Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I'm still having trouble lying down, as well as standing and walking, but after doing almost none of my exercises/PT for a couple of weeks, I did half a dozen different exercises, sitting down. Adrian and Cattitude to help with this, by moving a chair and hooking the elastic band, before lunch, and by bringing me my hand weights after lunch and Scrabble.

That's almost all the available PT--most of what I do, I do either standing up, or lying on my back. I also did biceps curls for the first time in a few months, because that seemed like something I could do sitting on an ordinary chair. (I used to do them sitting on an en exercise ball at the gym, back when I was going to a gym.)

( numbers, for the hell of it )

I tried the strengthening exercise with the palm up again this afternoon, and did eight repetitions without pain. (Also 20 with the palm down, which I've been doing for the past week.)

Other than that, I've been doing a few of my older exercises (none so far today) and walking a lot. We got out yesterday when it was still nice and cool, and walked down to Beacon Street, then along to Coolidge Corner, and up until we got to Kupel's bagels. From there we got a bus to Comm Ave and took green line B home.

I went for a much shorter walk this morning, before it got too hot, which was bad for my hip. If I'd remembered how far I walked yesterday, I would have stayed home. As it was, I came home, took a naproxen, then sat for a bit; Adrian kindly brought me a cold drink so I wouldn't have to move.

Progress in occupational therapy: ultrasound and massage again, and the therapist taught me a strengthening exercise, which I will do cautiously, and stop if it hurts. We're skipping a week, so it made sense to say "this specific thing hurts right now, try again in a few days, stop if it hurts."

The exercise is called an "eccentric wrist extension." When I tried it in the therapist's office, palm down was fine, palm up hurt immediately. That's not a surprise--it bends my wrist in a way that has been most likely to hurt for the last few months. I'm starting with one pound; since I don't have a one-pound weight, she suggested a bag of split peas. I may use a water bottle, if we have one of a suitable shape for gripping for this exercise (we have a scale, so I can check the weight, rather than having to guess at how much water is needed).

After OT, I wanted a cup of tea, so I walked to Kickstand Cafe, which has outdoor tables, and closes at 3. I arrived at 2:50, and decided to get a pastry to go with my tea, and sit outside. It had rained while I was doing OT, but it looked like a few of the chairs were mostly dry. An employee saw me, came over, and dried a chair for me. As soon as I had put put milk and sugar in my tea, the wind shook a tre and dumped water on me. When I asked if there were napkins, the man brought me some, and offered to put up an umbrella, and then dried another chair and table. That close to closing time, I had figured I was talking my chances with rain and damp tables, but I had been tempted by a pastry, and it was warm enough (84°F/(29 C) that I didn't mind getting wet.

When I bought my tea and snack, I asked if they serve the lunch part of the menu in the morning; the cashier assured me that everything is available all day. My next few OT appointments are at either 10:30 or 11, when it should be cooler than in the afternoon, and I might want soup or a salad before rather than after OT.

Getting to OT was annoying -- the 66 bus we were planning to take to Harvard was canceled, and the following bus wouldn't have gotten me to OT, or cattitude to the dentist, on time. We got Lyfts, and I got a driver who takes covid safety seriously: he arrived with the windows wide open, and when I asked him to put on a mask he did so. And then we talked about the precautions we are each taking, the difficulties of dealing with people who aren't being careful, and also that yes people sometimes forget to mask, but there's a difference between "oops" while putting on a mask when reminded, and refusing to put on a mask "because it's not required." If I'd known I would have to take a Lyft, I could have gotten it from home, rather than from a 66 bus stop. Alternatively, if I'd known there would be bus delays, I could have left earlier, and had lunch in Arlington.

Last night, I assumed I would wake up early (or at least earlier than Adrian and Cattitude) and planned to walk over to the supermarket before it got hot.

Instead, I was the third to wake up, so once I'd had my morning yogurt, I pulled on clothes and Cattitude and I went to the Star Market. We got most of the things on our shopping list, including whipped butter, high-protein cereal, and chocolate ice cream. The walk was less pleasant than I'd hoped, because of humidity more than heat, but now I know the route (straightforward except for the bit where I didn't spot the supermarket at first, because the store and sign are behind the parking area). There was enough of a hill to be useful exercise for my thigh muscles, and not enough to strain my hips or knee.

I have started carefully doing a few of my upper body exercises again (no more than one kind a day), along with the OT for the wrist. The OT is, so far, range-of-motion and stretching, and the therapist said last week that we may add a strengthening exercise at my next appointment.

This afternoon, I got a text from the V-Safe program, asking me to answer some questions about my health, six months after my most recent covid vaccine. I filled it out, meaning that I checking "yes" for "any new symptoms or health issues." I then described the wrist pain, noting that it had no apparent cause and I doubt it's related, and that I had a telemedicine appointment, X-ray imaging, and outpatient/clinic appointments related to it. I'm not sure I should have mentioned it at all, but done is done.

More comments I've left on other people's posts: ( migration, genealogy, pandemic restrictions, physical therapy, subways )

• I bought a new iPhone, to replace the old iPhone SE that I'd been hanging onto because it's a good size for my hand. I was hoping to wait a little longer, but dropped it yesterday in a way that left a sharp bit sticking out from one corner of the phone. So, a couple of hours, at the T-Mobile store and then at home, setting things up, re-entering passwords, and such.
• A little more paid proofreading this morning
• ( medical test ick )
• After that, I decided I had done quite enough grown-up things for one day, and my plan for the rest of the day was Scrabble and exercise. cattitude and I played two games of Scrabble, and I did a round dozen of my PT-ish exercises, which probably also counts as being grown-up and responsible.

A piece of proofreading work arrived by email, with a request to rush it if possible. Since I wasn't doing anything else at that point in the day, I did it right away and sent it back. That finished the proofreading for that issue of the magazine in question, and I have sent an invoice.

Afterwards, I went for a walk. I didn't exactly want to go, but I hadn't been further than the yard in a few days, and the sun was out, so I put on a mask and a jacket and went. By the time I'd walked a block and dropped a letter in the mailbox, I was enjoying myself, even though my feet hurt a bit, and I went a bit further than I'd expected.

I did quite a bit today, several different things rather than one large one:

• I proofread an article for Queue, this issue's first.
• I made dinner: lamb chops and rice, and the last of the cherry tomatoes from the garden , which I'd been ripening in a paper bag since the unseasonably early first snow a month ago. The tomatoes weren't very good; as cattitude said, they tasted like they'd been picked before they were ripe, because they had been. But I had a few left, and it was worth a try.
• I went for two walks, one in the morning with Cattitude because it was 7=61F at 11 a.m. and forecast to drop steadily through the day. Then the sun came out mid-afternoon, so I went out again, to walk in the sunshine and look at blue sky. This time of year, sunset is early enough for long shadows and not much shade at ground level, but I did find some bits of sunny sidewalk, and enjoyed pausing to look at the blue sky, with trees and some white clouds.
• We tried out our new (Olson) masks today; I liked it better than Catitutde did, either because I'm happier with this design or because the ribbons to fasten the masks with are short enough to not work well for him. I think these will be mine, and Cattitude may order some of this style from Etsy or somewhere.
• I did several of my PT exercises, including one I hadn't done as recently as I'd like. [That's one of the exercises I would ideally do more than once a week.) And I did one that isn't part of my PT, and gets done every week or three, as convenient.
• I did a little bit of text-banking, urging Georgians to register to vote by December 7th.

We also played two games of Scrabble, and I did some Duolingo French, and spent a while doing online jigsaw puzzles.

Wednesday reading: Last night I finished reading Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, a weird book that lives up to the title, with noncorporeal beings, a cyborg Doberman, and a narrator whose mother raised him in the Church of Rock and Roll. And, yes, more or less what it says on the tin: Holly is on Ganymede, doing a live concert that is being shown on every television channel on the planet. If that sounds like it might be fun or diverting, I recommend it. (The book is in copyright, but also available free online, the author having apparently decided to give it away in order to get a few more readers.)

I had two good long phone conversations today, in the morning with my friend Elizabeth, and in the afternoon with my mother. Mom is holding up well, though hoping she'll be able to go to the hairdresser again soon. We talked some about that and the varying parameters of stay-at-home orders, or advice, in different places. I called today because T-Mobile sent out a notification yesterday that the free international calling ends tomorrow. So, we'll be back to me emailing and asking her to call me (which she can do for free).

I realized that I haven't been reaching my exercise goals, so for a bit I'm going to do fewer of each exercise, in the hope of getting in at least some of more kinds of exercise. (These are mostly PT-related or derived, which is why I try to do each of them at least once a week; I have at least one I haven't done since the beginning of the month.)

After lunch and tea this afternoon, I was thinking that I really ought to go out and $do_stuff. At the point when I realized I was doing nothing in particular at the computer, in an avoidant way, I decided to go out right then, because that felt like depression getting in my way.

The timing was good, because the sun had come out, but I think it would have done me good to go outside even on an overcast afternoon. I decided that the key point was to be go, but also decided that I would take the bus to Harvard Square, and then decide whether to go further, do useful things right there, or just come home.

I did two useful errands in Somerville: First, I returned some hair product I had bought last week after my hairdresser tried it on my hair. What had seemed like a very mild scent to me bothered adrian_turtle enough that I washed it out a couple of hours later. Since I didn't want another product instead, I now have the money on a gift card, which I will use to pay for my next haircut.

I then bought Molly and Kaja more prescription cat food, the vet being conveniently a couple of blocks from the hairdresser. That was somewhat awkward to carry, but I made one more stop on the way home, at Lizzy's Ice Cream on Church Street, for a pint each of chocolate and black raspberry.

I was feeling enough better for this outing that I think I need to make more of an effort to get outside every day--in particular, to go further than five feet from the apartment door if at all possible. My policy/goal has been, go outside unless that would be stepping into blizzard or hurricane conditions, but I think it matters to be outside for at least a few minutes.

Separately, I note that my right shoulder has been sore lately. I am going to reduce the intensity and number of repetitions of my shoulder exercises, while trying to do the relevant stretching more often.