Beastmaster 65

“Welcome to the Ultimate Skills competition!”
“Thanks, Keith! We’re here with the finest old fat people with skills to maneuver this bone-cracking, back-pulling, mind-blowing course that sooner or later everyone is going to have to master!”
“Just like regular Beastmaster, there are 3 courses. Christine? I bet you want to know what they are!”
“Of course, Keith! And we have 8 competitors ready for the 1st elimination. Only 6 of those 8 get to the next level.”
“The first course is going to focus on maneuverability. To get to the Mouth of the Beast, the competitor has to walk up a 100-foot ramp. It’s at a 6% grade and only 3 feet wide. But to complicate this, there are knee-knockers placed every 20-25 feet. These 12-inch barriers are the bane of anyone who’s had to walk around a house that has pets or grandchildren.”
“That’s right! My shins hurt already!”
“But when you get to the top of the ramp, you have to come down 50 stairs without a hand railing!”
“What makes this so hard?”
“The stairs are not the standard 10-12 inch tread, these stairs are only 6 inches wide.”
“We may see some spills there!”
“After they descend the stairs, they go into the belly of the beast. The room is completely black and has obstacles throughout. We’re talking head-bangers, shin-scrapers, random poles, squishy toys, and a false door!”
“How could anyone get across that?”
“They have a standard flashlight.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, it blinks on and off at inconvenient times and the beam will only faintly show 2 feet ahead of the contestant.”
“How will we see the action?”
“Infrared cameras.”
“If they’re not suicidal when they come out of this challenge, they go to the fork pick-up.”
“What’s that, Keith?”
“The Infamous Fork Pick Up! 9 forks are placed in and under and behind various objects in the room. The contestants are being told there are 10, but they get 2 points per fork, and it’s a timed exercise. If you stay in the room for too long, you get 0 points. The person with the most points wins.”
“So, OCD people looking for the non-existent 10th fork might time-out and lose all their points?!
“Yes! But that’s not all! Now they enter the colon of death!”
“It sounds awful!”
“The contestants have to sit in a wheelchair and wheel it up a snakeline 200 feet with a 10% rise and 15 turns.”

“Breaking news, Keith. One of the contestants took a look at the first obstacle, complained of pain in his arm and then grabbed his chest. 2 feet out of camera range, he ran to his van and took off. 2 more of the candidates took their canes to the set designer. George will be in the hospital for another 2-3 days. 2 more of them just wandered off the set. The last 3 were mumbling something about their prostates and have been in the bathroom for the past 26 minutes. There’s been no word if they’re coming out.”

“Well, Christine…Age and treachery…”

 

 

Just how Tough are you?

I was reminded that I’m a tough old bird. Toughness is not easily achieved. Your hands callous when they’re used daily on hard physical labor. Picture the hands of a farmer, or a gymnast, or bricklayer. The skin gets tough to the point of nerve damage. The toughness protects the rest of the hand from damage–the muscles, the nerves that provide the ability to open and close the hand, the bones. It is constant or nearly constant friction that callouses up a hand.

The toughness when it comes to pain tolerance is gained the same way. I had congenital hip dysplasia. That’s when you have shallow or missing hip sockets. When I was about 2, I had a manipulation where the top of my femur was put into position in order to carve out a hip socket. I spent months in a cast and moved on to braces. Then for my elementary school years, I had to wear orthopedic shoes. Oh, LORD were they ugly. I didn’t get my first pair of tennis shoes (that’s what we called them) until I was 6th grade. I took ballet so that my feet and legs would get stronger. My hips didn’t work like the other kids’.  I could never sit cross-legged. It was most uncomfortable and I had a devil of a time trying to maintain an upright position. About the time I was 12, my hips started to hurt. By the time I was 39, it felt like ground glass…every step.

In 1989, I opened a dance studio and was dancing about 3-5 hours a day on this ground glass. But with the range of motion exercises, the lubrication of the joint allowed me to still use it. I swear, I would have been in a wheelchair if I hadn’t had the ballet. I had my hip replaced in 1993 and that operation reduced the range of motion for my hip. I was restricted to 90-degree bend in the hip, and the rotation was minimal. This kept me from teaching dance. So I closed my studio. I needed work, so I started in fast food. The pain I felt from changing weather now changed its locus to mid-thigh where the spike ended. But it no longer felt like broken glass!!!  YAY!

I have now had 3 operations on my hip. The pain will be with me forever, and I will always limp. It acts as a barometer, so if the sky is green, and the wind is from the south, and the back door buzzes on a G, no problem. But if in addition, my leg feels like someone has taken a ball-peen hammer to my thigh, head to the basement! I now have a high tolerance for pain. It means that I’ve developed a callous on my pain threshold. I have taught myself to ignore the pain. Just like I’ve taught myself to ignore the ringing in my ears. 7 years on a headset. I went from “Hi! Welcome to Wendy’s! What combo can I get for you today?” to “Hello, Ameritrade, This is Rebecca. What trades can I place for you today?” It took every ounce of self-control (and I don’t have a lot of it) not to add, “You want fries with your 50 shares of McDonald’s?”

We’ve covered pain and annoyances. But what does it take to become mentally tough? Friction. It’s when you try and fail, and learn something, then you try again, and again, and again, until you have things just like you want them. There are books about mental toughness. Business Icons, Coaches, Philosophers, Psychologists. They all have their 33 steps and 77 characteristics and whatever. It’s just the one thing: Don’t quit when you fail. Notice the word “When” because if you don’t fail, you don’t learn anything. You will fail. You’re supposed to. It’s a first draft; it’s an experiment; it’s something new you’ve never even dreamt about. Each time you try, you add more information to the picture you have in your head. The picture gets clearer with every act. But each time, there’s that friction. You have to push against something and you get tough in your brain. You change your perspective because you can see progress. You change your approach because now you see multiple paths. You seek out help in areas you wouldn’t have considered before because each try brings more information you have to gather and new skills you must master in order to succeed. The nice thing is this: because you’re tough, you continue to make progress and because you don’t back down, you don’t have to start from 0 every time.

When was the last time you had to be mentally tough? I think the most challenging was when I lived in a small town. I owned a dance/music/art studio so I taught from 3:30 pm to about 6:30 pm every day for dance and music lessons. I worked the 5-2 shift at Hardee’s 5 days a week. I was the church choir director and did that on Wednesdays from 7-9 and directed every Sunday. And I worked at a truck stop from 3:00 to close  Saturdays and Sundays. I had 5 kids at the time. Did I get what I wanted? Yes.

The most important thing you have to confront is how much Friction you want to take on. No toughness comes without friction, you have to determine how tough you want to be.

 

Musical Chairs, the story

https://dailyflabbergast.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/cw-musical-chairs/

I’m alone again.

I guess I should be used to this, but it’s hard nonetheless.

Why is this so very difficult for people?

I picked up the banjo the other day. It was dreadfully out of tune, so it didn’t hold pitch very long after I tuned it. I played a couple of songs, then had to retune it.  You know when something is just a bit out of kilter and it makes your teeth itch? That’s an out of tune banjo. Somebody walked by, looked at the room number, looked at me, checked their registration page, then looked at me. If I had a dollar for every time they did that, I wouldn’t have to teach. Finally, figuring out that rather than wander around looking for the right room, the guy knocked and poked his head in.

“Where is the opera teacher’s studio?”

“You’re in it.”

“….”

“Are you Brad?”

“Yes…but I was taking opera lessons. When does the teacher get here?”

I hung my head. I sighed.

“I’m the opera teacher.”

“…”

They all get that befuddled look.

“Don’t stand in the hall, come in. Where’s your audition music?”

“You’re really the opera teacher?”

“Remember you’re auditioning for me and not the other way around? Get your audition music out. Or do you have it memorized?”

“Where’s the accompaniest?”

“I’ll give you a starting note, and you’ll go from there. It’s how I can judge how well you can stay in tune.”

“…”

“Have you warmed up?”

“Um, yes?”

I should have given him his starting note on the banjo, but I wanted to rid myself of him as soon as possible. He sang his audition piece passably, and only dropped a 1/4 step in his descending passages. He was a little thin on his upper notes and some of his Italian pronunciation was a little American.

“Ok, Brad, the results will be posted tomorrow noon.”

Then I grabbed my French Horn and whipped out a bit of the Strauss #3. He nearly dropped his folio. ‘Wait! You play French Horn too?’ he’d say then look askance. ‘No, I have a recording cleverly hidden in the bell.’ I had quit coming up with witty repartee because I abhorred explaining the jokes.

“Whoa!  You play the French Horn AND the banjo?”

“Why do you think I have all these instruments in here? Decoration?”

I was annoyed. I started scheming how I could bring in some bagpipes to annoy the other teachers in between lessons. I hadn’t found a good, reasonably priced set of pipes yet. But when I did…

My neighbor, Mrs. Fletcher, was especially critical. “Well, I specialized when I got my degree. Not a Jack-of-all-trades.”

I would whisper under my breath, “Ya, and not a master of any either.”

But if they needed a French Horn for the brass quintet or the woodwind quintet, it was me they asked. If they needed a timpanist for the Mahler who could tune the timpani in seconds instead of minutes, they called me. If they needed someone to sight-read the alto part for the Renaissance Faire quartet because Mildred got a frog in her throat, it was me they came to. The vocalists liked the fact that I could fit the music into their key. “You want it in Ab instead of C? Sure. No problem.” They never asked me to solo, that would be too embarrassing. No one ever asked Fletcher for help. She always begged off due to her relentless schedule. They didn’t ask Bosq or Williams or McGregor or Vidal. They made it a policy that they would only play or sing if they had at least one month’s notice. They were professionals after all. I was only an adjunct with 50 students to their 28. They were tenured, I was hired year to year. I was the teacher 2nd-year students requested. 1st years were always assigned to TAs and adjuncts, but by their second year, they knew who was the best teacher and they requested me. It was rumored that I didn’t work them as hard as the professionals. It was kind of funny that my students’ recitals were much more complex and more polished than the others’ students. Mine were nearly always the first to get professional jobs too.

This year, they needed an opera teacher, so that’s what I was doing. That put me in charge of the yearly performance and we were doing “La Traviata” this year. The lead tenor was a bear to cast! All so tentative, all so soulless.

Ben was my 4:00 and he was late. I got out the violin and played some of the music from Sherlock Holmes. Ben knocked on my door at about 4:05.

“What.”

“Um, I’m Ben, and I have an audition?”

“Oh, alright. Come on in. Get out your music.”

“I don’t have my music.”

“Then what the hell are you doing here?”

“Auditioning?”

“Without music?”

“Yes?”

I sighed. OK, here we go. A prima donna. My voice is a gift from the gods. Bow and worship my wonderfulness.

“Which part?”

“Alfredo”

I plucked a string on the banjo and said, “There’s your first pitch for your…”

“Could I start with the recitative for the ‘Lunge da lei?'”

I blinked. This was unusual. They don’t usually start with Lunge, they love the Parigi o cara. I played the first pitch on the piano.

He closed his eyes and you could actually see him assume the character. Was this a real musician? His first notes transported me! He finished the aria, and I thought, “Why not find out what he knows about the opera?”

I asked him plot questions, I asked him character questions, and then I asked him if he could tell the story in a modern setting. He lit up! He lept into the descriptions and you could tell he was passionate about the opera.

“What year are you in school?”

“1st-year. Why? Am I ineligible?”

“Oh heck no!”

“Am I your last audition for the day?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I heard your violin before I got in…did you know there was a second part?”

There isn’t a second part. These pieces are solos that Sherlock plays when he’s thinking. But he had me curious now.

“I haven’t heard the second part.”

“I have my violin with me, could we play the duet?”

“I’m not using the sheet music.”

“There’s sheet music?”  I think I like this kid. We tuned up and played for over an hour.

Then he had this look of horror on his face.

“What’s up?”

“I just basically told you I play by ear! Oh-my-god what an idiot! Are you going to tell? I don’t want to be expelled.”

He was freaking out. I assured him I wouldn’t tell and explained that since he’d been accepted by the school, they couldn’t kick him out just because he sang or played by ear.

“That’s not what my teacher said. He said I could never make it as a teacher or professional because I played by ear and the best musicians didn’t.”

I laughed.

“Did he teach you how to get such a good sound and pronounce the Italian?”

“He taught me trombone. I listened to La Traviata on the radio when I was little. My parents were very musical, and my sister plays 4 or 5 instruments.”

“How many do you play?”

“I don’t know. Give me an instrument to practice on and a book or a tape and two weeks and I can have the basics down. Why? How many do you play?”

“All of them…”

“This is going to be a fun semester…”

“Yes indeed.”

 

Musical Chairs

https://dailyflabbergast.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/cw-musical-chairs/

“Write about a character who was raised in a musical family.”
– a prompt for this week’s CW piece.

“F#!!!!” came from every corner in the house. I’d missed it, and everyone knew it. My mom taught piano and organ, my dad taught everything in the winds and percussion instruments. My dad could play every assignment I was working on by heart. Mom had perfect pitch and had to transpose it to Bb, but that didn’t slow her down. My brothers figured that if I’d made a mistake in that particular exercise they had a 2/3 chance it was an F#. Most trumpet tunes won’t go more than 3 sharps, and they could tell by the tune about what key it most likely would be. There was no escaping it.

My Grandma played the “Mother of the bride” for me at my wedding because my mom was playing the organ and my dad was directing the brass quartet. My mom’s grandmother was her “mother of the bride” because her mom played the organ for her wedding.

Our family played for Easter and Christmas and Reformation Sunday. Mom would arrange the music…2 trumpets, French Horn, Percussion (sometimes drums, sometimes marimba) and pipe organ. We sounded magnificent with those acoustics and mom’s arrangements.

All of us kids studied music in college–Morningside College and Illinois State for me, and Eastman School of Music for my brothers. Sooooo I was the black sheep. One brother taught at Kent State in the Percussion Department, and the other played Horn in the Pittsburgh Symphony. I got fired from every music job I held.

My folks were nice enough. “Oooh She’s a financial genius! She runs her own business!” I worked fast food to keep my studio open. I quit Fast Food to become a stockbroker (hence the financial genius) and got fired from that job. Then I joined an even bigger financial company and built my Dad’s portfolio up to where he was spending $2000/month out of his annuity and getting $2400 in interest. But I had to teach music. I was addicted. I reopened my studio in my house. The difference was that now, due to my financial business, I didn’t have to teach the kids that said, “I’m only here because my Mommy Makes ME!” Those went away really fast! My dream was to get some of my students into Eastman, but that will never happen. Dream crushed. My wish was to be able to bring in a 6 figure income from my financial business, but the desire to succeed was weak there.

I play every instrument. I sing. I speak 5 languages. I can discuss science, math, English literature, Renaissance Literature, Renaissance History/geography/culture. I have co-authored 5 books. I’m a Distinguished Toastmaster, but I’m still the black sheep of the family. Since Mom and Dad and one of my brothers are no longer living, the only one that knows that is me. My little brother doesn’t know I’m the black sheep.

But because I am a musician at heart, I can know and do all that other stuff. Music teaches you how to look at everything around you and to listen intently. Get your kids into music, then study it yourself. If you have a good teacher, the world will open up for you.

Everyone Dabbles

They dabble at playing guitar or piano or maybe they have dreams of fronting a band.  They dabble in crafts, papier-mache, needlework or yarn work, maybe painting cute little sayings on distressed wood.  They dabble in art, in web design, in programming, in psychology.  My Facebook is jammed up with people dabbling in Philosophy and Politics.  Seth Godin categorizes these as “Non-Dentist” jobs.  To be a dentist or someone in the law profession or medical profession, or in finance, you have to have passed a rigorous test and gotten certified by the state or the bar association.  Nobody dabbles in dentistry, yet, people still dabble in law, medicine, and finance!  REALLY????!!!!  C’mon!

I see it though.  You’re a parent and little Billy has fallen off his bike again.  You got this.  A little antibiotic ointment on the scratch and a band-aid, and he’s fine.  Your sister is married to a jerk and you tell her about her legal choices.  “No thanks, we’re fine, we do our own investing.”  Of course, they’re $20k in debt, upside down in their house, just bought a car and are wondering why they’re paying 21% on their loan.

I do not have a law degree, but I read legal documents for financial contracts.  I have a degree in finance, certified and licensed in insurance, and licensed as an Investment Adviser Representative.  I’m also certified as a John Maxwell Speaker/Trainer/Coach.  I’m a Distinguished Toastmaster.  I have a degree in Music…and 160 college hours in music and music education.  It only takes 60 college hours to get a bachelor’s in Math.  It only takes 120 hours of college credits to graduate,  I had 147.  Of those 147 hours, 80 of them were in music.  I clocked in an additional 80 hours since my BME degree.  Then, I got a 2nd degree in finance.  I’ve gotten lots of hours outside a degree program, obviously.

I’m not trying to be braggadocious, but I ask you:  How many people have that much intensive study in anything?  Why do I bring this up?  I am not a dentist.  To quote Mr. Godin again, “If you’re doing one of these non-dentist jobs, the best approach is to be extraordinarily good at it. So much better than an amateur that there’s really no room for discussion. You don’t have to justify yourself. Your work justifies you.” I am extraordinarily good at what I do.  The feeling I get from most people is that if I can do it, it must be easy.  Nobody can have that much talent, and nobody can really get that much education in multiple areas.  It must not be that hard.  

NEWS FLASH!  It is that hard.  If you are getting an education in something that people perceive as unimportant, then they will downgrade the difficulty.  We can agree that finance is important, but most people do not believe they need a degree in finance to balance their checkbook.  Most will not do enough loans to understand the nuances of those contracts.  A majority will not consider that life insurance is a priority and since it is all gobbledygook in the contract, they’ll just sign on the bottom line and trust the salesman and hope to GOD that they’ll never see the bugger again.  Since everyone lives paycheck to paycheck, and they hate the rich, and the rich are the only ones in the stock market which people regard as gambling writ large, these people that really and truly need some financial education will not seek it.

Everyone knows that music is unimportant.  It is only the background for movies and TV where the emotion is amplified by the score.  It is only the jingle you can’t get out of your head.  It is only the music that makes you want to buy more ugly sweaters at the store.  It is only one of the largest sectors in the entertainment industry.  It permeates every single second of your day whether you turn on the radio when you jump in your car or while you are on interminable hold on the phone.  If someone happens to be good at music, it’s because they have “talent.”  Talent gets your toe in the door.  It takes enormous amounts of work to be good as a teacher or performer.  It’s like the duck parable:  calm and serene on the surface and pedaling like crazy underneath.  People who are really good at music have to make an effort to make what they do look effortless.

Do you know scales?  There are 12 major scales.  There are 3 minor scales associated with each major scale (Natural, Harmonic and Melodic minors).  You have to be able to play or sing any of these without having to concentrate.  That’s 48 scales.  There is a chord that is associated with each pitch in the scale, and inversions of each chord.  Then there are augmentations such as adding a 7th degree, or a 9th degree, or up to or even beyond a 13th degree, and then there are alterations like flatting or sharping one or more of the degrees of the scale, and not only do you have to be able to play them, you must recognize them when you see them in the music and know what they sound like before you hear them.  That’s just the reading part.  Oh, and there are various voicings to each chord too.

Can you match a pitch regardless of the instrument you’re playing?  Oh, and by the way, oboe, bassoon, flute, trombone and tuba read C in music and it sounds C when they play.  French horn reads C and it sounds like F, Saxophone reads C and it sounds either Eb or Bb,  as does Clarinet.  And the fingerings for low register clarinet are different than the upper register.  Trumpet and Clarinet read C and it sounds Bb.  Given this diversity in pitch and fingerings, can you improvise a counter melody or a harmony without seeing the music?  Can you tell the difference between Frank Zappa and Tchaikovsky by sound?  If you are in a group, can you tell which individual is singing or playing out of tune and whether they are sharp or flat–high or low?  Can you tell, if they sound sharp, if it is the actual pitch or the pronunciation of the vowel and the timbre that makes it sound out of tune?  Can you apply the awareness you have gained in listening and performing music to any other area of life?  Of COURSE!  So do all musicians have that awareness outside of music?  OF COURSE NOT!!

It is assumed that if you are majoring in music, you take Algebra I in math and very basic English classes.  You are a musician after all, and these things are beyond you.  You have more important things to do…like practice and study your scales!  People always assume that if you’re a musician, you don’t have any interests outside of music.  In fact, most musicians couldn’t give a flying…well fill in your own word here…about math or English.  And yet, the awareness I transfer from music to the world around me connects dots that no one else can connect.  I can see the Stock Market as a large orchestra.  I see the study of sociology as a macro of a choir.  I see composition as an allegory to metaphysics.  Am I now interested in sociology (and therefore statistics), investment in both the technical analysis and the trend marketing, and the study of physics and religion as extensions of my music studies?  Of Course!  So yes, I have studied all those things.  Would being a musician be helpful if I wanted to be a dentist?  or an architect? or a rocket scientist?  More than you’d think!

But music is not important.  Therefore none of the information I have gathered and synthesized is of any use, so I am dismissed as just a musician.  I guess you could say that I’m extraordinarily good at things everyone else dabbles in.  Being extraordinarily good at something that is unimportant is not an advantage.  Truth be told, if you were to ask anyone, it is a useless thing to be good at.

Flying Fingers CW

Evelyn Miller.  I haven’t thought of her in years!  She was my neighbor in my formative years and from the time I was 12 until we moved, she was my knitting mentor.  She knitted traditional style, throwing the yarn with her right hand.  She knit a coat with 5 different types and colors of yarn.  It was amazing…and heavy!  Her fingers flew!

After we moved, I learned how to knit continental style holding the yarn in my left hand.  I have to be careful the type of yarn I knit with now because certain brands are not much more than acrylic rope.  This means that I get rope burns on the back of my finger.  It is rather annoying.  My specialties are Aran patterns and Fair Isle patterns.  I can do this while watching TV or just sitting watching kids play.  The hardest part is establishing the 1st row of the pattern.  My fingers fly…1st class on the Concorde.

I have a friend that does American Sign Language for guest speakers and such.  It’s like choreography for the hands!  So beautiful to watch!  Her fingers also fly.

My mother taught music for nearly all her adult life, and her favorite composers were Bach, Chopin and Brahms.  When she played Bach’s Inventions, her hands flew!  In fact if you watch any type of instrumentalist, there are songs that require phenomenal technique and their hands have to fly.  I remember playing in a pit orchestra and we were doing Man of La Mancha, Caberet, Carousel, and Hello Dolly and I tell you there were some songs in there that when you finished, you’d worked up a sweat!  I love watching especially Eddy Van Halen because he’s having fun when he’s playing, and Bella Fleck because who knew you could play Debussy on the banjo?!  (I’m sorry you couldn’t see him actually play this.  But you can hear him.)  Then there’s this guy!

So many people’s fingers fly.  They are amazing to watch because it is so beautifully graceful and expressive in just the movement.  Pay attention to the way people’s hands move when they talk, when they dance, when they play an instrument, when they type, when they play their instruments.  Be in awe!  What a piece of work is man!

Bravery

“There are so many ways to be brave in this world. Sometimes bravery involves laying down your life for something bigger than yourself, or for someone else. Sometimes it involves giving up everything you have ever known, or everyone you have ever loved, for the sake of something greater.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes it is nothing more than gritting your teeth through pain, and the work of every day, the slow walk toward a better life.

That is the sort of bravery I must have now.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.”
― Mary Tyler Moore

I’m tired of being brave.  I don’t want to be brave anymore.  I want to crawl into my room, turn off the lights and cry.  I don’t want the ‘poor baby’s and the ‘it will be alright’s.  I don’t want to put on the mask of ‘I’ll be fine.’ I don’t want to just get up and face tomorrow like nothing’s wrong.  My broken hip hurts.  My muscles in my legs cramp.  My shoulders hurt and my hands have 2″ wide callouses on the heels.  I can sleep in 2 positions.  It hurts to stand up, it hurts to sit, it hurts to lie down.  It hurts to move my leg and it hurts not to move my leg.

I finally got in to see the orthopedic doctor.  I was escorted into the x-ray room, and the tech took the pictures.  This was MUCH better than the last time I had x-rays done.  I then waited in the little room.  I heard the doctor outside my door.  “Well, let’s see how Rebecca is…OH MY GOD!  Do you see all the appliances she has in there?  And she WALKED in here?”  Then he walked into the room.  “So?  How are you feeling?”  I hurt.  I was expecting that.  “I have your x-rays here.  Were all those done on this recent operation?!!!”  No.  The replacement was done at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN about 1993.  The joint material had a chemical reaction and weakened the bone and it broke along the spike, so I had Kevin Garvin operate on it here in Omaha in 1999.  Luckily, he didn’t have to replace the appliance, just replace the joint material.  That was the 2nd operation on this hip.  Then I fell in Orlando and that’s when they added the web clamp you see here.  (We were comparing before and after pictures on my phone.)

“Are you taking any pain meds?”  No, those ran out weeks ago and were not refillable.  On a scale of 1-10, it’s an annoying 2, and depending on the activity, it spikes to a 4.  “Who drove you here?”  I drove myself. (A look of disbelief crosses his face.)  “How much weight can you put on your leg?”  Let me show you.  I stood up and with help balancing on my crutches, I put about 60% of my weight on it.  “Ok, just continue to just put touch pressure on it.  I worry about breaking that complicated machine that is in your leg now.”  It’s not complicated, it’s a metal web clamp secured by screws.  “This is way beyond my expertise.  I’m going to refer you to a hip trauma doctor for you to see next month.

A nurse came in and told me which doctors they were referring me to for my follow-up follow-up.  (Yes, I used the word twice.)  Then she said, “You’re the one–the one with the hardware store in your leg.”  Yes.  “The whole office is talking about you.”  Good to know.  Why do I keep hearing this in my head?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47Hz4vvQ2I Why do they have the automatic door buttons on the opposite side of the door they open?  There are times I can’t hit the button and get to the door before it closes!

So my orthopedic doc is having a heart attack after looking at my x-rays, telling me that he’s amazed that I can walk, let alone drive.  And yet, I am to continue my life as if this condition with my hip is just an inconvenience.   Well it’s a heck of an inconvenience.  Getting out of bed in the morning requires balance and timing now.  Getting into and out of the shower is a major accomplishment.  Stairs are much slower.  Opening doors and keeping them open long enough to enter takes coordination:  Pull open the door quickly so it continues to open after you put your hand back on the crutch.  Move the crutch into a position on the ground so the rubber end catches the door before it closes. Shoulder the door so you can move the crutch to a new blocking position, while edging further into the doorway with the other crutch.  Shoulder the door again moving both crutches in, and block the door from smacking you in the back side by placing the heel of your good leg just outside the door frame.  Clear the door way. Getting in and out of the car is always a series of steps, and hoping the crutches don’t fall down onto the pavement before you need them.  I fear wet floors in bathrooms.  I can’t cook because I cannot move food to and from the refridge to the counter or the stove.  If I microwave something, I can’t move the plate to the table.  I can’t carry a bottle of water, or a cup of coffee.  I can wash dishes, but I can’t put them away.  I can’t do laundry.  I can’t vacuum.  Looks like I’m confined to crutches for at least another month.

But I have lessons to give, a conference over the weekend where I help with one activity, and then am in charge of another.  So I do these things, and do “work-arounds” to compensate for my crutches and the pain.  Thank God I have an amazing husband that picks up the slack when he’s home.  He cooks for me, does laundry, and helps keep me organized and (fairly) sane.  But most people assume that because I put on a good face and make light of things that I have no pain, that I’m OK.  This is me being brave.  I don’t want to be, but I have to be.

the Fatal Flaw

I tend to go to these super-hero movies.  I don’t know why, but I love the action.  These are people who by accident are placed in a position where they either play the hero or don’t.  If they don’t play the hero, there are no comics or graphic novels or movies about them and they go about their merry way not saving the world.  But if their planet has been blown up and they accidently land in a field in Kansas, or they’re with their parents and have to leave early and accidently get lost and the parents are murdered, or if they accidently get bitten by a spider, or shocked or come from a different dimension or whatever and see a need that they uniquely can fill and risk all to fulfill their destiny, they get franchises!  They all have that 1 fatal flaw.  It might be kryptonite, or a girlfriend, or the fact that they’re human and need interaction with others, or the fact that every freakin movie Spidey removes his mask to someone else… (by the way, why bother to wear a mask if you take it off all the time?) or the Green Arrow gets caught in lies because he believes his city is the most important thing in his life and feels he cannot honestly deal with the people he loves or who love him.  Here’s the thing:  They all have someone that reminds them what their fatal flaw is and helps them to work within its bounds.  It could be a side kick, a butler, their nemesis, a friend they confide in (not telling them that they are that weird dude or dudette in the spandex of course).

What if you have a fatal flaw and don’t know what it is?  What if you have prepared and studied and worked to fill a unique slot and there isn’t one?  What if all you know is that despite your best efforts, your talents and your preparation, there is something that keeps you from achieving your goals?  What if you go to the gym, get a trainer, religiously do your work outs, log every morsel that goes into your mouth (I had a cinnamon roll, coffee, chicken salad with low-fat dressing, a piece of fish small enough you have to eat it with tweezers, asparagus, a gnat and 2 boogers) and you GAIN weight?  What if you get every financial license known to man, are wise in every financial philosophy, have the most advanced tools and analysis available, and no one wants your help?  What if you’ve gone beyond what is required for your degree to study the arts and sciences beyond your field of expertise and are now referred to as a Know-it-all?  What if you play every instrument and sing and have perfect pitch and you get fired for trying to teach these skills?  What if you become an expert speaker and no one wants to hear what you have to say?  And what if you have no sidekick, no nemesis, no friend, no mentor to tell you what your flaw is?  You look for a common thread through all the failures, and it’s you.  But you don’t know what’s wrong.  You read every self help book, go to counseling, study your bible…

Then you throw up your hands and say I’m not meant for a unique slot… I’m meant for a very large, rather smelly hole.  Then you gleefully go about your life not saving the world!

but….

What if you happen to know that the world needs your particular set of skills?  Maybe I’m the side kick, maybe I’m the hero.  I look ghastly in spandex…  If You’re the hero, take me along!  I can help!  If you’re the sidekick come along and we can take down this monster together.  Maybe you can clue me in on this fatal flaw that I have that tends to turn everything I do into disaster.  Wait!  Where are you going?  Come back!!!!

treadmill 30 min  mystery hike