mountains of homemade sauerkraut, rivers of happy milk and the thickest cream I've ever tasted and fresh eggs from their army of chickens.  Take a look:

just a few

my favorite one!

the delicious output

The birds are locked in an enclosure with a small yard and a henhouse at night, but during the day they have the run of the whole yard - which, as you can tell, is mostly pine forest.  There are about five different kinds: little white ones, slightly bigger black, red and striped ones and then the beauty you see above.  She's the biggest of the whole flock, and she has these gorgeous ruffles of feathers all the way down her legs, like fancy lace pantaloons.  She struts around like a big-bosomed aunt from a P. G. Wodehouse book, usually with a couple of the little white hens following her. 

Apart from the two Murr boys, Eamon and Liam, I encountered only a couple more beasties: first, the Murr's positively liquid cat, Luna:

...and a tiny kitten that Eamon brought home from a trip, named Ollie and threw into my arms, where he promptly fell asleep. 

yes i know he's not asleep here

He fell asleep pretty much everywhere else, too.

I was squealing like an idiot the entire time I took these (and many more) pictures.  I mean, really.  Kitten. Sleeping.  I can't not squeal.

During my stay, the eldest and sole Murr daughter, Laura, returned from a school trip to Mexico, bearing a real Mayan sleeping hammock (so cool!) and a sketchbook crammed with pictures of Mayan runes and temples and spouting crazy stories of beautiful female vampires who live in trees during the day and come out to feed at night.  She had only been home for a few days when she, Mrs. M. and I all packed up and took off again, heading north to Ohio...which is what the next post will be about.  Stay tuned!

For now, I'll leave you with more chickens:

-N

How to heal

I got to stop by CFD yesterday, and it was so amazing!  I didn't stay for a very long time, just enough to say hi to a bunch of people and show off my shoulder and how it's hooked up to a bunch of electrodes, so I can make it twitch.

Seeing all the lovely active sweaty people made me realise I need to stop sulking about being a one-armed wonder and start living the "wonder" part while making the "one-armed" part as short and impermanent as possible.  So here's my game plan.  Some of these points I'm already following; others I'm going to start incorporating.  As always, any and all comments and suggestions are welcome!

DIET
With a few exceptions that I'll note below, I'm going strict paleo until I'm healed enough to use my arm again.  The reasoning is pretty simple: it promotes reduction/avoidance of inflammation, which in turn helps avoid infection and speeds healing.  I've also been using an ice pack and occasional doses of ibuprofen, as my shoulder still seems to me to be a little swollen (no redness, oozing or other signs of infection, though).

I've also been keeping half an eye on portions, though I'm not actually counting calories.  Reason is that I know my BMR is about 1500 cals/day when I don't factor in any activity, and I haven't been very active at all lately.  This isn't too much of an issue, since the sudden and dramatic decrease in exercise and activity means my appetite dropped to almost nil.  However, I do tend to binge-eat when I'm bored, and ennui has been the main emotion of late.  The times I have caved, I've kept it pretty paleo, though, so that's a semi-victory.  A better fix is finding something to erase the boredom, and I'm working on that.

My exceptions to the paleo rule are mostly driven by the fact that I'll be staying with my godparents for a couple weeks while my parents are on vaycay and I'm still pretty helpless.  They keep chickens in their backyard!  I'm also expecting to encounter

• delicious homemade fermented things (like sauerkraut, not beer), as well as
• happy milk!  that is, not all cooked and nastified, just as pure as Bessie intended (wink wink)

In addition, I'm fully planning to deviate from strictitude when I just want some goddammn chocolate already.

EXERCISE

So far, this has consisted of one leisurely two-mile stroll around the neighborhood a few days ago.  I attempted some squats and one-arm push-ups against the arm of the couch the same day, but I was still pretty shaky from the meds and it didn't work out very well.  Since then, however, I've focused on cutting down severely on the meds, and I think I'm finally close enough to myself again to attempt another try.  Besides walking, which I intend to do at least once a day, I've come up with

• squats
• pistols, once I'm up for it
• one-armed push-ups off the wall or the arm of the couch
• side plank holds
• front one-armed plank holds, once I'm up for it
• sit-ups
• one-armed kettlebell stuff

As soon as I can do more than just slow controlled movements (I don't know how long that'll be), I'll start working bouts of slow running into my walks, preferably barefoot, as well as jumps onto low objects, like stairs.  At the moment, any movement that causes me to tense up my body and thus my shoulder involuntarily or quickly is fairly painful.

For my right arm: officially I'm still not supposed to take it out of the sling unless I'm showering or doing the only prescribed exercises, which consist of straightening my elbow and bending my wrist, 20 reps at a time, 3 times a day.  I've been taking it out of the sling and letting it rest on  a pillow in my lap as much as I can, working my wrist and hand, as well as bending and straightening my arm when I'm standing with it hanging by my side.  There's little to no pain associated with these movements, or with slow isolated shrugs (of which I'm still doing VERY few, just to be safe), mostly just joint stiffness.  I'm pretty worried (read: totally paranoid) about losing muscle mass, though, so in my eyes it looks like my arm's already transformed into this shrunken blobby thing from a week of disuse.  Meh.

MEDICATION/MEDICAMENTS

Like I've mentioned before, I'm been prescribed some pretty serious meds for the pain, which all the doctors told me numerous times was going to be quite considerable.  The first several days it was bad enough that I was popping pills like a toddler eating jelly beans off the floor of a movie theater.  Side effects included being awake for like 4 hours a day, not wanting to eat anything at ALL and getting seriously backed up in the ol' GI department (tmi, sorry!  but something you should definitely be aware of if you ever have to take these), as well as being super shaky and out of it whenever I was awake.  Now the discomfort has shrunk to more manageable levels, so I'm trying to do without the scrips as much as possible, relying more on ibuprofen or my handy dandy shoulder electrifier during the day, then taking meds at night if I need the help to get comfortable enough to sleep.  

To help with the anti-inflammation, I'm taking between 6 and 9 capsules of fish oil every day.  I'm also drinking a couple glasses of Metamucil+water and at least 4 6-oz cups of fully caffeinated coffee every day to help combat the aforementioned particularly unfortunate side effect, and it is totally working.  The more you know...

REST

At this point I'm just trying to get back into a normal awake-during-daylight-hours schedule, and get between 8 and 10 hours of sleep at night.  But sometimes naps are an awesome way to pass the time.

So there you have it!  My genius plan to take over the world be a total badass again as soon as possible.  What do you guys think?  

PS:  Here's me being extremely pouty a day or two after the surgery:

...and here's me right after I was finally able to take a SHOWER!  And put on REAL CLOTHES!  And a BRA!  I tell ya, bathing never felt so good.

(btw yes I know my clothes don't match at all.  it was the first thing I could put on after over 72 straight hours of that damn hospital gown, and I wanted some COLOR!)

-Nelly

Surgery is not nearly as fun as it sounds

So.  I'm out of the hospital and fairly lucid, despite this heavy-duty shit I'm taking every four hours.  (PS: I'm gonna say that's the reason I might be a little more foul-mouthed in my writing than usual.  So far I've managed to hold myself back from howling "FUUUCK!" every time I tweak my arm, seeing as my mother's nearly always in earshot, but I need some kind of an outlet.)  I'm waiting for the latest dose to kick in so I can try and catch a couple winks, so I figured I'd share all the loveliness with you.

Honestly, it wasn't all that bad an experience.  Every single one of my doctors and nurses were totally spiffy.  Even the intern who bruised me up trying to get the IV in was a very sweet girl - it seems, however, that my veins shrink under stress.  There are FIVE needle holes from failed attempts in my hand and arm, with varying degrees of bruised-ness around them, including a real shiner that takes up a good patch of my forearm. Finally the nurse took over and got it in fairly quickly.  That was probably the worst part of anything that happened there, though.

Once the IV was in and the anesthesiologist was done chatting with another patient (very nice man and very good at his job but that dude could TALK!  Quote from the nurses:  "Where's Dr. So-and-so?"  "Oh, he's off somewhere talking." They both laugh.), I got a little something in the IV to calm me down and the doc administered a block on my right shoulder.  That's basically a numbing injection put in just below a nerve cluster so it spreads through my arm.  My thumb and first two fingers numbed up pretty quickly, but I could still feel the rest of my arm.  The other meds kicked in very quickly, though, so I was slightly past caring.  This was about when I lost all sense of time.

After a while, they rolled me into the OR.  I was still pretty content-feeling, but a lot more alert than they were expecting.  The surgeon noticed that my shoulder wasn't marked at all, so he quickly scribbled something on there, which I definitely felt.  "Is my shoulder supposed to be numb yet?"  Pause.  Some confused glances.  "Um...yes.  We'll fix that for you.  Don't worry, you'll be asleep for it."  Surgeon, anesthesiologist and one nurse rush around purposefully.  Two other nurses help me onto the table and give me a breathing mask.  "This is just oxygen.  Just take some deep breaths..."  Well, as it turns out, it wasn't actually just oxygen.  That's the last thing I remember before waking up.

I don't remember what I dreamed about, but I know it was all very vivid and seamlessly woven in with drifting into consciousness and seeing blurry nurses check my stats or just rush past before I dozed off again.  Finally there was more of the blurriness than the vividness, so I figured I was awake.  Everything was still flowing together pretty well, though, so I can't tell you at what point my mom came in to sit with me, or how long it was between then and the time we left.  I do remember saying very vehemently that if I ever had a kid, it would not be in a hospital.  Okay, semi-conscious self, whatever you say...

I do remember the conversation the people in the "room" (they're just separated by curtains) next to me were having...a little more specifically than I'd really like to.  As far as I could tell, it was an elderly lady who'd hurt one of her legs, accompanied by one or more daughters, all with very heavy, rather refined Southern accents - you know, the kind who actually still drink mint juleps.  At some point, she stood up with the aid of a walker, and immediately started pissing herself lavishly.  She was nowhere near shy about it, and neither were her daughters.  Some gems I remember: "Oh lawdie, it's all in my shoes!  They're just full of it!"  "Well now we're gonna have to rinse them out, Momma!  Don't let's forget now!"  And this one, a good five minutes after she started: "Are you still peeing now, Momma?"  "Yep, it's still just comin' and comin'!"

From ghoulies and  ghosties and piss-covered old ladies, good LAWD, deliver us!

That's all for now, folks.  I've got the deets on this fancy sling to share with y'all, as well as the pretty pictures they took of my insides while they were stitching me up.  For now, though, here's my flower.  They gave it to me when I left.

-Nelly

And I'm off again...

I'm leaving for my surgery in about 15 minutes.

I am very scared.

For at least the first 10 days I'll be hopped up as all hell on two different kinds of very heavy-duty meds.  I might blog while on them, and if so it should be pretty hilarious.  But the bad thing is that I'll really need them.  The docs have warned me several times that once the injections they'll do for the actual procedure wear off, this will hurt.  A lot.  Constantly.

*deep breath*

This will fix my arm...this is the right thing to do...I can get through all the pain and rehab to get back to where I was the other day, when I maxed out the day's lifting schedule at 3x195 deadlift.  Even though it'll take a while.

But you better believe I'll come back stronger than ever.  My goal?  Bodyweight snatch by 18 months from this day.  Snatch Bost, you're my inspiration for this.

Arg.  I'm still super scared though.  Wish me luck, guys.

Be back at CFD as soon as possible!  If I say anything particularly ridiculous you have to remember it and tell me about it later.

Catch y'all on the flip side!

-Nelly

I'm back! Did you miss me?

Last Monday I got up at some god-awful hour like five am (it didn't really matter, because I'd been too excited to sleep most of the night) to drive to the airport and catch an early plane to Ohio.  Why?  Because I got to go stay with The Man for a whole week!  (During which I opened my laptop maybe once.  So no blogging.)  And it was absolutely AMAZING.

Did I stick to paleo?  Hell no.  I wasn't even remotely primal.  I ate grilled cheese sandwiches and potatoes and corn cooked with bacon and cookies from Subway and marshmallows whenever I felt like it, and I drank coffee with milk (and sometimes cocoa mix) all day long.  And I didn't even try to think about calories.  I just ate what I wanted of what was there, when I felt like it.  And I focused more on the people I was dining with than the food itself.

Did I exercise?  Hrmm...well, yes.  Sometimes several times a day.  But...how shall I put this...I wasn't really focusing on burpees and air squats.  Well, not solo ones, at any rate.  Hee hee!  I kill me!

I did, however, get impromptu lessons on how to ride on of these:

via

It's like a skateboard with two wheels, and the fore and aft sections rotate individually.  I'm terrified of falling and freeze up as soon as both feet are on it, but I managed to go about two feet down the road a couple times.  I consider that a success.

Was I blissfully happy the entire time?  Well, no.  500+ miles is a lot to get over on a regular basis, but we manage.  And when it's suddenly shriveled down to nothing, it can be a bit of a shock to be so close, so soon, after months and months of distance.  Emotions run high and low and everywhere in-between before they finally level out (which usually takes just a few days) and the bliss does take over.  Sitting close together on an old bench, looking out over a perfect lake winking in the sun and letting the flood of feelings just rush out is a good way to speed up the process, too.  Especially if it ends with a whole bunch of kisses.

There weren't too many pictures taken - I didn't put on a shred of makeup or bother with my clothes save for the one day we went to a wedding.  Here's one pic from that day.  Please ignore the fact that I look like I'm about to eat the world and The Man looks (so he says) like he's shyly working his way up to strangling me.  That just gives us character.

Yep.  There we are.  Two adorably awkward, beautifully flawed, regular ol' people who managed to stumble into each other one day and never wanted the moment to end.  Funny how things work out like that.  And it's taken a hell of a lot of effort on both our parts to pull each other along this far - but now it's been just about three years since that first day, and hopefully we'll both keep on pulling for three score more.  Because you know what they say...

...slow and steady wins the race.

-Nelly