C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 142
August 6, 2011
Recommendation for anyone who has ankle, knee or hip problems…
Things you learn while figure skating—I applied this one to the daily walk with Jane, and it's made an immediate difference.
Patellar tracking correction, available usually in the Ace bandage display in the pharmacy section of your mega-grocery, or in a drug store. It's a simple band that fits around your leg just under the kneecap, pass one tab through the hole in the other and snug tight. Wearing it under your jeans or outside makes no difference.
To skate well and long on one foot, you need to have your kneecap aligned over the space between your big and second toe, your tail somewhat tucked and your shoulders back. Let that knee go off that track and you'll start to have a problem, culminating in having to catch your balance.
How this applies to ankle, knee and hip pain, including lower back AND shoulder pain: If you walk around with your knee going out to the side (particularly women tend to do this, due to hip structure, likewise bowlegged cowboys) you are throwing your ankle to the side, your hip is having to compensate, and may turn outward, complicating things even further, and your lower back and butt are having to compensate for what the hip is doing. Result: lower back ache, even shoulders and upper shoulders, depending on how much, and on general posture.
When you tighten that little strap around your upper calf, just under the kneecap, you are compelling the knee to track correctly. This allows your hip to align correctly, keeps your ankle from compensating, and straightens your stride. If you have tended to be swaybacked in any degree, work at simultaneously tucking your tail bone under your center of balance, and walk that way. Main muscles now are pulling the way evolution designed them to pull, and you'll develop more strength and less pain.
If you don't have the problem, won't work miracles for you, but I'd estimate a majority of women acquire it from a combination of broad hip structure and typical lifestyle of carrying groceries and standing, and no few men get it from carrying heavy loads. It sure shows up if you practice a balance sport like skating.
The Ace knee band is not cheap, but far from expensive.
August 5, 2011
Not too lively today…
I think it's the requisite number of days for aches [three days, usually, for an injury to be at its sorest] since I tried to do a downhill faceplant with the pond filter in hand. There is not a place I don't ache. Only one small bruise…but one hip is outraged, the shin hurts to touch, and the rest of me is jangled. I dived into bed for a couple of hours with 3 Advil and am a little better, but owie!
Jane meanwhile is working on the windows. When an artist decides to put in a window, there will be no paint splashes, no overpaints, no drips, and the tiniest holes will be caulked or puttied, as appropriate. I only fear the window may explode from air pressure if the front door slams with the bathroom door open. 
[Kidding, Jane, but the thing could withstand outer space and not leak.]
It is pretty. I have one quirk in decorating, however: I absolutely detest the combination of red and white, not universally, but on a house I happen to be living in—don't ask me why: I was probably frightened by red and white woodwork as a child—so I'm pretty sure we're going to paint the white siding that frames the now-red windows and soon-to-be red door. We have an idea, however, to borrow some paint from Joan, who has just painted her windows in a terracotta and redwood combination, and see whether or not doing the frame in one of those might be an interesting intermediate tone from our brickwork, which is one of those mottled medium-tone color combos that leans toward sandstone hues. We shall see. It's amazing how that brilliant red can fit into an environment of evergreen and water.
August 4, 2011
Jane's repainting the back windows.
She didn't make me understand it was going to be red. That was a surprise.
But it's looking good. It's actually quieter than the white. And we were always going to paint the door red like the bridge. So it will all match; and a red rim around the windows actually visually vanishes into shadow, unlike the white.
I am suffering third-day-ouchiness: I was changing the pond filter a couple of nights ago when I tripped going downhill on the berm—which is worse than falling uphill. I already had one shoulder taped up in elastic because of a sprain Doc Shane is working on. The elastic tape saved it from being worse hurt—but I landed, of course, on that hand, and a knee, and did a skating-fall kind of roll, which prevented my going on my face—no great harm done: but this is the third day, and the bruises are coming out. I did move the fat foot-long rock that caused it.
Jane and I are walking every morning after breakfast. We have a short walk at a bit over half a mile. Today we extended it to about a full mile, and I was feeling it by the time we got back, but I think that was the fall making itself felt. We'd like to include our skating coach, Joan, in a hike to breakfast at the Rocket Bakery, but that's about two miles, mile and a half down and uphill a quarter of the way back, so we need to work our way to proper stamina for that one. The walking was recommended by Jane's hematologist, and it's just easier to keep with if there's two of us. Besides that, we've made friends with a couple of squirrels near Joan's house, and they expect us.
August 1, 2011
Ever fixed a window? It started with a simple re-caulking job.
Somebody used a non-flexible caulk on this window. It cracked. We went after the caulk. The windowpane cracked. We get another pane. It cracked when we put in the glazer's points (nasty little diamond thingies that hold the window while you caulk it.)
We get another window. Then decide, heck, we'll do it tomorrow. So we have no window. That's cool. Have another wine cooler…
If we get a burglar, I've got a broadsword.
Today we"ve got to fix it. At 12.00 a window this has got to go in right, this time!
July 30, 2011
Celebrated OSG's b'day yesterday…
It's really on the 20th, but we screwed up the Crater Lake trip when Ysabel got sick. So we promised OSG, (we were all going) a birthday lunch. And we were so disorganized we just planned on us, because that was the track our minds were running on; and then we happened to talk to Joan (our skating coach,) and invited her. And Joan told Stacey and Terry it was going, and our friends, bless 'em, are good and know we're not standoffish: THEY called us one after the other and said, "Where is this party?" So we kept calling the restaurant and enlarging the reservation. And we had a good party and ate too much, and all was well with the universe. All of us have been off the ice too long and are looking to get back into action.
Joe had eye surgery…
…and the rascal didn't tell us. It went well. Congrats, Joe!
The mystery of the falling bread—solved.
I have a really good bread machine (Cuisinart) that can make various sorts of breads including thick crust French and Italian, which I'd have sworn no machine could do.
But I've had a little problem with bread falling. BTW, going by weight worked like a charm. 1 lb of flour makes a 2 lb loaf, and I have a good kitchen scale. But THAT wasn't the problem.
Further research says sloppy measurement (guilty) of yeast, and sugar, if used. When baking freestyle, you look at the rise and take it to baking based on how it looks. So sloppy measurement of those two is fine. But a bread machine depends on timing, and thus many minutes at x temperature. So measure matters!
I'm going to bake today (big 5 min deal!) and get it right.
July 28, 2011
Jane and I have charley horses where you wouldn't believe…
Jane's hematology report was ace, except for two things: blood pressure and weight gain. So she's supposed to walk. I volunteered to join her—I've got muscle pain like you wouldn't believe, with a lot of the symptom-pattern of fibromyalgia. This is not good. They do say walking is good for that. And our neighborhood while excellent does have a few stray-ins from the not-so excellent area a little further on, so two is better. So…we walked. I felt pretty good. I even volunteered to keep walking, and then volunteered for one more really long block. And then I began getting tired, so we shortcutted a wellkept alley and headed back. Well, Jane's complaining; I'm complaining, both of hip-muscle pain.
We get home and the pastor of the church across the street overtook us, just to chat; and I went indoors to collapse, while Jane undertook another tour of progress on the garden; and we gifted the pastor with another 20 lbs of iris roots—they're raising money to do a house-build in Mexico, a church to church thing. So, well, I was exhausted, went in and collapsed.
An hour later I could hardly get out of my chair and walk. Walk Idid, to the medicine cabinet and the Advil. Those nice trainers we wear—the Reebok Easy-Tones that we use to keep our feet in shape for skating? That cushion your feet so nicely and make walking very soft and fast?
They also give your butt a heckuva workout. We are applying ice, and wondering whether we will be able to get out of bed tomorrow. Ow. Ow. Ow.
Another small slide show on Jane's site: Seishi and OSG
I might say, for those of you wondering about size comparisons—Seishi's breed is like a draft horse, short-legged by comparison to the thoroughbred, and with plate-sized feet/paws…and Eushu has very long legs, almost more legs than kitten at one stage. So it's Mr. Draft Horse and Mr. Highpockets.
Eushu came into my room. Seishi lurked behind the scratching post at the door. Eushu charged him: Seishi leapt the height of the scratching post, whirled about and bounced away, tail arched and Eushu hot on it.
