A thoughtful Father's Day present

Some of you may recall that I had a somewhat.. uh.. startling.. experience getting a thai massage last year.

(Please to let me jog your memory:

Sorry. Consider yourself jogged.)

I got this email in my inbox this morning, from the same establishment where the above experience took place: 

..and after a horrifying mental image of my dad being put through those same poses, I thought perhaps What To Do for Father's Day would be to not get him a thai massage. 

(more) Icing! ZzQuil! Knee diagnosis!

Continuing the "where have I been?" theme... 

Florida! We went on the annual "hang out with Chris's friends and get iced" trip:

(for an explanation of what the eff is going on, see here. or here. and don't forget when we got ICED AT A WEDDING by this crew as well.) 

Then... oh, hey. What do you know, that actually is the last trip I took! I haven't been on an airplane since April at this point. (Which, uh, won't last long. I'm flying to London - for work! - next Friday, then after another weekend in Annapolis, I'm headed to Miami in July for a bachelorette party.)

Well then! News in stuff that doesn't exclusively involve being out of town:

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ZzzQuil: Have you tried this shit? I was so! excited! when it came out, because I've totally been known to knock back a shot of Nyquil from time to time when I'm having trouble sleeping. However, it has to be a pretty egregious situation, because I haaaaaate - nay, HAAAAAAAAATE - the taste of all Nyquil / cough syrup type things. But hell, it works. So imagine my delight when I found out I could get Nyquil not only without the extraneous medicine, but ALSO in pill form so I didn't have to *taste* it!!

Yeah. Complete and utter crap. I've tried it twice now and have laid awake for literal hours after taking it both times. Too good to be true, I suppose. 

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Oh! My knee! So I got the MRI, and I went back to the doctor, and it turns out I have.... nothing.  Nothing he can see on an MRI, anyway. The ortho was so surprised by this that he asked to re-examine my knee to make sure he hadn't imagined the whole "my right kneecap pops grotesquely when torqued" situation. (He didn't.) I think his exact words - spoken with some amount of disappointment - were, "Huh. I really thought we were going to find something more.... interesting."

So basically, I have the diagnosis of "Official Bum Knee," along with a shrug and an acknowledgement that it sucks. And a prescription for physical therapy to see if they can figure anything out. At least this time they believe there is something wrong (I mean, it DOES swell up on cue now whenever I do anything vaguely athletic) (or, you know, drive for a few hours) as opposed to my tailbone trubs of old when I suspected most doctors thought I was exaggerating / making up the pain. 

AND it's kind of nice to know I'm not on the verge of, like, popping my knee out sideways because something in there is structurally damaged, so I'm only limited now by how much pain I can take rather than fear of major injury. And since I'm, like, ALWAYS hurting something, I'm OK with some level of pain if the other option is "never run or play frisbee or go to the gym or.. drive a lot... for the rest of ever." 

My short term plan is to invest in more ice packs and/or frozen peas. 

Stuff I've been doing since being in Mauritius

The answer is.. well, kind of a lot.  

Primarily, though, one of my bestest! friends! got married, so we did a lot of fabulously fun things related to that over the past few months. Like her bachelorette party!

And also her wedding shower!  ..But I failed to bring a camera to that one and the only picture that I do have - from someone else's camera - is one in which something really confusing is going on with my hair that makes it look like I possibly had just been electrocuted.  

*bzzzzzzzt*

And then! The actual wedding, which was seriously fantastic. It was held in Annapolis, which is a super adorable town:

turtle doorknockers & crabby sewer drains

Derek & Jenn, who are The Cutest, on the also-cute old-timey trolleys that go around downtown

wine! and cheeses! my favorites!

The rehearsal dinner was lovely, as was the continuing-to-be-charming backdrop of Annapolis:

And then, um, the charming backdrop of the subsequent bar. Where we all remained super charming.  Obviously.  

The wedding itself: holy cow. Jenn was unbelievably gorgeous; the setting was amazing; the party was insane.

(all wedding photos courtesy of the wonderfully talented Kyle Bergner Photography)

Best wedding. Seriously. Love these guys.

THEN. THEN! My company sent me to Mexico. For fun! Because they like me! This is where we stayed:

Chris, in one of the cabanas we had each day. The cabanas came with daily foot massages.

We had a pretty OK time.

Good lord... this still only takes me through the first weekend of April. One recap can only take so many pictures.  I hope everyone has a fabulous long weekend! 

Faulty body parts? I've got plenty!

Soooo, clearly I'm never going to finish posting about Mauritius, seeing as that trip was in January and it is now May.

(Related: I was writing the date on a contract the other day, and put 5/6/13 or whatever it was, then laughed at myself all "HA! What an idiot! Why on earth did I put MAY on there!?" and erased it. And then realized that no, it somehow IS MAY. How? When? HOW??) 

Anyway!  As we all know, when I have nothing interesting to blog about, chances are I will injure myself in some exciting way and then have a good story for you. I am pleased (?) to report that, as usual, this is the case.

As you know, I play ultimate frisbee. As you also know, I hurt myself a lot playing ultimate frisbee. Such is life (...when you're me, and your body isn't put together very well). But for the past few seasons, I've been having a much more annoying sort of injury: a bum knee.  

It's the kind of injury that I'm not sure how or when it happened, and which *could* just be my body announcing, loudly and painfully, that I am in my 30s and maybe should stop running around like a nutcase.

..but most of my teammates are in their 30s and 40s, and THEY run around like nutcases, so this did appear more specific to me and my singularly flawed body. But it hasn't been TOO bad - I just can't play tournaments anymore, because my knee started giving out after two back-to-back games. Then last season, after just 1 game. And then recently my knee starting twingeing when I'd go up stairs.

So obviously I ignored it and just, um, didn't play back-to-back games. As you do. 

And then last weekend I tried to go for a run and my knee up and died.  I had to stop after half a mile and slowly limp home, then apply lots of ice for the rest of the day so I could walk again on Monday.  And then I also finally called the orthopedist. 

Scene: Knee doctor's office. I have just given a rundown of my knee's history.

Dr: I see. And does your knee swell up when it starts hurting?  

Me: No, not really. 

Dr: Are you sure? It's pretty swollen right now. 

Me: Oh. Wait, really? 

Dr: You can't even bend it all the way back. 

Me: Oh. Huh.  You're right.  OK, um, I guess I'm not a good judge of whether it swells up after running, in that case.

There's no diagnosis yet, but I was super-relieved to hear he's confident it's not a problem with my ACL or other ligaments.  It could be something meniscus-related, apparently (my knee did this awful gross clicking when he moved it side to side) but we'll find out more after an MRI.  

Dr: Have you had an MRI before? 

Me: Hmm... let me see... that's the loud one in the big tube, right? 

Dr: Uh, yes. 

Me: Then yes! For my tailbone. 

Dr: Your... tailbone? 

Dr: [the most transparent "I'm not even going to ask" expression I've ever encountered]

I like to think that at least my doctors have good stories about their day after seeing me.

When I got home, I emailed a summary of my visit and the new intriguing potential meniscus issue to Chris.  This is the email I received back:

You're bad at having working body parts.

Touché, sir.

Mauritius! I went there!

I've been to some warm places before.  Hot places, even.  But Mauritius may win the prize for absolute hottest-with-highest-humidity place thus far.  

I mean, I would need to take a shower each day after eating lunch. Because my clothes were soaked through from the act of sitting quietly and eating.  I am not joking.

HOWEVER, if there's a place that warrants pushing through the heat exhaustion? Holy cow, it's Mauritius.



This is a public beach - as in, not a a resort - near Chris's aunt & uncle's house.  Like... anyone could just drive up to this beach at any time and go there.  


Seriously.  This is just, like, along the side of a public road.



We had just landed about 3 hours before this picture and hadn't slept in probably 40 hours leading up to this.  As you can see, we don't mind terribly.



I MEAN COME ON.

We're lucky we headed straight to the beach upon arrival, though, since the next morning dawned overcast and rainy: we had a cyclone a-comin'.


Looking out over the capital city of Port Louis, about to be stormed on.
An imminent tropical cyclone wasn't enough to prevent us from some sight-seeing, though!  Chris's fabulous aunt & uncle drove us down to the south despite the rain.  

(Incidentally, it's kind of hilarious when the entire country is contained on a small island, because road signs will say things like "Port Louis, 12 km" or just "The South [arrow]") 

(Speaking of Chris's aunt & uncle, they are the best. They generously housed us for DAYS, drove us all around the island, made us unreal amounts of delicious food, and in general made sure our trip was outstanding.  Also they are adorable:



So lovely. We owe them big time.)

Anyway!  Back to touring!  We first went to Grand Bassin. Legend has it that the god Shiva was roaming the earth with his wife, Parvati, with the Ganges river balanced on his head.  They came across the uninhabited island of Mauritius, which was so beautiful that they paused to look closer - and while doing so, some drops of the Ganges spilled and formed the crater lake there today.  Parvati was upset that some of the holy river was being left behind, but Shiva assured her that it would become a great Hindu pilgrimage site one day. It's considered the most sacred Hindu location in Mauritius today, home to a major annual pilgrimage, as prophesied by Shiva :)


Incense, fruits, and flowers left as offerings to Shiva
Apparently there are also usually a lot of monkeys around, but the rain kept them in the trees, I guess.

A quick stop along a beach on the southern coast, with a storm brewing over the Indian Ocean:



And then!  All the way at the very tip of Mauritius is a bluff called La Roche Qui Pleure (the Crying Rock). My guidebook claimed this was because if you stood in a specific spot (which we never found) the receding waves made it look like the rock was actually crying; Chris's aunt said it's because with the wind it sometimes SOUNDS like someone crying.


And holy hell, was it windy.


With the highly effective wind sail of a maxi dress I was wearing, being swept off the cliff by a particularly strong gust was a legitimate concern.


(Chris, of course, handled it far more stoically than I.) 


Can you imagine if it were actually sunny as well?? This place was unbelievable.


(This is mainly a photo of the hairs I would never be able to untangle again, may they rest in peace.)


My poor camera lens was covered in saltwater windspray at this point (which is why all the pictures from here look like i smeared vaseline on the lens first). 

The next day, back in Port Louis, we went to the famed Central Market, where I promptly fell in love and decided to live there forever and ever, the end.

YUM.

As awesome as the produce market was (which hello, AWESOME) even more, um.. vibrant, let's say? ..was the meat market, right next door.  

Each animal/meat type had its own entrance:


And then you walk in and OH HELLO ANIMAL PIECES.



That is an entire side of a cow hanging there.  Plus, you know, all of the inside pieces laid out on the counter.




The counter, mind you, is just a plain old countertop.  That hand on it in the picture above is a patron. In other words, anyone can go touch some giant cow ribs or sheep livers or whatever, or get too close to the counter and have blood smear your shirt, you know. 




May I remind you that it is SWELTERINGLY AND OPPRESSIVELY HOT there, and that these buildings have no form of air conditioning? 



The smell was.. palpable.

Um. I was going to end the post here but it seems sort of weird to leave off with several closeup photos of dead animals.  

So instead!  What do you do when a cyclone is finally imminent and bearing down directly toward your little island?

You invite some relatives over so Chris can give everyone ballroom dance lessons, naturally!


(That is really what happened, by the way. Some of the other relatives got stir-crazy while waiting to see if the cyclone would hit or go around the island.  They're very into ballroom dancing, and Chris is a really TALENTED ballroom dancer... so we had an afternoon of salsa classes in the living room.)

(And then the cyclone went around the island, sparing us! Huzzah!) 

(Part 2 to come.  One day.  Maybe.) 

A(n mspaint) Tale of My Living Room Blinds

I mentioned recently that we put up lovely new wide-slatted white blinds in our living room a few months ago.  I still love them, and they're still awesome.

Here is a highly-accurate artist's rendering of what they look like:

We have very wavy curtains. Apparently.

That's Chris's awesome sectional in front of it. With one sad throw pillow. The other throw pillow was too hard to draw, sorry.  

There's also a wall directly behind the section of couch pointing out towards us. Which means that the cord to raise or lower the blinds, which is on the right side of the blinds, is sort of hard to access.

Location of cord!

Usually it's not a big deal, since the blinds can stay where they are and we just open/close the slats, and that cord is on the accessible side. However, the other day I wanted to raise the blinds so I could open the window. Since I am a lady, I went to do so in a reasonable, dignified way: by standing on the couch like a six year old.

These pants TOTALLY make my butt look fat. 

Surprisingly, this was not the part that caused problems. The couch-standing went swimmingly, but when I tugged lightly on the cord to raise the blinds, the ENTIRE FREAKING THING dislodged from the brackets. And slammed down directly onto the top of my head.

I was actually on the phone with my parents while this happened, so they were treated to a colorful play-by-play of my ...feelings.

Me: "...and on Sunday I'm going to see my friend's new baby who -- FUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKK!!!!!!"

Parents: "....?"

Me: "OWWWW.  Oww!  My blinds just fell...? On my HEAD!? Ow! Owwwwww."

Parents: "......??!"

Me: "OW. OW. OW.  This is NOT my favorite thing that has happened today!"