Friday: The Fjig is Up

 I'm in a crap place physically. This is not that unusual for me in winter. I have autoimmune issues and am basically strung more tightly than a cheap violin. I try to exercise and stretch enough to not let things get too bad, but exercising in the winter - or just walking Lucy in the winter, or just walking at all in the winter - affects my gait, which goes right to my lower back and jacks everything up and then exercising actually makes it all WORSE, which is VERY ANNOYING. Anyway. I feel a little bit like I can either devote myself full time to not being in pain, or I can work and live my life and be in pain. This happens every winter and I go to a terrible, dark place and think that everything will be terrible forever, and today I remembered that I always think this and then things are not, in fact, terrible forever. 

As my good friend who faithfully records positive stuff on Facebook daily often says, Nevertheless, Good Things:

February 22: We went curling. We were at bar night the week before, and curling was on the televisions, and I could hear a couple of people who had curled before describing the actions of curling in detail, but I thought it was just randomly, and then I saw Collette listening intently and got a terrible feeling and said "why is everyone talking about curling?", and she smiled an evil smile at me and I said "I'm NOT GOING CURLING." And then of course I went curling. For some reason we like to do things as a group that we're really bad at and that might result in injury or death.

Curling is hard. The people running the lesson were excellent at describing everything in detail, but it's still pretty different doing the actual action. I'd only curled once before, years ago, and at that point there were NO grippy things to put on the bottom of your shoes. I'm not sure if I'm so old that they hadn't been invented yet, but they made a considerable difference. That time I fell and smashed my head on the ice and probably lost a good number of IQ points. This time I was worried about looking stupid but not acquiring a brain injury. They took us through the motion of pushing off, the motion of pushing off and letting a rock go, and then we played one end. The instruction was so effective that it was possible to feel a small (tiny, infinitesimal, barely discernible) amount of improvement. 

We went out for lunch afterwards. I was sort of glowy with that feeling of trying something hard, and also of being at the point in my life where I can suck at something and not really care. And there was this: a couple of the people (okay, men) in our group, when they're trying to cut back on alcohol for whatever reason, instead of just drinking water or soft drinks, drink fake beer. I don't understand it personally, but whatever gets you by. Corona Sunbrew is one brand, which led to extensive discussions over the fact that it's recommended not to drink more than two at a time because it might result in too high a dose of Vitamin D (what? why? Why not just put less Vitamin D in? There have been no conclusions). At this particular pub the fake beer Tony ordered was called Sober Sailor, which, come on, was enjoyable ("who's a sober little sailor? Is it you?) I love my friends. 

Mr. Sober Sailor himself.

February 23: Third husbandless Sunday. I went over to my mom and dad's for dinner. Winter is a little hard for them, my dad has mobility issues and it gets lonely. I see them a couple of times a week when they look after Lucy, but they liked having another person around the table and I enjoyed the company. And my mom always makes extra of my favourite salad (romaine with pomegranate and feta) so I can take some home. We used to think the neighbours were going to speculate that we were engaging in elder abuse, they would send us home with so much stuff. 

February 24: Good work day at Monday school. Went to physio for my knee (it started hurting one day after walking Lucy and I stretched a bit and then thought I should keep it moving so it didn't stiffen up and overdid it, and I just needed someone to tell me how much of what to do). My physio guy is really nice and remembers my kids' names no matter how long it's been since I've seen him. I said it was nice to see him, sort of. He worked on my left knee and left hip (I am generally crooked and my left side tends to have issues), and my neck and arms and hands and of course everything hurt a lot after, but by the next day my knee felt dramatically better - I hadn't been able to bend my knee enough to put on a sock, and now I could. So that's awesome.

February 25: Eve's birthday/Valentine's Day package arrived at her house and she opened it on Facetime with me. Besides chocolate, I got her some Bluey bookmarks and a Corgi-shaped phone charger and a Coach wristlet that she had seen online and said was really pretty but I was pretty confident she would have forgotten about it. It had a nice tie-in to Matt's mom, who had given her coach wallets and purses a couple of times. After she died, her husband told all the girls to go into her room and take whatever we wanted from the purse closet (yes, there was a purse closet). There were about eight of us in there and we sat on the bed together and sorted through them and talked about Barb and chose who should get each one, and it was really nice. Eve has had her pink Nana Barb Coach purse hanging somewhere in all of her university rooms.

She was surprised!

February 26: I was at my Wednesday morning school. I have two kindergarten classes, and the teacher usually brings in their book returns early so we can get right to business when they come in. I guess this morning they had given the few books returned to a responsible student, so this little girl raced into the library, shouted "here ya go, Miss Allison!", thrust the books onto the counter and raced out. I should have told her to stop running, but 1) there really wasn't time and 2) it was too freaking cute.

I texted with Angus and he said he's very busy because he got some good internal evaluations and now feels like he's 'important at work'. 

My HUSBAND CAME HOME.

February 27: I got a massage which is nice on a couple of levels, because it moves me towards feeling well and I really like talking to my massage therapist. It was snowing again, but that was okay because it wasn't far and MY HUSBAND WAS HOME.

February 28: Ruth massaged my forearms and hands, which is necessary but my hands hurt so much it kept me away for part of the night. But I was off today and Lucy and I did some of this

And then I went to a movie with some friends and it was snowing AGAIN (rude!), but it looks pretty and someone else drove, and guess where my husband is? NOT IN ROME OR BALI.

Tomorrow is March, which is not January or February, which has to be a good thing. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? (Yes, it can. Far, far, far behind, particularly in Canada. But it will get here some day).