Tuesday, April 1, 2014

No Joke

Inspirational song: Cruel to Be Kind (Nick Lowe)

I have never, ever been fond of April Fools Day pranks. I don't think the root cause is any particular past prank pulled on me. I can't recall anything heinous or upsetting that happened to me on April first in my childhood. I just have never taken pleasure in humiliating other people, and it don't trust people who do. I never watched Candid Camera, Punk'd, or Jackass, and I get very uncomfortable when I hear the cruel laughter of people who think these things are funny. Do not believe this means I lack humor. I live for comedy. But I don't find mean-spiritedness to equate to clever comedy. I can live without most farce or slapstick. Make me laugh, just don't make me laugh at someone else's expense.

I had another round of physical therapy this morning. Once again, my main exercise for my feet was to crunch and pull a weighted towel with my toes. It seems like it should be such an easy motion, but it is no joke. My toes cramp, my joints click and pop, and it takes me at least twenty minutes to do five sets of these on each foot. I am astounded at how difficult this is. Once again we did the needling on just the right side. And once again, it was the absolute max I could handle. I had some understanding of tightness in the fascia over the years, and how slow, deep tissue massage could help loosen it for a while. But I never realized how insanely tender these myofascial trigger points are. Bones can find them easily, and it's all I can do not to kick him through a wall when he taps along the muscle to locate the right spot to needle. It's still too early in this therapy to know for sure that it is having the effect we want. After a decade or more of constant pain in my feet, I can't expect it all to disappear in a couple hours of therapy, much as that would be fun.

I only had a small window of opportunity to break out the mower and chop a little at the deep grass out in the Park. Yesterday Athena thought it was great fun to hide from me at sundown, by sinking down in the tall grass so that only her ears were visible. (I had a photo, but I forgot to write about it yesterday.) So today I was out during the heat of the day, running a first pass with the mower on a high setting, so I just shaved off the top few inches. It looked like green shag carpeting when I was done, and of course the Unmowable Swamp lived up to its name. Poor cats didn't get a trip outside to play while I was mowing, and then I had to leave for another appointment as soon as I got cleaned up from the yardwork. Oh, what a cruel cat mommy I am. And here it was even the calico's birthday today and everything. We will have to celebrate tomorrow.

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