mayhem-n-suz

I am really distressed by the story of the police officer shooting the dog at Adams Morgan Day yesterday.  Every time I read something about it I feel sick to my stomach.  The links are to threads on DCist about the incident.

http://dcist.com/2010/09/police_shooting_at_adams_morgan_day.php

http://dcist.com/2010/09/spokesperson_officer_knocked_owner.php

So sad, beyond blame and fingerpointing, it is just really sad.  The dog’s name was Parrot and he was a foster dog waiting for adoption.

Chip is my new road bike.  I put 6 miles on those tires yesterday in lovely weather in Centreville, Delaware.  Chip is from Delaware too and I call him Chip (Mother’s suggestion) because a small paint chip on his front fork let me take him home at a substantial discount.  He’s bright orange.  A KHS Flite 720 if anyone reads this who cares about cycling.

The real adventure of course was riding with my new pedals and shoes.  On Joaquin the BIL bike guru’s advice I went with Look Keo Classic pedals.  They are wider and better for those of us with ratty knees.  Rob at the shop (Garrison’s Cyclery in Centreville, DE) also recommended Kneesaver pedal stems to get my feet farther from the center of the bike and in better alignment.

Anyway, out we went on Route 52.  It was all ducky until I had to stop for a minute….sucking wind, being tragically out of shape, going up a hill…  As I knew from all the bike forums I’ve obsessively read and also from the laws of physics which I understand far too well, it is harder to start off and clip in going up hill.  Did this stop me from making a poorly thought out attempt at this? NO!  Did I tip over in what must have looked like ultra super slo-mo?  YES!  Fortunately, I was not hurt and wobbled on foot to the top of the hill to get on again.  I just didn’t have it in me to start down hill, turn around, and come back up.  It was approximately a third of a mile to the car.  Lovely.

Funny that Labor Day, 9/6/2010, will mark six months to the day that my ACL said “No mas” and there has been no official work since.  Though the amount of time that I am spending on the stair machine and treadmill these days definitely feels like work.

Then there was the rest of this week.  Tuesday I called in sick from my life.  It was little kid, I feel terrible, I am not gettin’ off this couch with this fever kind of sick.  My temperature read 99.9 and I thought I would melt.  I can’t imagine having a really high fever.  Went to sleep that night hoping it would break over night and it did.  I woke up at 4am to no fever, but a wretched feeling in the upper left part of my mouth.  That’s where the crown whose name is Trouble lives.  I managed a bit more sleep but was back up with toothache by 7 or so.  The ibuprofen didn’t touch it.  I called the dentist and went in at 11:30 am for, woo hoo, an emergency root canal!  I’ve never been so happy to have a needle in my gums in my entire life.  I actually got a little bit giddy when the thing went numb and there was no more pain.

So it’s back there on Friday for the rest of the procedure and until then I am tiptoeing around my tooth like a tulip.  (I really liked writing that).  It doesn’t hurt constantly, but it twinges when irritated.  Like me.  So I guess that’s only appropriate.

It’s times like this one that I really don’t understand not going to the dentist if you can afford it.

In other news, I managed to get my little fundraiser mailing for Arts on the Horizon together and out the door yesterday. (The out the door part was courtesy of the Rockstar).  It’s been so long since I did something like that.  One of the other board members drafted a letter to use.  That was helpful, but I did have to make changes to it and I realized that there was a loose verb floating around that I forgot to delete and had to reprint all 19 letters.  And of course only then did I see the inappropriate comma three words into the letter.  I sent them anyway.  I hope the grammarians will forgive me and know that I was just too fed up to print them all a third time.  Clearly my proofing skills have tanked.  Or maybe I was so flummoxed by the envelope situation I just blew past it.  Ah well, it’s fundraising, there will certainly be a next time.

I’ve really been enjoying reading Michelle’s blog (210 Days of Waves – it’s over there on the left) and looking at her pictures and video of Santa Cruz.  If you can’t live there, it sure is nice to have a friend who is posting visual content.  I will be really happy to play in the ocean next summer.  That was the hardest part of going to the beach.  Such a bummer.

Look Liz – I wrote something.  Might not happen again for a while….