walked to breakfast

 

Monday and Tuesday was fall break and I did not take advantage of it. I only did the dog walk around the big block. Maybe a half mile. I just put grading, mid-terms, and book supporting projects first.  Tuesday I did go to senior exercise class at the senior center. 

Bonnie and I were to meet at Kasey Lynn’s for breakfast today at 8:30. It’s about a mile away. I didn’t measure it, but I know that the Wawa two blocks away is 1 mile. I left the house at 8:30 for a very uneventful walk. It was straight and flat. But it took me nearly twenty minutes. No world record for sure. But I did it without pain. After breakfast I walked home.

Between 3 and 7 I needed to go pick up my cheese CSA. This was the first week. My sister-in-law is going to split the shares with me. I’ll get one every month till February.  My pick-up spot is the Bonn Place Brewing Company on Taylor between 3rd and 4th. It’s a brew pub. I had planned on picking up my cheese and eating. But they only have beer and snack foods. Oh well. I stopped and got Chinese take-out.

I toyed with walking down and back. It’s just over a mile. But I talked myself out of it. I know when I get my veggie bag it is heavy, plastic and un-yeilding. I decided this time I’d take the car. As you can see it’s in a cardboard take-out box. It weighs about 5 pounds. It was a good call. Next time I’ll take a shopping bag when I walk down.

If you want to know what I got, here you go:

Red Cat
Birchrun Hills Farm. Unpasteurized.
Award winning farmstead original, this rustic washed rind cheese is assertive, rich & brothy. Try it with kimchi or pickled veggies.

Fenugreek Gouda
Valley Milkhouse. Unpasteurized.
Belgian style gouda studded with fenugreek seeds. Aromas of maple syrup and brown butter. Enjoy with toasted nuts, dried fruit and a malty ale.

Feta
Birchrun Hills Farm. Unpasteurized.
Cave aged farmhouse feta aged for 2+ months. Pair with golden honey and fresh fruit or whisk with eggs into a spinach pie.

Blue bell
Valley Milkhouse. Unpasteurized.
5-month aged stilton-inspired raw milk blue with roast, toasty aromas. Serve with salami and fig jam or melt over a pizza with seasonal mushrooms.

My SIL is taking the Blue. I don’t like blue.

Miles/Steps:  4000 steps. Just under 2 miles
Weather:        cold when I started, mid-60s when I left, sunny

days 3 & 4 -- badass women

 

Friday I went with a group from the college to Philadelphia on the bus. The group was mostly students, but the bus wasn't full. I sat near the front and had decent leg room. It was my first long sit since the injection and it went okay. I stood up and exited the bus fairly normally.

The tour we did was called the "Badass Women's History Walking Tour" and it left from the Independence Mall visitors center. Our poor tour guide Rebecca had to put up with more than normal city noises. There was a Jubilee festival on the mall and plenty of preaching and singing to go with it.

I would need a notebook to have all the names she talked about. But since it was Philly we started with Billy Penn, basically the only man to get air time. Billy was many things, but a leader he wasn't. And he sucked at math. Thankfully his wife — Hannah Callowhill Penn — was. She was governor of the Province of Pennsylvania for six years — our first and only female governor — after Billy had a series of strokes. And continued for eight years after his death. Props for being the founding mother of Philadelphia.  Out of the hundreds of statues of men in Philadelphia, only 10 of are women. Six of those are religious. Only one is fully sized.

Near the Liberty Bell is a skeleton of George Washington's home, and there's actually some foundation that you can see by looking down thru a glass floor. Philly had a large free Black population. Apparently you could come live in Philly but you had to free your slaves in six months. George had many slaves at mount Vernon, so every five months and 28 days he's send one batch home and bring new ones getting around the law. Many tried escaping because they were well aware of how free Black people lived. .This included Ona Judge who escaped twice. George was not a happy camper. He went to bring her back himself and she fled to Vermont where she married, raised a family, held a job, and stayed free until the day she died. Oh she also bragged about it in the newspaper. Badassed. 

Let's see who else. Peggy Shippen Arnold, the wife of Benedict Arnold, who saved him by feigning hysteria when Washington's troops came after him. 

We finally left the mall and headed to 6th and Chestnut to talk about Babara Gittings, the Mother of the LBGTQ rights movement. Her protests were three years before Stonewall.

(Mural designed by Maxwell Parish. Done in Tiffany Glass.)

For art, we talked about The Red Rose Girl's, a group of female artists working in Philadelphia in the early 1900s. The women lived communally at the Red Rose Inn in Villanova before moving to Mount Airy in 1906. One, Violet Oakley, painted the murals in the State Senate building. The centerpiece of Oakley’s Senate murals, “International Unity and Understanding”, a 44-foot long visual epic It took her 16 years. I missed some of what was said because they were drilling something in the building. We ended up going outside.

At UPenn we talked about Eliza Sproat Turner, the second female Africian-American physician in the US and the first at the Women's Megical College of Philadelphia. (The first Women's medical College. Great stories there about male med students behaving poorly.) My knees were starting to yell at this point and for the rest of the walk I lagged behind.

From UPenn we word our way into the Gayborhood to learn about women who contributed to the LGBTQ+ movement including Nazir Morris, a Philly drag performer and founder of a Buddhist faith group for trans folks and advocate for gender variant sex workers who died under "suspicious circumstances". There were two other women at this stop but I don't remember names.

From here we parted company and hiked back to 12th and Arch for the bus. We had about 1.25 hours, plenty of time to get food. I, of course, arrived back 15 minutes early. I was not the one being left in Philly. All but five were back on time. The organizer — a psy prof who needs to grow a backbone — was the organizer. Apparently she text the missing people and they responded they were lost and would be there in five minutes. 30 minutes later one returned carrying a full ice cream and a creamy full drink cup. WTF? A few minutes later tey get off the bus again. It took over one hour for the five to get back. The organizer had to go get them. Have they never heard of google maps? Taxi's? Uber's? Asking other people for directions? I've been on bus trips where they left one minute after the meet time. Five minutes fien. Ten, even. But an hour? No. We would have been gone.

Leaving late got us into full Friday night traffic. It took almost 2.5 hours to get back to Bethlehem. I was more than annoyed because I had dinner plans. A fundraiser for the shelter and it was Korean food. I had never had Korean food. I almost missed it. My food was cold but my SIL saved me a spot. Most was delicious. I ate way too much.

Miles/Steps:  my phone says 8383 steps. I'm guessing that's close to 5 miles.
Weather:        mid-seventies, sunny

day 2 -- pain is making a comeback.

 My pain is making a comeback. Well within the 72 hours  of the injection. However, at this point it's simply pain. It''s not interfering with my mobility. I used some of that homeopathic cream for the first time. Can't really tell if it works. It was smelly or sticky. So we'll see.

Today the roofers came to replace my front porch roof. It was not crumbling and rotted as I had anticipated. But the old box gutter was seriously compromised. He could wiggle the front beam with no effort. I'm not sure all of what they did. I could see that they cut a hole next to Fillippe's house about a foot wide and replaced the wood. They removed the old gutter and replaced just the front of the joists. When I left at 2 they were doing more cleanup. (Bonus, the blew the alley way. Cross one thing off the to-do list!) The back roof was finished.  So maybe they were done with the construction/demo portion. The gutter will be lined in rubber instead of metal so it will need no maintenance. As far as I know we've never done any maintenance to it. I've lived there since 1974. The metal flashing needs to go against the house, singles, and then the ever important seam.

Because I was in some pain, I wanted to cheat park. But I talked myself out of it. I didn't want to park across the street because I get out at 930 tonight. It's way too dark over there. Even the restaurant is closed. So I parked in the Spartan lot on the opposite side of the gym. Then I walked around the gym, and to the back side of Penn Hall where I  picked up the walking path.

It's been a long time since I've done the walking path, and in the meantime they've build another new ball field! I went around the ball fields and the tennis court. Passed some students doing batting practice and returned to the back of the gym. I did not follow the path across the parking lot because I had already done that. 

At the fitness center they redid the windows with the new branding. That spartan is one scary dude. He looks like he's in a Marvel movie.

day 1 no pain?

 

It's been 48 hours plus since the injection in my knee. I have been mostly pain free. Last night there was a bit. Actually right now there is a bit. But I'm walking like a normal person again.

I had my doctor's appointment before class and she didn't yell at me. Actually she was quite pleasant. I went for Chinese food afterwards. Then hit Michael's and walked to Dollar Tree. So I walked a bit around the shopping center before even getting to school. Last week I would have been sitting in the car with tears running down my face.

I must confess that at school I've been immorally parking in the handicap lot with Pat's pass. Now to be honest I was not stealing a truly differently-abled persons spot. The lot pretty much clears out after 2. I could never do it at 8 am. The lot is situated right by my building, and then I could limp in without extreme difficulty. 

Today I parked in my regular space...down the hill and across the street from my building. I even stopped at the little free library box at the child care center and got a book. 

 

Then I walked past my building, around the administration building, and to the theater lobby to pick up my CSA bag. After grabbing my bag and talking to a former student, I headed to my classroom. I stopped several times in this adventure but not because I was tired or that my leg hurt. I had reasons to stop.

Then the hard part. Walking back after class. Uphill. But no problem again.

No great mileage but a step in the right direction.

i knew this would be a waste of time

10/7

I did do a walk the last Saturday in September but I didn’t bother posting it. I only did the (old people) 3K and my knee was screaming. It was mostly flat and drizzling. I was looking forward to the walk because it was the anniversary of the volkssport club and I knew there would be a lot of people to walk with. Even pokey people like me.

The past ten days have been a whirlwind of doctor’s appointments. I was optimistic at first. After all I’ve lost ten pounds and have changed my eating patterns a lot…although to be fair last week was a bit of a dumpster. Tuesday was the heart doctor. The nice one. But she doesn’t like my BP’s in the 130s anymore than that physician’s assistant did. She wants to increase my drugs. She gave me new instructions for taking my BP which are much better than mean physician’s assistant persons.  I’m supposed to keep tract for a week and send them in. It’’s been almost a week and I think I’ve done three days. I’m not built for this shit.

Wednesday I went to the optician about my eye sight. The glasses I received after my surgery suck. Great to drive in. Can’t read or eat or do anything closeup with them on. Makes it difficult when both skills are needed at once, like looking at the GPS. I found that out while driving to Phoenixville for the volkssport picnic. I am new to this practice. My eye doctor was no longer doing surgery, and has since retired. I’ve only seen the surgeon and the glaucoma specialist there. My doctor did everything. This practice has techs do everything. Including the eye exam. The optometrist came in after the tech was done and gave me the verdict. They told me the RX barely changed but gave me a new one. Suggested wearing the glasses to drive and getting readers to read. Honestly, I can’t keep tract of one pair, yet alone two. I’m not having new glasses made. It’s a waste of money. If I need to get them in the future I’ll get single vision. Why pay for a useless bifocal.

Saturday I went for blood work and failed most of it. Worse numbers ever. I think I’m going back to eating shitty. The only thing I can think of is the lack of exercise …  I haven’t exercised much at all since Pat died. I mostly clean and move things. Why? As you know from my minimal posts my knee is killing me...especially since the end of July. I manage to scrounge out the occasional walk, the old lady exercise class, and the chair yoga … most weeks. 

Today I got a crown at the dentist, and of course she wants to do another. Not at $1.5K each.  Two in one year is plenty.  And after that I finally went to the orthopedist. 

I picked OAA. That’s where Bonnie goes. She’s had both knees and a hip replaced, as well as work on her elbow, wrist and hand. I showed her the list of doctors and she picked one. She’s very picky. First they took x-ray’s. Standing with both legs. Sitting, and then two difficult poses. Then I went to the exam room where they did all the normal stuff. The nurse was barely finished when he walked in. He showed me  the x-rays. My left leg that doesn’t hurt has way more arthritis than the right one, which hurts so much it keeps me up at night and forces me to walk the stairs like a 4-year-old.  I also have this little piece of bone, like a ball, behind my knee. Not everyone has that. I tried googling it but came up empty. Bonnie would have known. My right knee has a circle of bone that is bone rubbing bone. I’m wondering if the circle is leftover from the great girls scout fall in seventh grade. I did try to tell the story but they weren’t interested. Odd, I thought it was relevant. That was quite the trauma. And I got to skip school for two or three days, and ride to school in the car for even more. 

I did learn that the inside of the knee goes first, then the cap, then the outside. There are three courses of treatment. Do nothing. Clearly that doesn’t work.  Step two is the injection. They gave it to me.  It’s been six hours. I cannot tell the difference. No, that’s not true. Now my whole leg hurts. I’m dragging it around like Frankensteins monster. He wants me to exercise. But didn’t give me the exercises. I’m sure Bonnie will have them. He also said to get this cream — Arnicare. It’s homeopathic. Says it works like Aleve and is okay for AFib. I bought it ($18!) but waiting to use it. I’m going to try and wait the full 48 hours. I really want to know what the shot does. Then maybe, hopefully just after walks and at night. 

The people at OAA were nice. Friendly. Way better than the people at the cold, hard eye practice. But I think it was a waste of time and money. I’ve known about the arthritis for years. Actually my whole life. Everyone in my family has it. I was hoping for a tear in my meniscus. That would explain the onset of the horrible stabbing pain that I’m having for the last 8, 10 weeks. The radiating pain up and down my leg. The “falling asleep” of my leg when I sit.  I could barely stand at the dentist after an hour in the chair. My knee was throbbing so bad I didn’t even notice what she was doing in my mouth. So for the next few year’s I’m just going to have to power thru.

Wednesday is my primary care doctor’s appointment. I’m saving the worse for last. I’m sure she’ll want to push more drugs on me because that’s what they do. I swear they get kick-backs or a commission. I’m not taking anything else. None of this shit works and I just keep getting sicker. 

9/8

I wrote most of the above last night. It’s now been about 20 hours since I had the injection. My knee hurt last night when I fell asleep, but not as much as before. But I slept most of the night. I woke up at 3 for the bathroom and was still wobbly, but when I got back in bed I went right back to sleep. That’s huge. This morning I was still wobbly. The injection site feels like someone hit me with a hammer. But the stabbing pain is gone. Or minimal. My entire leg is still sore. I’m still dragging it around like Frankenstein’s monster. But I did the steps like an adult. The tech/nurse/PA that gave me the shot said 48 hours. We will see.