Egoscue Method, Day 5: Keep Moving, Part 2

Astoria, Oregon ~ November 3, 2010

If you read yesterday's post, you know that I was reading all evening instead of moving around in physical space. I had done my Egoscue exercises right before bedtime, then slept on it. This should not have been a problem, but since work was slow and I was still engrossed in the book I was devouring, I didn't get out of bed until 11:00 a.m. Do I even have to say this is very strange behavior for me? Anyway, I was stiff and sore when I got up, so I was not feeling as much benefit from the excercises as I would have if I'd been behaving normally.

The morning threw me off, but I became more active as the day went on. Despite some interruptions in the routine, I did my exercises more slowly and took a few breaks, getting in the 10 different ones over a period of several hours. And the pinch in my back while doing the two I mentioned yesterday was better. Doing them this way should make me feel more normal tomorrow. And I am still amazed at how much better I'm walking.

I'm not planning to keep up and day by day account, but I have already experienced so much benefit, that I'll note the signposts as I think of them. I have another appointment on Friday. The appointments are once a week at first, then spaced farther apart as you need fewer changes in the routine. At first the progress is very rapid, and the routine quickly becomes in need of updating. I can alreay feel "minor" (though not so minor if you've had to live with them) changes here and there, both internally and unexpected, and externally and more expected. The fear I have to get past now is that it's not all going to go away, or (worse) that it will come back. But I'm changing the very basis of how I stand and move, and these are the things that have created the pain. I look forward to the day I'll be taking long walks again and NOT have crippling back pain. I've lived with that one for almost 9 years with only minor respites and have slogged my way through it, taking long walks and hikes anyway; so it's hard to get over the feeling that it's with me for life. But the changes I feel already tell me this should not be the case.

Today's photo: Although it's more expensive, I've begun to shop more at the co-op this year. I started last May, really, because I could no longer walk through a big store like Safeway or Fred Meyer without having repercussions to my feet. I rediscovered what food is supposed to taste like, and I like supporting the local community. All health benefits aside, if you think vegetables and fruit taste like cardboard, try buying some real ones. Oh - My - God! What a difference. Even oatmal. It has flavor. And that's just a start.

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Dec 28, Bend: Cold and warm

The wall across the street that retains the ground for the church and its parking lot finally looked interesting today with snow emphasizing its lines.

Usually Safeway is one of the coldest places in town, but today it seemed positively warm in contrast with the outdoors, and the colors felt warm compared to the outside black and white winterland.

Some apples and eggs. Let's just ignore the M&Ms and Reese's Bars. We've been snacking on cookies this season already. Mmmmmm.

Safeway from the outside. Cold.

Toward evening we went out again. I thought the antennae on this truck were amusing. Someone adapted it rather creatively to hold pipes.

This is Paul's building. It's just been painted. I like the colors and I like the lights.

Speaking of lights, I haven't taken that many photos this year with Christmas lights (nor in any other year, but I've taken a lot more photos this year, so it would seem that I'd have more of lights, too). I think it's been cold both here and Astoria, and not very tempting to stand outside and try to get exposures right. Inside this rug store, I thought I'd take a pic of this funky reindeer. Kinda cute. He has personality, anyway.

March 23: Late Spring, early dinner in Bend

This unfortunate photo is one of my "recording" pictures, just to show what was going on. It had been raining, but was cold enough overnight to build up snow on the hills outside of town. It's been a gray, cold day with funky light for photos.

As usual, I spent most of the day on the computer, blogging, working on the web site. The upside is, I get to play with photos of one kind or another for most of my work these days. You can see again, the weather was kind of blah outside. I'm not sure what the plan is for the flags on the bridge, but it's always festive. Some days there are a lot of different colors. Maybe the green is left over from St. Patrick's Day. You can't see it, but there's a path along the river where people are out jogging and walking - some even on a day like this. There's a fire in the brazier, but it's cold for outdoor sitting. There are tall picture windows around the view sides of the restaurant. We were here once on a nice day and the mountain view was nice.

I liked the fish on the carpet. Lee and I have started going to Happy Hour. Not that we're much into drinking, but we like one now and then. Maybe cheap(er) appetizers have been going on at happy hours for years, but since I've had entire years when I didn't drink anything, the whole concept passed me by. Now we're finding that we can get a drink (or not) and try a few different and very tasty snacks and pretty much call it dinner. We've tried to do this in Astoria, but the one place we've tried has mostly cheap, horrible, greasy food. Here in Bend, the restaurants and pubs are presenting arrays of better-cooked and interesting foods on the Happy Hour menu. I hope the trend catches on in Astoria, too. This place is a seafood restaurant and the appetizers were really good. They also blended the Margarita. I'm finding that some places don't.

The metal fish hanging from the ceiling was warm and friendly.

We had coconut shrimp on sticks, lots of steamer clams in a huge bowl, and I had some other kind of seafood thing that I really liked. (I'm writing this a few days later; I'd get it again if I could remember what it was). Then when we really didn't need it, we each had a small cup of clam chowder. But it was good. Yumm.

High-rise hell and too much food

Sue had never been to Florida, and I hadn't been for many, many years. I have fond memories of paddling in a boat-like thing across a lake owned by the hotel, seeing deep into clear water at Clearwater (???), and doing something-or-other that was fun at Ocala Caverns. It was in the early 1960s. I remember a lot of flat land and I don't remember that much development.

Our hosts for the current trip were located in Miami Gardens. They'd paid for our flight and our hotel and would buy us some meals on the day we met with them. Other than that, we were on our own, and we'd decided to stay a couple of extra days. It was a stretch of the budget for both of us, but we were already going to be there, so why not? But Florida may not be the best destination for two aging women who don't tolerate heat. It was January, and we were not only warm, but very tired. Exhausted from a December of extremely hard work and Astoria's first hurricane, we hand worked to ship orders on time despite power outages in the freezing weather and dark days that followed. It had been a heavy Christmas season in the gift shop - which, in and of itself, is a great thing. So, the first blast of muggy heat getting out of the airport and into a rental car was a bit much. We thought we'd sleep it off, though, until we found that the hotel accommodations were less than we had expected. I don't mean to dwell on it, but let's say sleeping was difficult, so neither of us ever got really rested. About all we wanted to do the first day was catch up on sleep as we could and get out a little to see some sights if we could do it without getting too hot.

That effort turned into a quest for edible food. The Aventura area is deluged with food, as we would find out - mostly either exorbitantly expensive, or junky fast food, which we were seriously trying to avoid. We drove around a bit and found a famous and actually very good huge deli, the Rascal House. As it turns out, it's also famous, and some of the only history left in the area, with McDonald's, Taco Bell and other look-alike boxes taking over. We each ordered a couple of things. That's when we learned something else about Florida. They feed you as if you were an elephant. Not hay, but tons and tons of everything else. Oh my god. We tried, but we were not used to this, and the eyes-bigger-than-stomach thing kicked in. We both ended up bloated and feeling almost miserable. We took pounds of food back to the room to save a few bucks, but much of it was fried and useless and off the low-glycemic plan on which we'd both been feeling very good.

This is Sue saying, "Nope, I've had enough." This photo is AFTER we'd finished eating! Don't they know that there are people starving, and how the heck does anyone think we became such fat people in this country? We didn't realize yet that the food issue was not limited to this restaurant.

As for sightseeing, we couldn't seem to find the ocean. The whole beach front was under construction, "One Way," or had literal or implied "Keep Out" signs. So we went back to relax and maybe sleep, and figured we had another day or so to find the sights.