Gratitude Monday: movement restored

My gratitude for today is, in the global scheme of things, miniscule. But for me, it’s big. I’m grateful that my sacroiliac joint is almost back to normal.

Can’t recall if I wrote about it when the issue first arose—about two years ago. It was agonizing and required weeks of PT to beat it back. (Let me just say: you may not realize it, but just about every movement you make makes a transit point past the SI joint. If all the muscles are fine, you don’t notice it. If not, you do. You really do.)

So, of course, when I got back to normal, I stopped doing the exercises. A few months ago, it flared up somewhat, but I dragged out the PT and it subsided.

Then, during the Big Freeze in January, I slipped on ice; I landed on my left hip (which was the problematic one), but clearly knocked something awry in my right. I tried walking it out, to no avail, so back with the exercises. It receded, but then kicked back in, right around the time I was helping with the monthly food pantry at a local church. (For that, I bag produce on the Wednesday and on Thursday push carts for my neighbors who collect food at the church.) I observed A Pattern: on the Friday after the pantry, big flare up; impacts everything, including yoga.

Like I said—everything you do passes across your SI joint.

But this past week, after steadfastly doing my exercises, I’ve finally corralled the pain to mild discomfort, so that about a half-mile into my morning walk, I don’t notice the muscles complaining. I also pinpointed the triggering event: bagging sweet potatoes, onions and cabbage last Wednesday, I realized that the bag was heavy enough to feel in my butt. (Those heads of cabbage can weigh upwards of 10 lbs alone.) It’s not the cart pushing, it’s the produce schlepping. I can continue helping with food distribution, but I’ll back off the bagging.

This is a lot of verbiage to get to the point: being cognizant that at a certain age we cannot assume full functionality in our musculoskeletal system, I am grateful that I am still able to command mobility and that my muscles are responding to proper exercise. I suppose I have to be more aware of what I’m doing, which is kind of a bummer, but given the alternatives, I give thanks for what I have.

Also—the magnolia trees are awakening.

 

©2026 Bas Bleu

 

Gratitude Monday: walking the walk

You may be aware that the environs of the District They Call Columbia had some Weather last month. Big drop of snow and then sub-freezing temperatures for more than 10 days. Weather forecast was so bad that the incoming leader of the free world moved the inauguration ceremony into the Capitol.

(Haha—no. The Kleptocrat was afraid of high winds blowing up his hair helmet. And, also, he knew that the attendance numbers would be even lower than in 2017. He was basically hiding.)

Anyway, the result for me was that, in addition to my car being literally frozen so I couldn’t even jump the battery, my walking was curtailed due to snow and ice on sidewalks and the W&OD. About Wednesday of last week, I could finally walk about half my usual distance by sticking to the bike lane in the street, but couldn’t go off-street safely until Saturday, after it rained all day Friday.

Man—did it ever feel so good to get out the past two days. Weather’s still bizarre: it was 44F on Saturday when I went out and 23F yesterday. But clear and windless, so excellent walking weather. Both days I had more energy throughout the day, and a better mood. Yay, endorphins! 

And that’s my gratitude for today: being able to rack up the steps.

©2025 Bas Bleu

 

We value your feedback

Here’s a follow-up to my saga about getting my flu vaccination. The gist of it was OneMedical (now owned by Amazon) screwed up on the dosage, even though my records indicate I get the high dose and I specified high dose when I made the appointment, and I had to return the following day to get the job done.

When they sent me the obligatory Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey, I gave them middling scores (indicating I am not a promoter of their product or service, based on my recent experience). I also laid a few choice words on them in the verbatim sections and answered “yes” to their “may we contact you for more information” query.

So—here’s their outreach: from “Valerie” at “Amazon OneMedical” (all previous communications have come from the OneMed only domain):

I would have said that this was AI generated, except I don’t see much intelligence of any origin. It absolutely does not address the issues I brought up and I am at a loss as to what she means by “a greater experience”. Possibly, English is not her first language.

However, as in all the Jeff Bezos empire, she gives the appearance of a response, without the expense of the substance of one, so all’s well, eh?

 

 

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Gratitude Monday: a reminder

Giving the ongoing problems with my hip, I rolled the dice last week and scheduled a yoga lesson for Friday. I haven’t been able to do yoga for more than a month, and the couple of sessions I’ve had since late May have resulted in real pain and restricted range of motion, so it really was a gamble.

I really love yoga and going so long without it diminishes me. Perhaps even more than not being able to take 7000-step walks every day. But when you can’t bend down to rummage in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator without doing an arabesque because the muscles across your hip are just not having it, yoga is truly a non-starter.

Well, Friday morning I had my PT session, which left me in a little pain. About half-way between that and my afternoon yoga lesson, I took a hit of diclofenac, which mitigated it.

Yoga was half upper-body twisties, which I love, and half restorative. Because my instructor and I hadn’t had a conversation in weeks, we pretty much chatted our way through the lesson.

I felt somewhat “pulled” afterwards, and took a second tab of the NSAID to get me through the night.

But here’s the thing: Saturday and yesterday, I had some discomfort, but no pain. And I was able to walk and do my PT exercises without ill effects. I was reminded of what it’s like to be fit and healthy, which I haven’t felt for months.

And that’s my gratitude for today. I don’t know how long this will last—Lord knows, this situation has ebbed and flared on its own timetable. But I’m grabbing this while I can.

  

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

 

Another shot at it

I had an appendectomy the summer I was 27. It was the first time I’d ever experienced a procedure that impeded my mobility. Post-op, I could walk around—carefully—but I was deeply aware that any sudden movement or extra stretch could bring pain.

One incident stands out in my mind: Through connections at the newspaper I worked for, I got permission to do some research in the textiles facility of the LA County Museum of Art. To get there, I had to take an elevator up three floors. Just as the doors were closing, two teenaged boys jumped in with me. And I felt anxiety because I knew I didn’t have full range of motion; I couldn’t defend myself, I couldn’t run. “This is what old age will be like,” I thought.

They got off on the second floor and I went on up to the textiles department to do my research.

I’ve been reminded of that in the past couple of weeks because of the pain in my lumbar region. It affects my ability to reach, to bend, to carry heavy things, sometimes even to walk. I know I walk hunched over, because the muscle spasms have extended up my back on the left side. It’s also arbitrary—sometimes a particular action will trigger agony; other times I’m fine. But I live in fear that it will strike, and that makes me furious, that fear.

The orthopod three weeks ago diagnosed it as bursitis brought on by chronic tendonitis, but Monday when I saw the physical therapist (you can get scheduled for surgery faster than a PT practice can slot you in for treatment) he diagnosed something that feels more precise: the left sacroiliac joint is looser than the one on the right. As a consequence, that ilium is lower, and my left leg seems longer, which affects my gait. He reached this conclusion after asking a lot of questions about my symptoms and probing the affected areas. (The orthopedic surgeon spent about three minutes looking at the X-rays, which did not include anything above the ilio-femoral joint.)

This feels more in line with the pain I’ve been experiencing, so I’m feeling more hopeful about recovery. For some time I’d been carrying the burden of “this is what my life will be like, hunched over in pain, just like I pictured it in the elevator of LACMA, and I don't like it” and it may be that this isn’t, in fact the case.

Now it’s a question of doing the exercises—carefully; nothing that puts all my weight on the left leg—and being aware.

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

 

I can do this

For about three weeks, I’ve had first muscular discomfort and then muscle/joint pain in my left hip. It started with something behind the pelvic blade, then moved deep into the glute and finally attacked the ball and socket. Having had way too many interactions with orthopods in the previous two years, I tried toughing it out for much longer than I should, but eventually caved.

Saw the doctor yesterday and the diagnosis is bearable: trochanteric bursitis, caused by chronic tendonitis. Treatment: a cortisone shot to reduce the inflammation and physical therapy to, you know, do the usual. Prescription-strength NSAID as backup.

I can’t tell you how relieved I am about this. I’d nearly convinced myself that this pain, which greatly limited my mobility and flexibility, would be my future, and now it’s just an episode.

 

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Big day

Oh—my night of opera at the Italian embassy last Wednesday? One other benefit of walking to/from various Metro stations:

 

©2024 Bas Bleu

Streptococci lurk

As I’ve mentioned, my flight back from Paris last week was a damned plague ship. So of course I’ve been sick ever since. My capacity for manufacturing snot is really impressive, but it’s the cough that’s killing me. I have a history with coughs, so I’ve been trying to tame this sucker for days.

I made an appointment yesterday with my primary care doc for a telehealth visit, because all I wanted was a prescription for cough medicine with codeine, which is the only thing that’s ever killed my coughs. Well, according to her, codeine is out of fashion and pharmacies don’t even stock it. But she wanted me to come in anyhow so she could listen to my lungs; she was concerned about the prospect of pneumonia. So I went in.

Got tested for flu and COVID (both negative); lungs are fine, although it’s hard to “breathe deep” when doing so triggers a coughing fit. She gave me prescriptions for benzonatate and albuterol and advised otherwise to rest and drink plenty of fluids.

(For the record, I’ve already gone through a gallon of various juices since Monday.)

Anyway—all this is by way of explaining today’s earworm: Vivian Blaine singing “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys & Dolls.

Obviously, a poisen has developed a cold.

 

Gratitude Monday: timing

My flight home from Paris was a plague ship. Everyone around me was coughing; the whole spectrum from dry to wet.

So of course I came down with a sore throat/cough/cold the day after I landed.

It’s just a cold, but it sucks the energy right out of me and makes it really hard to even talk.

So what am I grateful for today? I’m thankful that I didn’t get sick until I got home; that I didn’t have to deal with this while I was in Europe.

 

 

 

No good deed

Yeah, okay—this happened:

I was on a jam-packed Métro car Friday, standing near the door. At the Cité station an old guy with a cane was trying to make his way from the back to the door and the doors-closing alarm sounded. It wasn’t my station, but I stepped off, while still holding on to a rail to make way. If I thought at all, I was thinking I could block the door until he got out (and I did wonder what was up with no one making room for him to move).

On the DC Metro system, the doors stop closing if they encounter an obstacle.

On the Paris Métro, they don’t.

Interestingly, my forearm puffed up like a snake that swallowed a fat rabbit within seconds. I mean, the train hadn’t pulled out of the station before it ballooned. There was no pain, and nothing felt broken (although I acknowledge that I’ve called this kind of thing wrong before), so I proceeded to the musée du Luxembourg to see the exhibition on Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso.

It did occur to me that I might want to ice it, so when I got back to the hotel, the food and beverage service manager gave me a pack of ice (pneumatically sealed plastic bag) and I spent a couple of hours balancing it on my arm.

It does seem to have helped; here’s how I looked yesterday:

Let me emphasize: no pain, and everything is working. I’m already supporting an entire orthopedic practice; I really don’t want to have to start all over again.

Oh—the old guy got off at the next stop, and his son—who’d also tried to hold the door for him—reunited with him.

All’s well.

(Except—hotel housekeeping: I’m sorry about the blood on the bedding.)

And if you see this sign in the Métro, pay attention:

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: namaste

At last.

On Tuesday, I finally was able to get down on the floor (and back up again). It wasn’t pretty, but I did it. Which meant that Friday I had my first yoga lesson in four weeks.

That’s the longest break I’ve had from yoga since I started taking lessons in the first July of the pandemic.

Man, I’ve missed it.

(With my first knee replacement, I was up to yoga in two weeks after surgery. I’m somewhat disappointed and frustrated that it’s been twice that, but here we are.)

Normally, we hold the lessons via Zoom, but to ease my way back into it, my instructor came to my house, which was an extra treat.

Here’s the SITREP:

Table position, with a metric ton of padding.

Very slow and kinda clumsy sun salutes; downward dog, yay; lunges, boo.

Forward folds (such gooooood stretches!).

Not-quite-melted-heart.

None of that crossed-legged or figure four nonsense—maybe in two or three weeks.

Tree pose—couldn’t get the left leg above the right ankle, but my instructor says that the height of the foot doesn’t matter; the balance does. So I’m back to tree-pose-of-some-description every morning.

Bridge at the wall.

And my favorite (well, one of them): plough.

I am so, so grateful to have such a good instructor, and to be able to do some of the poses. Also—looking forward to getting better, stronger and more flexible.

 

 

 

Yogalove

The Washington Post recently published a story indicating that practicing yoga “may reduce frailty, improve endurance in older adults.”

To which I reply, “Well, duh.”

One of the first things I noticed when I first started taking yoga lessons in the summer of 2020 was that it truly took my mind off all the mishigas at work (at least for 60 minutes). When you’re trying to not crash into the floor doing Warrior III, you are not thinking about that putz who’s the director of engineering.

But as I continued, I regained my flexibility. I also visibly improved my balance, my strength, my ability to hold a pose, my capacity to push my limits. I’ve also regained range of motion and stamina post-surgery on my knee to a remarkable degree. That wouldn’t have happened without yoga.

But here’s the key thing: having the right instructor makes all the difference. Way back in the last century I signed up to take yoga through Fairfax County. The instructor literally couldn’t access the county building. I cannot tell you how little patience I have with ineffectiveness, and therefore how not in the mood for yoga I felt when she decided to have the lesson on the lawn outside.

At a spa in England in 2000, I had three classes from a woman who was quite good, and one from a woman who was not. That was enough for me to give it a pass.

But when my current instructor began giving chair yoga classes via Zoom in July of 2020, it connected. Only I knew I wanted “real” yoga, and not halfway stuff. (Also, TBH, waiting for all the other women to faff about collecting their props and finding the right chair got up my nose, which is not the mood you want to be in for yoga. See above about not getting into the county building.) Not only does she know yoga, she knows how to teach. She can convey what to do, what it's good for and what the context is. 

From the very first private lesson, where my balance wobbled and my bending was limited, I have never regretted one second of yoga. We never go beyond my capabilities, but we have expanded them in the nearly three years.

So, yes, WaPo—strength, stamina, flexibility, focus. Despite my advanced years.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: physical therapy

Here’s something a little odd for today’s gratitude: physical therapy. I started it for my knees on Monday, two weeks after the cortisone shot. (That’s pretty much warp speed for a PT appointment these days.)

And here’s what I’m thankful for: the exercises are not actual torture, which (in my experience) they can be; I can do them. But also, I can feel the targeted muscles afterwards, which means they’re working.

Yay!

 

 

Gratitude Monday: testing

Gratitude Monday—my, my, my. Here’s what I’m grateful for today:

Got an email Friday announcing that the office in the People’s Republic had been exposed to COVID last Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone should be aware, etc., etc. etc.

I’m in the office Mondays and Tuesdays, so I was there during the exposure period. I was disinclined to get fussed, because on a typical day I might have a brief convo with someone once, but the truth is that—except for training sessions—I’ve never seen more than 7 people working on my floor, and this past week was no exception.

However, we no longer have to wear masks to move around the office, and I don’t know who was carrying, so to speak, so during a conference call Friday afternoon, I pulled out one of my free US Government rapid tests, read and followed all the instructions, swapped both nostrils (ugh) and waited the 20 minutes.

With this result:

Yay.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: the weekend

I got the second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine Saturday morning. (Thursday afternoon, while on a call with colleagues, we were sharing our weekend plans. I kvelled, “I’m getting my second dose!” And then wondered out loud, “Who’d have thought, 14 months ago, that the highlight of anyone’s weekend would be getting a shot?”)

The post-injection waiting period cat herder instructed us second-dosers, “Don’t make any brunch plans for tomorrow; have brunch today. Your body’s going to know you’ve had this shot and it’s not going to be happy. Those of you getting your first dose can have brunch tomorrow.” So I did my grocery shopping on the way home and spent most of Saturday getting chores done.

Yesterday I lay in bed listening to the rain and birds, telling myself, “Today you should take it easy. Post-vaccine crater.” But eventually I got up, made a mini brunch and—when nothing happened—I did some writing, finished folding the laundry and went out for a walk, during which I rescued a few of the approximately eleventy-three squillion earthworms littering the sidewalk and road. I also shot some pix.

For lunch, I had homemade matzoh ball soup, brought over to me on Saturday by my yoga instructor, which was precisely the thing for a rainy day and which would have cured any post-vaccine lurgy if it had attacked me. (Also, it was still, technically, the first day of Pesach.) And it was delicious.

So my gratitude, as you’ll imagine, today is for being fully vaccinated, no major side effects, clean clothes, matzoh ball soup and a springtime walk.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Shot in the arm

Here was my Friday. Got up, fed the birds, had breakfast and spent much of the day putting out customer fires. (Honestly—software would work a lot better if you just stopped letting users on it.) Then, at 1530, I drove to the other side of Fairfax County and got the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

All through February, the county COVID website told me that they were processing people who’d registered for the vaccine on 18 January; I registered on 22 January. Then, mid-afternoon on Thursday, my mobile phone flashed a text—the county telling me I could schedule an appointment. Well, I was in mid-fire somewhere, but dropped everything to go to their site, where I was told that I had three appointment availabilities for Friday afternoon. I was directed to Inova Health Conglomerate’s site, where I had to register as a patient on their kludgy portal. By the time I picked my way through that (shooting and uploading pix of my insurance card), the 1630 slot was gone, so I ended up with 1645—across the county in rush-hour DC traffic.

Ergo me leaving an hour early; I got there just about within the 15 minutes early they tell you to arrive. Just on 1645 I was getting the shot from a school nurse in Alexandria who volunteered to help with the effort. (She was really good; I actually didn’t feel the needle at all.) It was quite the factory vibe, but the process worked pretty well. (Pro tip: definitely do the e-check-in before you get there; much better to do it at home instead of at one of their kiosks.)

By 1655 I was heading home, where I put out some more user fires, poured myself a glass of Chandon and watched a classic Poirot episode, feeling massive relief and gratitude to have got the first dose. (There was an email in my queue when I got home that allowed me to schedule my second appointment, so that’s all set up for 27 March—a Saturday—at 0815.)

This is not just gratitude; it’s sink into Child’s Pose and say the rosary gratitude. I give thanks to all the bench scientists who worked steadily throughout the past year to develop and test vaccines; to all the people who took part in the clinical trials and those who validated the results; to the supply chain workers and the cyber defenders who protected the integrity of the serum from attack; to the folks who built the portals that allow governments and hospitals to process tens of thousands of registrations; to the logisticians and program managers who put together the workflows; to the hundreds of volunteers who get shots into arms; to all the cleaning crews at every facility the vaccine touched; and everyone else who made this possible.

I’ll continue to wear a mask and social distance, but a huge weight has been lifted from me. (And all you maskless people whom I encounter on walks around the People’s Republic—you’re still self-centered, irresponsible douchebags. Mask up, morons!) At the end of the month, I can meet my vaccinated friend for coffee without fretting about being a carrier. I can think about taking a trip later this year. I can play with the notion of going into the office, maybe.

But right now, I’m just grateful.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: the little things

Given the complete and utter clusterfuck that is the United States under Cadet Bonespurs these days, sometimes it’s hard to pull gratitude out of life. However, when this happens, I turn away from the macro and look to things immediately around me.

Viz: yesterday I went out to feed my compost bin and saw a spider web glistening in the morning sun. And look who was there:

Now there’s someone who takes pride in her work. Inspiration, no?

Also, Friday’s yoga lesson focused on core muscles, which I sorely (ha) need. And lo-and-behold: on Saturday and yesterday I really felt those muscles. Which means they’re still there, and they still work.

So there’s today’s gratitude: artists and abs. I need them both.

Gratitude Monday: self care

Friday was my employer’s first company-wide “Self-Care” day. Meaning—except for essential staff (like some IT)—the entire company took the day off. No answering emails, no meetings, just step-away-from-the-device and take care of yourself.

My self care was the splendid joy of my yoga instructor coming to my house in person instead of via Zoom, and showing me a new pose where it’s possible to hurt yourself. (Half Moon, if you’re asking.) This way she could prevent me from doing same.

We wore masks, did not hug and stayed across the room from one another. (And if I can wear a mask during an hour of yoga, y’all can wear one to dart into the Piggly-Wiggly or wait for Jiffy Lube to change the oil.) I’m getting to like the Sun Salutation.

And then…we had lunch. Sitting at the far ends of my dining table, we ate salads and chatted about this and that. (I ran all the dishes and the cutlery through the dishwasher just before she got there, and I used gloves when I made the fruit salad.) It was the first time since March that I’ve spoken with someone in the same room not involving giving them my credit card for groceries.

Dear Lord—the sheer joy of carrying on a conversation face-to-face (across a distance, but still). Absolute heaven.

That’s my gratitude today—yoga lesson and lunch with a friend. It don’t get much better than this these days.

Gratitude Monday: Namaste

At work, we’re in the final run-up to launching a new product, a truly new approach to our core value by this business unit (and, tbh, the company). Target date: first week in August.

You naturally expect things to be a little chaotic when you’re blazing new paths, but this effort rates about a 9.7 on my weird shitometer, primarily because a Great Man (former CEO of a company we acquired a year ago) has been given carte blanche to run engineering and to define the product all on his own. Since January, ENG have been working full bore on something whose mockups Product Management didn’t even see until about April. (For those unfamiliar with software development, it’s PM’s job to build out product requirements—based on customer, user, competitor and market understanding—and ENG’s job to build the product based on those requirements. What we’re doing now is totally bonkers.)

This has been at the Great Man’s behest—don’t want anyone seeing it until it’s done. Well, dude, we’re not “anyone”, we’re bloody PM. (Actually, he told us, “I don’t need product managers right now; I need project managers.” I think he doesn’t like anyone suggesting features or functionality but himself.) This also applies to letting any users on it. When I started carefully approaching ENG in March about setting up a plan for internal and external user testing around May, I was rebuffed. “We don’t want to put a lot of process around this.” “[Bas Bleu], Great Man will let us know when we’ll allow users to see it.” Evidently Great Man knows what the users want more than they do.

But leaving that aside, we were promised six different dates when ENG would grudgingly let a small number of internal users on, until eventually we got that round going 15 June. (Remember, launch is first week in August.) And immediately we got more than 300 feedback line items (meaning distinct issues; I was collecting it all and I merged duplicate reports), and discovered (unsurprisingly) that a lot of features weren’t working properly (bugs), the user experience was not helpful to actual users (enhancements), it was missing functionalities that users would need critically (features) and (actually surprisingly) the data was completely screwed up (catastrophic failure, since this application is all about putting our data into customers’ daily lives).

As you might imagine, this has put a crimp in ENG’s grand plans to add the features we were promised at internal alpha. Meanwhile, customer-facing staff don’t even know what that final feature set is going to be (because Great Man), marketing is circling trying to build content without having access and my hopes of getting actual customers on this thing before launch are rapidly fading.

Trying to get a committed date from the ENG director, Foghorn Leghorn, is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. He is blusteringly defensive, like any member of the current presidential administration: he’s so afraid of Great Man that all he can think to do is pass on the whippings he gets and try to not piss the guy off. He couldn’t even commit to priority 1 and 2 bugs (blockers and criticals); he had to go ask Daddy if they were okay to work. But after that chat a while ago with my manager about my anger coming through, I’ve made a concerted effort to not rise to every ludicrous evasion or passive aggressive deflection.

Anyhow, on one of the 12 or so project calls last week, Foghorn took a gratuitous pop at me by way of distracting attention from some ENG failing. (There was a legitimate issue, but it had been addressed and discussed on a chat thread that he was on.) I did not address him, just said that the technical issue around images in Confluence is beyond my ability to solve but that every JIRA ticket I created had the correct image. (Which he would know if he’d looked at any of them; which clearly he had not.) And we moved on to other things.

Well, that afternoon I had my weekly chat with my manager. I started by listing out all the unpalatable options we now have for external testing—there is not one of them that will serve the multiple purposes external pre-launch access is supposed to provide. As I was talking, I could feel my jaw stiffening and my throat constricting. It’s my job to run this test to get user feedback that will inform the product development, and every day it becomes more impossible because of Great Man and his minion Foghorn. My manager listened and agreed that it’s not looking good. I would have asked to escalate to the SVP, only the main issue is that there aren’t enough engineers to do the amount of work necessary to build out the promised functionality, deal with the data issue and fix bugs, and I don’t know that you can escalate more engineers. We can’t release to customers, even as a beta, until we’ve got the data in and tested; best case scenario now is week commencing 27 July. And Great Man has dug in on the first of August launch date.

See my problem?

I moved on to other issues and then asked, “Okay, reality check: did I tell [Foghorn] out loud that he could fuck all the way off, or was that just in my head?” Indeed, I had not said it audibly.

So I said, “Y’all should be extremely grateful that I’m taking yoga.” And told him about my lessons. When we start, and my instructors says, “Give yourself permission to be only here for the next period of time,” I’m still fulminating about this or that. But by the time you’re trying to do Warrior III [which is one foot on the floor and everything else in the air], you are not thinking about anything except not toppling over and cracking your head open. This is the most liberating feeling imaginable—letting go and being focused fully on what’s going on inside.

Then I noticed that while I was telling him about it, all the tension and constriction had left my head and neck. Just recalling the poses chilled me out. And believe me, Imma need a lot of chilling out in the next four weeks.

My yoga instructor is terrific. We do our sessions via Zoom, but even so she’s excellent at explaining and demonstrating the movements. Last Friday I did two Sun Salutations, which are a whole thing. She promises me that over the next months this movement will become “smother; not easier, but smoother.” Warrior II is still my centering pose, but I also love Forward Fold and Happy Baby. I feel stretched out and calmed down after a lesson, and this is a very good thing.

And that’s my gratitude today: a great yoga instructor who’s helping me not tell my colleagues to fuck all the way off.

Even if they really should.

Below normal but okay

Health update: went to my orthopod’s office yesterday for my second of three injections in my knees. The practice is located in the local People’s Republic hospital, so you have to enter the actual hospital to get to their offices.

This has meant undergoing a “screening” at the entrance. The screening involves answering questions about travel to or contact with people who’ve traveled to places, and whether you have any symptoms of covid19.

This time, however, I arrived at the office on the third floor to discover it closed and patients directed to the fourth-floor office. Where a masked staffer asked the screening questions again, and took my temperature, which she wrote down on a yellow stickie, which had to be turned in to the reception desk. (It also went in with me to the exam room, where I assume it was added to my chart.)

BTW—my temperature was 96.7, two degrees below normal. And I haven’t taken any Tylenol or aspirin in a couple of weeks.

According to the PA who’s giving me the injections, they’ve cancelled a lot of surgeries, are restricting appointments and therefore consolidated the two offices. Tough times.

Otherwise, I’m okay. Except for tearing an interstitial rib muscle on my right side from all the coughing. (Fortunately, this happened once before, while I was in grad school, so I knew what it was. Otherwise I’d have been freaking out.) I’m at the stage now where it doesn’t so much feel like someone’s sticking an X-Acto knife between my ribs as a butter knife. But it turns out that everything you do involves your ribs, including sneezing, clearing your throat and shifting a manual transmission.

I cannot wait for this to be over. Then I can deal with whatever I have to.