Sigo cantando con las puertas abiertas

For the second Friday in Women’s History Month, my earworm is “Soy Yo”, by the Colombian band Bomba Estéreo. The video features a Costa Rican star named Sarai Gonzalez taking a tour round the ‘hood and holding her own against anyone who thinks she’s less-than. The title and refrain translate to “I’m me”, which is something a lot of women need to get accustomed to saying.

Climbing out of Hell

So, my tech issue got solved, but not by anyone in the Megalithic Software Company’s IT organization. I literally was ready to schlepp my laptop over to my yoga instructor’s house, because her husband is a computer genius, when I IM’d a summary of my situation to the actual in-house IT guy at my company (the one that was acquired by MSC). He told me what docking station to order from MSC, and he was right.

It arrived Tuesday; I managed to connect all the appropriate cables and I now can see stuff on the 27” monitor.

(I still can’t get the laptop to recognize the Bluetooth headset, but that’s a fight for a different day.)

 

 

No celebration

Okay, it’s International Women’s Day, and I got nothing.

I am sick to the back teeth of right-wing-nut-jobs and religious fanatics around the world taking out their compensation issues on women and non-binaries. There is not one lick of difference between the mullahs in Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Republicans in the United States, and my heart breaks for the generations to come.

 

 

Out & about

On Sunday, I made my first foray onto my once-and-former-walking loop along the W&OD Trail. Didn’t do the full length, but still.

And Spring was there to greet me.

 

Gratitude Monday: steps

Wednesday I have my six-week checkup with the surgeon. Still working on bending, but my extension is good.

What I’m really grateful for today, though, is that I’m walking. After feeling completely beat a couple of days last week when I hit 3000 steps, I started adding on 500 steps per day until I make it to at least 5000. This is less than half of what I used to do, but it’s still major progress.

I’ll take it.

 

 

Dead in his eye

It’s the first Friday in Women’s History Month (also Girls' Day), the first post-Dobbs WHM, with Republicans at all levels scrabbling to out-rage their mullah and Taliban confrères around the world to return us to those halcyon days of the 15^th Century, and I am done.

So here’s Queen Latifah in her early days, giving us “U.N.I.T.Y.”

 

Tech hell

I spent three hours yesterday trying to connect a 27” monitor to my Megalithic Tech Company corporate laptop. That includes trying to follow the IKEA-level instructions and then on a chat and then a call with MTC’s IT support. Guy kept trying to get rid of me—go to this web site and do that; no—I told you, the monitor has power and is connected to the laptop. Oh—then go there and do this; no—I told you, it’s connected.

He finally initiated a call, again trying to fob me off on some goose chase, even bringing someone else on the call, who started by telling me to connect the monitor via the cable.

Three cables came with the monitor: HDMI/HDMI (I have no HDMI port on the laptop or the docking attachment), USB-C (no more available Type-C ports on the laptop & all ports on the docker are Type A) & Type-C to Type-A. I used that last one, but the laptop absolutely doesn't recognize that a monitor is attached. The only display that shows up in what Chrome OS is pleased to call a settings menu is what’s in the laptop lid.

Tech Guy’s last take was to send me to a public site to do a “hard reset”, which should have taken at least 30 minutes to repopulate the machine. Nope—just like a restart, instant.

Then, I was to order a new cable. Well, when I did that (using the link TG gave me), I got a reply saying I should go to a different site to order the cable, but I have no idea what to order.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to work on a 14" laptop screen, with an alien OS, in the shadow of a 27" monitor. Ugh..

 

 

George and I...

Ordinarily when I do yoga, my energy level rises so much that I wear basically only sweat pants and tee-shirt; even so, usually by the end of the lesson I need to cool off. However, since my knee surgery, I find myself cold most of the time—and since my thermostat is set to 72F, I know it’s not the environment, it’s me.

So last Friday when my instructor showed up via Zoom, I was still wearing a hoodie, zipped up, which stayed on for most of the lesson. I pretty much never pay attention to which tech swag I’m wearing, and Lord knows I have enough tech company tee-shirts to outfit Sacramento. So I didn’t think anything about it as I was moving about, until my instructor asked, “When did you work for Goldman Sachs?”

Well, I had to parse what she was talking about, and eventually arrived at:

And the mundane answer is that I got it at a party during one of the Grace Hopper Celebrations of Women in Computing. It’s all cotton, a little on the thin side, but comfortable and comforting to wear. Also, it has pockets. And I can top it with an oversized fleece I got from yet another STEM organization if I have to go out. The hood part has no drawstring, so it's more an ornamental feature than a functional one, but still.

(As an aside, GHC is a great place to get wearable swag, because if you ask the women handing it out, "What size should I get?" they'll tell you. No problem. The Goldman Sachs woman gave me the once-over and without hesitation said, "Large." She was exactly right. Go to any other tech conference and ask the guys handing it out that question and they start backing away, stuttering and shrugging because they're too afraid to answer it honestly.)

But Saturday morning, I realized that my answer should have been, “Oh, yeah—George Santos and I…we were besties.”

That’s a Dorothy Parker moment I’ll never get back.

 

 

The groundhog lied

Last Thursday I walked to the end of the cluster and back, a journey of perhaps 700 steps total. I was absolutely flummoxed to see fully grown and blooming daffodils at the side of one house.

It’s not even March, people, and daffs are acting like we’re headed straight into April. Those flowers had to have stuck their noses up through the surface of the earth at least two weeks ago to be this far along. It’s whacky.

I know why they’re doing it, tho—we’ve had such bizarre weather really all winter. Thursday, in fact, it hit 81F in The District They Call Columbia; it was 78F in the People’s Republic. Then it snowed (well, dusted) on Saturday and the temps stayed in the 30s all day. The plants are confused.

Like the rest of us.

I think this means that we’re going to have a really bad year for fleas, now. Folks with furry friends better stock up on remediation.

 

 

Gratitude Monday: the four-week mark

Thursday marked four weeks since my total knee replacement surgery. SITREP as of Friday’s PT session:

Flexion: 122 degrees

Extension: Two degrees off flat (have to work on that, which involves lying supine, propping my ankle up on a rolled towel and letting gravity pull the knee down for a couple of minutes; try it some time and see how much you like it)

Walking up and down stairs with some fluidity

My therapist says I’m doing fantastic, although I confess I am still not at the stage where I can say with a straight face, “I’m so glad I had this done.”

(The redness is because I was icing it just before I took the photo.)

SITREP from Friday’s yoga lesson:

Careful sun salutations, including lunges and planks

Warrior I and Warrior II, and Triangle Pose

Very lopsided Tree Pose (I can bend the right knee only enough to get the foot along the left shin, but the right leg will sustain the left foot against the thigh as normal)

Bridge against the wall (although, TBH, the left leg was doing about 65% of the work)

Can’t do Child’s Pose,

but can do Melting heart.

And my verymost favorite: Twisted Puppy!

So today's gratitude is progress. I know I've had a better recovery that some people, and I'm grateful for that. I'm also grateful that this process has made me appreciate things I've taken for granted, like mobility and flexibility. That has enriched my life.