My friend M, my bro and his friend Kathy and I drove home from Washington DC yesterday after our flights were cancelled.  The line for cars was very long so I’m very happy I was able to get a reservation Saturday after US Airways sent me text, e-mail and phone messages saying the airline was getting its airplanes the hell out of the way of the hurricane.  We couldn’t drive the most direct route which would take us through West Virginia because there were blizzard warnings and the mountains would be bad.  Rain and wind is bad enough.  Frozen rain, black ice and possibly 3 feet of snow, forget it.  Going north then west through Pennsylvania with gimpy runners was it.  We took lots of stretching stops.  After dropping off everyone and returning the rental car, I was home after 15 1/2 hours of driving around.  I’m exhausted. 

On the good side, the hurricane stayed out of the way of the runners on Sunday’s Marine Corps Marathon!  I saw some fatigue but overall, all the runners I cheered on from mile 19 looked incredibly strong.  The starting temp was around 57 and a 5ish hour finish got you to a 59 ending temp.  The wind reared up strong from mile 10 on but other than people who were oblivious to the fact that their balloons were blowing into runners’ faces, no major obstacles.  Best of all, I got to visit my kid sister.  She is so awesome and has really come into her own. She has a solid sense of self and political identity.  I think watching runners, she was inspired.  This was the first time she saw runners in a marathon race.  Maybe I can get her hooked. : ) 

On the bad side, a friend of mine gave up his seat to let Kathy go on home with us.  I didn’t figure out that he gave up his seat until we were almost in Pennsylvania and I texted him that he should’ve gotten in the damned taxi to meet at the rental place.  He asked me who I would’ve kicked out and I said we could fit 5!!  I’d stuff him in the trunk if he’d fit.  It’s a hurricane!  I figured it out after my brother, who roomed with him, told me D would rather stretch his legs out.  I thought that was the lamest excuse ever.  Hence the text fury.  Marine Corps Marathon and I leave a guy behind.  Shame on me. 

Well, I can’t leave you on such a negative note so I’ll end with one of my favorite costumes of all time.  I think it’s my favorite because the week I saw this, I’d seen so many slutty nurses and cats, seeing a writing utensil sexified seemed to embody everything I was feeling about dressing up for Halloween.

G’bye Hello Kitty House and Assy Owner’s Agent Saying They Want Me To Cover the Tree of Doom’s Death.  Winter is coming.  That tree’s coming down with the house.

We’re fighting over a tree.  It’s dying and will take out this house and the house next to it.  It’ll cost x,xxx to take it down and the owners only want to pay $500?  Ugh.  No. 

It’s still a bit from finalizing with the inspection tomorrow and 45 days to the keys but here are the sale pics of the temporarily named “Castle de Lenore”, a little 3 bedroom Cape Cod with a bit o’ yard and a bit o’ shack in the back.

 
I’ve been calling it the Hello Kitty house.  The other house I looked at was called the Ron Swanson house.  If there’s anything wrong with this, I’m going full out on Ron Swanson.  Hello Kitty has new siding, refinished floors and a new roof which is what it had going for it compared to similar houses in the hood.  The people who cared for the home were very clean.  Quite impressed but really, when 98% of the other homes smelled like wet, moldy cigarettes with a dash of stale beer, I had to make sure my bar wasn’t reset too low.

It’s got a nice front porch that . . . get this . . . IT’S NOT SINKING INTO THE GROUND. 

It’s a musical family and they have what looks like one of my childhood pianos, a refurbished Baldwin.  I don’t have a keyboard anymore so that’s where I’m putting the bar and my house plants.

The baby room will become the office/workout room.  It’s bright enough for me to see my screen.  My office right now is a dining room and it’s gloomy, hardly any natural light unless I open the door to the porch.

I was surprised with the size of these bedrooms as they were actually bigger than I expected which was the opposite of what I was finding visiting houses the last two weeks.  There’s not much hallway to eat up a lot of extra space. 

Hey!  Cabinets!  And counter space!  Believe it or not, this is about 200% more cabinet and counter than my current place.  The tile is new and so is the fridge.  The washer and dryer are probably worth more than my car right now.  There’s no dining room but for me, that’s ok.  Casual parties with people drinking in the living room is more my thing.  I’m thinking of updating the stove.  It needs a hood for recirculating air and I need a new microwave – might take care of all that early next year along with a portable dishwasher.

New vanity and toilet in the bathroom, the tub is decent.  I’ll replace the showerhead to something more efficient and I’m still gathering ideas on the tile.  The checkerboard is okay but the tile is older.  Perfectly serviceable but older.  I need some warmth in there.

The owners redid the upstairs and it’s roomy, almost the size of the entire living room to the back bedrooms and the kitchen.  They split the upstairs into the large room, a small room and a storage closet.  The closet needs some bracing for organization shelves and and hanging rods but there’s enough room for storage bins, too.  The small room will become a meditation space, an upstairs girl cave.  The large space will be the master bedroom which will be able to hold the king sized bed. 

I have a nice sized flat backyard which is perfect for Pocky plus a fire pit!  Gotta make fresh s’mores for my moving party!  We can burn a year’s worth of junk mail as a starter, too. 

So now . . . I’m thinking colors.  I’m looking to some of my favorite paintings for a flow of what I want going from room to room, something to link my Asian and Spanish heritage.  That kitchen is asking for some Spanish blue somewhere. 

Helllllllo Xangans,

My brother is fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through Team In Training and would really like your help!  I’m passing along his link and hoping he might get a little closer to his goal through my humble little Xanga.  I guess this is kind of my fault because a couple of Christmases ago, I gave him a marathon and he did pretty decently for somebody with knees that were falling apart at 4:12.  Now he’s hooked and he’s found a way to give back to society and celebrate physical fitness through Team In Training.  Can you help?  Thanks!!

Here’s his message:

Team in Training Fundraising Link

I have a mission-to help find cures and more effective treatments for blood cancers. To accomplish that mission, I’m participating in a sports endurance event as a member of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) Team In Training. Like the other members of TNT, I will be raising funds to help find cures and better treatments for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma. I’m improving the quality of my life by participating and with your support, I can help improve the quality of life for patients and their families as well.

I am running in the Marine Corps Marathon on October 28, 2012 to help raise awareness of this dreadful disease.

Please help me by making a donation in support of my efforts with Team In Training and help advance the research for cures. No amount is too small and every penny you donate to goes toward research to cure Leukemia and Lymphoma.

Team in Training Fundraising Link

I bought a house!!

I think I found a house.  Perfect little house for a little person.

And the diagnosis is

labral tear and hip impingement!!!  I knew I wasn’t nuts.  Doc said there was a lot of stuff going on in that area, that he confirmed a lot of scar tissue in that area and most likely I’d injured it previously but like an idiot (my words) kept running on it. 

Peoples of the Earth who happen to read Xanga (what a tiny Venn diagram overlap that is, amirite?), I don’t know the difference between ache and pain or the point when nagging pain becomes severe injury.  Is it because I gave birth, that whole labor pains can live through anything pains?  WTF?  Give me the drugs.  Just dope me up.

Doc said I need osteochondroplasty.  Link is kind of graphic. 

http://www.hipkneeclinic.com/article.asp?article=71

Anyway, this means I need surgery.  They’ve scheduled it for November 20th and for the first several days, I have to wear a hip brace, only taking it off for physical therapy exercises and to bathe.  But it says in the instructions after the ok, I need to cycle 20 to 30 minutes twice a day to aid muscle recovery.  Even though it’ll be 0 resistance, ugh, sitting in that saddle?  That’s probably not going to be comfortable.  I guess I’ll switch the pedals so I don’t have to wear my cycling shoes.  After surgery, I’ll need about 4 months of physical therapy.  Probably not the nice kind where I get my crotch massaged for 45 minutes. 

So throw finding a house on top of all my things to do before the end of the year.  I’m talking with Christoph tonight on what this means when he comes to visit.  It’s now IF he comes to visit because honey’s horny as a damned 15 year old and isn’t taking the fact I can’t move my hips for a few weeks very well.  No, dear, you’re not acting like an asshat at all!  I’ll let him have his hissy fit. 

OW.  The anesthesia has worn off and I’m feeling it all now! 

House owner STILL hasn’t contacted me and this is her second month of missing a mortgage payment.  I can’t make the payment for her.  Bank won’t let me pay it because it reveals information, insurance won’t give me personal information.  As they shouldn’t.  So I’m one step closer to abandoning the house.  I can’t believe I’m in this position.  I’m trying to buy this place but there’s nobody to buy FROM.  Ahhhh, if I had the luxury of traveling the world and not worrying about material possessions.  Or discarding 112 year old houses like tissue. 

LooooOOoooOooooOOOOOpy.

That was what I was most of the day yesterday.  I went into Baptist Hospital East and got my arthrogram and it took well over 3 hours from paperwork to getting out the door.  Before the MRI, I went to radiology where they injected me with the stuff that I thought could get me nauseated but nope.  It got me happy painless.  It stung a little getting injected into my hip but as the chemicals with the dye and the anesthetic agent settled into the scar tissue, I started feeling really, really good.  Since I went in at noon and it took me about half an hour or so to drive there from Indiana, I didn’t get to eat lunch beforehand so I was extra floaty. 

It helped that I knew the radiology nurse, that we’d seen each other at parties and are both single moms.  She made the time fly and said because my hip was feeling better from the dye, chances are more likely 1) it’s a tear and 2) the tear will show up on the MRI.  Good.  Very good.  I want a diagnosis.

The MRI itself was louder and way longer than the one I had when I strained my hamstring.  It was a little over an hour and the noise gave me a bit of a headache.  They taped my feet together to help keep my muscles in my hip relaxed.  Since that’s where the injection was centralized, I wasn’t feeling anything there.  Where I felt strain was my back.  I really wanted to reposition but I was so proud, didn’t move a muscle.  I paid for it later in the day when my headlights burned out and I had to change them in the dark (driving with my brights on to Autozone – I was that asshat).  Figures I’d find my flashlight right after I got the headlight with the tricky latch finally changed. 

I went back to work and showed my co-worker “Hey, you can punch me in the hip like this *punch* and I ain’t gonna feel nothin!”  She asked if it was safe for me to drive.  I think I should’ve just gone home to bed.  Still, it was the best sleep in many, many weeks. 

Results Friday.

Tonight I got through a 2000 m straight swim and it was weird.  I felt like I couldn’t really use my right leg but I guess I should have rested one more day.  No pain but no solid control underwater.  Got through the mile mark in a very slow 37 minutes but at least it was pretty consistent pace.  The last 400 meters was much faster so I feel I finished strong.  Note to self, must get lotion.  My skin is like leather. 

Sunday brings a visit to a crazy looking house that’s talking to me.  I swear, it reminds me of Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation.  Maybe it’s my future home?  Or maybe I need to wait a few more days until the drugs wear off before deciding?  Probably.