Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I'm being so nice to the neck!
Posted at 10:23:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
1) Washed my hair in the evening to avoid the Evil Shampoo Basin (as hilariously pictured in my neck booklet) because I made an appointment for a haircut tomorrow morning. (I'm going to ask Michelle to just rinse it instead of washing.) Pretty annoying, since, without the sun, it takes about four hours for my hair to dry. But the thought of that Evil Shampoo Basin is scary.
2) I'm drinking some Magic Hat, and I poured it into a glass rather than doing the "Incorrect. Do not drink directly from a bottle or can" thing (photo of Goofy Shirt Guy tipping his head back really far while chugging some water out of a bottle). "Correct." = "Use straws or cups" (silly picture of him slurping water out of the bottle with a straw instead). Magic Hat is better in the bottle, but that's okay.
3) I did not paint any ceilings.
P.S. "(I Want To Be) The Rainmaker" is supreme. The weird laid-back floaty vocals and spare guitar strums. The semi-random claps. The whole hilariously bizarre drug-induced concept. The rejected professions (shoemaker, undertaker, sane man's son). The "fool" line. There's nothing better than a "fool" line in a song sung by Rick Danko.
P.P.S. I've been listening to Modern Times in the car. Modern Times is a bit of a disappointment, really, and I didn't play it much after I first got it. It's weird, about half of the songs annoy me, whereas there are others I like a lot. But I don't like any of them as much as "Tell Ol' Bill" or "Huck's Tune," to be honest.
Wow! Someone just called me on my phone! It was so cool! (It was also a wrong number.) (But it was still cool.)
Posted at 5:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Aaagh, I felt all right this morning, but this afternoon the un-tilty neck started making me feel like I'd been hit over the head with a blunt object. Sort of stunned and vulnerable and sick. But I ate some Tylenol when I got home and it mostly improved for the semi-annual meeting. Since there's no more B., I slunk around in the back of the room drinking coffee while everyone else was seated, to fill in for him. :-) Not for the whole meeting, of course. Just the opening introductions. I needed a few minutes to myself with steamy warm coffee vapors.
Posted at 12:01:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Posted at 12:27:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
My neck feels quite a bit better today, after a good sleep. It got all messed up on Saturday when we were hounding, and I couldn't sleep well Saturday night. I didn't make the connection at the time, but I think it's because I had the seat on my bike slightly higher, so I therefore was biking with my head tilted slightly back in order to look straight ahead. Afterwards it felt really strange and unpleasant (still does, but not nearly as bad now) every time I tipped it back even a little. I'm not sure how to describe it exactly, but it was different than just a normal stiff neck; it felt dangerous to lift my head, like something really bad would happen. That silly neck booklet with all the goofy photos about not painting ceilings or getting your hair done is actually right! I looked through it yesterday, and it even has a bolded section that says, "Most importantly: Avoid tilting your head backward. Avoid tilting it back slightly for a long period. Avoiding tilting it far back even for a short period." Since we biked for almost two hours, that's definitely tilting it back slightly for a long period! Blah. I hate having a screwed up neck!
Anyway, the bike trail we went on was really cool. (I picked it out, from the Pathways Through Connecticut book!) We drove to Brickyard Road in Farmington, set up our hounds in the parking area, and biked the Farmington Canal Heritage Trail from Farmington through Avon and Simsbury, then left the trail and rode a short distance on real roads, over the bridge and right down to MY TREE, aka the Gifford Pinchot sycamore! Very very cool approaching it, seeing the branches reaching up from below, welcoming me.
Unfortunately when we actually arrived it was a huge bummer because there were tons of people there, including a big party going on over near MY TREE's sister, with really obnoxious loud thumpy music playing, so I couldn't concentrate at all and couldn't feel my special connection with the tree. No JOY. It was awful! Every time the music would pause for two seconds, I'd get a brief glimpse of peace, but there was no real respite. It was nice to see that MY TREE was looking great, and even has a new sign up by the road that says "PINCHOT SYCAMORE LARGEST TREE IN CT," but it was a crummy visit and I was sad. :-( :-( :-( (I did like feeling so strongly though, knowing I love MY TREE.)
Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and I got a few nice photos, even if I didn't have the kind of visit I wanted. Here's 1) MY TREE with our hounds, 2) his huge body 3) his mouth :-/ and 4) from above, taken up at the road as we were leaving. ("He looks like he wants to hug me and he can't!")
The Heritage Trail goes very close to Old Avon Village, so on the way back we detoured slightly to see if we could get a ice cream or drink, but everything was closed! For some reason the whole shopping area (with the exception of a couple restaurants) closes really early on the weekend. What the heck. It was cool biking in places I've driven though, and it was a nice trail! It seemed like a very long ride, but that was probably because of my neck and because I developed a gigantic headache. Here are my Cat statistics: Total Distance 18.51 miles; Average speed 10.0 mph; Maximum speed 21.6 mph; Time 1:50'27.
