A Nice Surprise

As I've mentioned here before, my absolute favorite TV show is Dancing With The Stars.

 

 

 

  Ron and I both enjoyed the recent fall season a great deal.  Some of the "stars" are a stretch at best, and they always like to have at least one oldie.  We were highly amused when one of the oldies this season was Tommy Chong, as in Cheech & Chong, the old stoners!

Tommy was an audience favorite, very enjoyable to watch, and yep, looked stoned all the time.  Though he could have been just tired-he's 76 now.  Amazingly, he made it to the semi-finals-on charm and fan votes. 

This past Monday and Tuesday were the Finals, meaning the end of the season.  I was looking forward to it, though regretful it was the end.  Ron told me Monday morning that he had something special in mind for the evening. My curiosity was definitely aroused!

The evening rolled around, and Ron outdid himself.  First, he grilled a delicious dinner of ham, pineapple, peppers & onions.  We greatly enjoyed that!  When the show started he handed me these paddles he'd made of the finalists, modeled after the judge's scoring paddles:

When we took our seats in the living room, the TV was decorated like this:

Ron's creativity knows no bounds!

As each contestant danced, I held up their paddle and cheered!  

Monday night one contestant was eliminated in a two-hour show.  Tuesday night, the winner of the Mirror Ball Trophy was decided in a three-hour show (yes, they milk it for all it's worth.)

Alfonso Ribeiro, of Silver Spoons & Fresh Prince of Bel-Air fame, was declared the winner, with his pro partner Witney Carson.

What a delightful two evenings, made more so by Ron's special celebration!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

RON AND I WISH ALL OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS

A SAD DAY

HONOLULU MARATHON

2014

Yes, it is a very sad day.  With the on-going input of the doc I'm seeing, I've officially called the IT band injury I suffered October 5 fatal to my running the Honolulu Marathon December 14.

I decided I wanted to run one marathon in my life and chose 2014 to be the year to accomplish the goal.  In making the decision, I made a list of all potentialities.  That included injuring during training.  I then put that list away.  Far away.  As I progressed successfully through the training, the goal became more real.  It also became clear to me that this would certainly be my only marathon.  The training is difficult and requires a long-term and continual commitment.  My training schedule was 30 weeks.  Part of my motivation became knowing this was the only time I'd be making this type of commitment, and that it would be done December 14.  Until.....

The IT band injury occurred in week 20 of training.  For several weeks, the doc I'm working with gave me hope that with a reasonable recovery time, I could retain enough conditioning to jump back in to my training schedule and still run the marathon.  6 weeks have passed without recovery, and I've made the necessary decision. 

The angst of the past 6 weeks relative to this goal has been considerable.  The certainty of this being my only marathon was based on actually doing it.  Now faced with the immutability of not meeting the goal this year,  the question arose whether this was in fact the 2014 goal it had become in my mind, or a Life Goal of running a marathon.  If so, that now means another significant commitment to training. Do I want to do that?   Does the goal need to become "attempt" a marathon?  If so, where do I draw the line for attempts?  This one was it and be done with it?  One more?  Two more? Until I succeed?  Oh, my.

The physical weaknesses I have that caused the injury are the same as anyone who suffers the injury:  weak hips, pelvic instability, weak gluteus medius.  These weaknesses have been chronic for my lifetime, causing a habitual case of moderate knock-kneed-ness, which further exacerbates the stress on the IT band.  The doc's visual for this was as if he was wringing out a wash cloth.  He has assured me that if I don't make the weaknesses strong, a repeat of injury in further marathon attempts is inevitable.

When I made the decision to forego this year's Honolulu Marathon, I also decided to let the whole marathon idea rest for awhile.  I'm committed to continuing the strengthening program under the direction of the doc.   At the point my weakness is deemed strength, I'll revisit "Run One Marathon" as a Life Goal.  Now that the marathon focus is relieved, the doc has offered a more holistic reason for this type of strengthening.  At our last appointment, he made the point that strong hips are vital to help prevent falling, a consideration that looms larger with age. Much as I hate to admit my inexorable progress in that direction!

On a happier note, Ron and I don't think we'll have any problem finding something to do for the extra day we now have on Oahu....

"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it."

         ---Michael J. Fox

 

A Dog In The Manger

 

 Our dogs Maggie and Gypsy have an easy, playful relationship.  They often come up to the loft when I'm there, and I keep a basket of toys for them.

Every so often I put some new toys in the basket.  These toys are discovered immediately and quickly relieved of their squeekers.  They are then subject to numerous thorough chewings, and remain favorites for some time.  

This particular day, toy play started like this with the three current favorites:

 

A mischievous invitation was issued

and readily answered.

 It quickly escalated to this:

 and ended like this. 

 

For those of you who don't know the origin of the Dog In the Manger reference (Ron didn't), here's the story.

The Dog in the Manger
Illustrated by Edwin Fong

A Dog, looking out for its afternoon nap, jumped into the Manger of an Ox and lay there cosily upon the straw. But soon the Ox, returning from its afternoon work, came up to the Manger and wanted to eat some of the straw. The Dog in a rage, being awakened from its slumber, stood up and barked at the Ox, and whenever it came near attempted to bite it. At last the Ox had to give up the hope of getting at the straw, and went away muttering... People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves. "Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?"                                             —Jonathan Safran Foer

IT'S TIME TO SAY......

GOODBYE TO OCTOBER

 

The first weekend in October, a long-time friend from Phoenix, Ed, visited for the day.  We chose as our activity the Heritage Festival at Pioneer Museum.  What a delightful array of activities they had available!

Built in 1908 as a hospital for the indigent, the museum now houses various historical exhibits, including an iron lung, and on this day several military exhibits.

We enjoyed a talk by Cookie as well as a tasting of chuck wagon beans.

You can see the whole chuck wagon in the background; Ron successfully tried his hand at lassoing.

 Candle making via dipping was available:

Wool shearing and spinning demos were fun.

Ron joined in the NAU Logging Sports club demo-he didn't tell them he was a ringer.  He's lately renewed an interest in knife and axe throwing and practices in our yard.

The club members showed off their skills. The club competes at the intramural level.

Mountain Men showed us their tools.

This representative of the Navajo Code Talkers was highly knowledgeable and full of interesting stories about how Code Talking was actually carried out.

What a delightful way to spend a gorgeous afternoon.   

After a late lunch, Ed headed back home.  That same evening, Ron and I went to the Theatrikos presentation of "Gods of Carnage".  




This was a terrific play, showing two couples who agree to meet to discuss a situation civilly and the disintegration of their intentions into chaos.  Serious, but plenty of humor.

I'm following a particular training schedule for the Honolulu Marathon, and the next day I ran the longest run so far.  To my vast disappointment, I injured.  Iliotibial Band Syndrome.



 






"Iliotibial band syndrome is one of the top 10 injuries seen in distance runners. Weak hip abductor muscles play a large role in the development of ITB syndrome. These weak hip abductors are part of a commonly seen pattern of weak core muscles. This leads to a muscle imbalance. On longer runs, and as you are just starting to increase the length of your runs, your hip abductors can become fatigued and require the added assistance of the muscles which attach into the ITB to work harder. It seems that this sequence of events may lead to increased tension in the ITB causing the injury. Strengthening the hip abductors and stretching the ITB and structures that attach in to it are usually the keys to recovering from this problem."

This is what happened to me.  I'm seeing a sports doc for physiotherapy and doing lots of hip abductor and gluteus medius strengthening work.  Running has been suspended, with 10 minute runs starting just started October 31.  The fate of the marathon is on hold.  Though I would be disappointed if I couldn't run it, I'm pretty sure Ron and I will be able to find something to do in HAWAII for that day.

 October 12-16 was our most delightful 2014 Wallace Family Gathering, detailed in an earlier post.

We celebrated Ron's October 16 birthday during our Gathering.  His birthday "gift" is our trip to Hawaii.





Our first choice for the fall/winter theater movie season was to see my movie-star crush Denzel Washington in "The Equalizer."




The Equalizing referenced in the title is accomplished by a lot of explicit violence.  Denzel often  portrays an emotionally vulnerable man, flawed in his righteousness, driven to extreme in his quest for justice and personal redemption.  He does that well in this movie.

As always, there was the usual amount of reading:

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been—
A sound which makes us linger;—yet—farewell!
~Lord Byron