This Happened

[Stan]

You're the one who mailed a manifesto to Trump, aren't you? You don't have to confirm that, just respond with the previously established code of smilies.

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

As "exposure", let all 3 kids make cupcakes from scratch entirely unsupervised by me. Results hilarious: a flat, unpuffed cupcake without a cupcake paper, partially dyed a sickly green color, soaked in a thin, gritty, bright pink frosting!

Kitchen a total mess. It's rather glorious.

[Phoebe]

Slithered down stairs. Found Buffy on back deck.

"Look, I can kick my foot up higher than your head, Mom! Ha ha ha!"

Regarded giant offspring with cool suspicion.

Offspring continues to approach. "Look, ha ha ha, you are sooooo short! Way down there! Look how tall I am!"

Once more regarded giant offspring with cool suspicion.

"Mom, are you ok?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because... You're crawling up the stairs."

"I am receiving aid from my front paws."

Made it back to warm couch.

[Tahlvin]

I worked out almost daily in 2016. I'd take a week off here or there when I had to travel for work, but I pretty much did the P90X workouts daily from the beginning of 2016 until mid-February 2017. I then took two months off, since I was fighting a little flu/cold, wanted the extra hour+ daily to spend on some other things, etc. Well, I started up again yesterday morning, and all I can say is: OUCH!! It always seems to be the second day that it really hits you. The first day, your body says, "Okay, I let you get away with that one day." You're stiff, but not too bad. But the second day, your body says, "You jerk, you're trying to do it again! I'll teach you!" Just standing up causes muscles to cry out in protest! Thankfully, as long as I keep working out, it will go away in a week or so, after I cycle through all of the different muscle groups a couple times.

[Phoebe]

I kind of want to know what a P90X workout is, but then again, not sure I want to know. Do I want to know?

[Tahlvin]

It's one of those workouts you see in the . It was recommended to me by a friend, so I gave it a try. It's a 90-day, extreme fitness program, broken into 3 phases. The first two phases consist of 3 "on" weeks and 1 "rest" week. During the "on" weeks, it typically works as one day of resistance (weights, pushups, pull-ups, crunches), a day of cardio, a day of resistance, yoga, a day of resistance, cardio, then a day of stretching. The rest weeks focus less on resistance and more on cardio, stretching, and yoga. The final phase is 4 "on" weeks, alternating the "on" weeks from phases 1 and 2, followed by the "rest" week. If you do the traditional P90X program, most workouts are around an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, with yoga being about 90 minutes. They have a P90X3 where most of the workouts are just 30 minutes. But I prefer the traditional P90X program. If you're not used to working out, you'll definitely want to work your way up to this program, rather than just jumping right in.

[Phoebe]

Whooo, I'm still down here at "walk dog" and "shag balls at soccer practice" and "try not to drop from exhaustion otherwise", so maybe P90X is for a greater future moment...

[Zen]

So... What your telling us is that you're a masochist... Okay... So you have something in common with Eldthor...

[Phoebe]

I don't know man, I'm not really into pain for its own sake. I prefer to think of it as some sort of toughness. And I wouldn't want to limit my capacities, you know? I feel pretty sure that I could graze the tip of a (clean) boot over the surface (of a younger version) of Jacques Pepin. I might even let him caress the boot, but just a little bit.

[Tahlvin]

[Zen]

Ah... Yes... I was referring to Tahlvin... Not Phoebe... Sorry for not specifying.

I just tend to NOT exercise. That probably has more to do with the whole fibromyalgia thing than anything, since I was fairly active when I was younger. I played racquetball until I was in my mid-thirties, did Aikido until my early 20s, and was a dancer in my youth. I have never had any real desire to do any kind of weight or resistance training though. It has never been my thing. (Being 5'4" tall doesn't lend itself to wanting to be perceived as "buff" in any way shape or form, though I knew a guy in college who was shorter than me with pecks that were extremely impressive and he made sure EVERYONE saw them in the dorm! I was never sure why he felt the need to NOT wear a shirt at all times of the year when he was indoors... But I guess if you've got 'em flaunt 'em?) Now I'm lucky if I can walk from my car to the store without getting sore. Usually I start out that way.

I realize that all of the conventional wisdom says that people with fibro SHOULD exercise as much as they can, within limits and that it is supposed to help make us feel better, but I haven't actually found that to be the case. I think that is really doctors who have no clue what causes our condition or how to treat it saying what they think sounds good and what they think will make us more healthy in general, not what makes sense.

[Phoebe]

Do you ever do the tai chi? It's good for movement disorders so who knows, maybe fibro too?

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

This is true at my gym too. Tai chi? Sure, if you take time away from work to do the class! The early AM and late PM stuff is more for people who want intense, competitive spin class and to be breaking giant stones or something. They literally have a giant rope you're supposed to heave about. Like if I wanted to do that, I would find a giant snake or dragon to wrestle down, c'mon...

There are fun simple Tai chi moves that help balance and stretching without having to learn the whole routine. My favorite is Cloud Hands, but good ol' rise & fall (sink?) is beneficial just by itself. But you gotta imagine you're a big tree in the breeze, that's key.

[Phoebe]

Ooooooooohhh, I have to do a thing tomorrow and it scares me. I am bothered. But I must do it anyway. It's like being on the high diving board and there's no way to climb back down now that you see how terrifyingly far away the water looks, yet you are going to do this thing, here we go, wheee!

Y'all cannot overestimate how much the promise of chilling for 3 hours of hilarious runelords fights gets me through a day sometimes. Like, if I can just make it to that time of night, everything will be great. Even getting to 4 pm will be pretty damn good, if a bit frazzled and frantic from there to runelords.

[Phoebe]

Can't even explain. It's beyond explanation. The things are happening like firecrackers. Ah, life. Here we go, whee.

[Zen]

So, I got a call today from my son from college at 9:40 in the morning... First off, my son being AWAKE at 9:40 on a Saturday morning is a strange thing in my recollection, but evidently he has two tests on Monday and Tuesday and was actually planning on studying for them this weekend, so he had gotten up at a reasonable time.

The reason for his call? He and his girlfriend were being "evicted" (his word) from their dorm. (Momentary shock on my part...) because it is flooded...

Okay son... that's not EVICTED first off, it is evacuated... but technicalities aside, bummer dude...

So, my first thought was to ask him is he's checked with Aunt Janice, our friend in town, who we have Thanksgiving with most years and isn't really his aunt but is my sister's best friend. Maybe they could stay with her until the water goes down. Then I realized... WAIT! He has a dorm room too! You see, both he and his girlfriend have single rooms and he has been living in her dorm room all year. His room is "the game room" They keep his PS3 there (I think her XBox is at her room) and the play D&D, or this semester, I think, Shadowrun, on their weekly game night, in his room. I'm so proud that my boy has adopted the hobby! He pretty much did it on his own. I thought about seeing if he wanted to learn to play when he was in high school, but never got around to it. Now he is playing games I never got around to playing. (Sadly I never played Shadowrun... I always wanted to... never had a chance...) It is fun to talk roleplaying with them when they visit!

But anyway, I suggested they see if his dorm is high and dry, which he said it probably will be, because the rest of campus is on a hill compared to the newer dorm that his girlfriend lives in, which was built in a valley, in a run off zone from the lake, which is most likely just a dammed river anyway, if not a retention pond. In other words, a STUPID place to build a dorm and an even stupider place to put:

A PARKING LOT

That's the REAL problem!

His car is there... in the parking lot behind the dorm... The first floor of the dorm has ankle deep water... The parking lot is a lot LOWER than the dorm... A LOT LOWER!!!

They started towing away cars that were in the parking lot, he told me... They couldn't GET to his! The tow truck COULDN'T REACH IT BECAUSE OF THE WATER!

So yeah... SH*T!

[Phoebe]

Oh dear, that is bad. But, another entity having money is involved. ?

[Zen]

Another entity having NO money is involved. His girlfriend's mother is going through a nasty divorce and she is lucky to be able to afford room and board. Luckily she has a three-year, full tuition scholarship, similar to my son's four-year one, just one year shorter and her's requires that she take a German class every semester, which she is running out of because she tested in to third year German as a freshman. Luckily for her she was already a Junior by the end of the first term of her Sophomore year and is on pace to graduate in three years. She had lots of AP and dual ed credits going in and took practically a full load of classes at the community college over the summer to transfer back to her university. Downside, she is in a field where she pretty much needs a PhD to do what she wants to do. Biological Neuro-Psychology (another source of pride... I love the girl as if she were my own daughter! She's a sarcastic little thing too! She really is great! Her mother... she's better now it seems... I think her marriage was pretty toxic. She, herself, is generally an iron-clad b*tch and makes no bones about it, but her ex seems to have seriously been enabling some of her worst behaviors and kind of preventing her from seeking help. Now that he's gone, she seems to be trying to get things on track... Too bad she's probably going to have to pay HIM support! Illinois has some seriously screwed up divorce laws! (Her lawyer has said, flat out, that if her ex goes to court and request support in the divorce, she will put on the court record that he needs to turn in his "man card". Sure, it's sexist as hell, but he has nothing preventing him from working to support himself and has several means by which he could do so, including nursing, real estate, mechanics, and several other things. Not to mention that his parents are flipping rich. She is a veterinarian running her own clinic and has her net worth is probably seriously negative right now because of her level of debt and he knows that. They were married for the better part of the last 20 years and because she was the primary wage earner he is the one entitled to support, she is responsible for all of the debt, and he isn't expected to help his daughter with college costs? Sounds fair, right? His daughter isn't very happy with him right now...)