The problems aren't so great that they can't be overcome.

Izze rocks. The problems?

-Deciding which flavor is the best (I lean towards blackberry or grapefruit)
-It's on the expensive side
-It's impossible to find anywhere in 12-packs

Yes: This is my state. These are my people.

Quote of the Moment: Turkish Coffee

"If you're unfamiliar, [Turkish coffee] is the kind of coffee that coffee would drink for breakfast. Imagine Cuban coffee on crack which is like regular coffee on crack so essentially Turkish coffee is coffee to the second power. You could use it for jet fuel. (Actually, drink enough and you wouldn't even need a plane to take flight.)"

-Jen Lancaster

It is not broken.

The podiatrist confirmed yesterday that my foot is not broken, just very badly sprained. And even though she said it may take four to eight weeks to fully heal, I can start rowing again (lightly) next week. I am happy about that.

Also, I start physical therapy on Tuesday. We'll see how that goes. I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt. In the meantime, per doctor's orders, I've started to "write" the ABCs with my foot to start getting more range of motion out of my ankle. Right now, it looks more like I've started with punctuation marks than the ABCs.

It was a tough weekend. Our team did really well at the NWIRA championship regatta at Lake Elmo on Friday and Saturday, and I'm extremely proud of my teammates, but it was hard being there and not being able to row.

Things I love lately:
-Jeopardy
-Hell's Kitchen
-Night Soldiers by Alan Furst
-Wooden Path
-Wearing real shoes...on BOTH feet!






Things I dislike lately:
-Blood pooling near my toes as I began to wear real shoes again, causing more bruising (ok, I think I'll always hate that one, not just lately)
-Not being able to row
-Humidity
-Sitting through multiple meetings on the exact same topic, hearing the same thing over and over and over and over...all while my foot swells up because I'm sitting too long.

Row, row, row your boat on Lake Elmo

Row, row, row your boat on Lake Elmo - TwinCities.com

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Tuesday: Look, Mom! No hands!

I'm off crutches today, and am free to move about the country...well, maybe just my apartment and between my parking garage and office. I don't want to overdo it, but am ecstatic that I can use my hands for something other than hobbling around. Also: my hands hurt, so they are in full support of this move.

Today is the first day I've been able to move my foot off its elevated perch and it's not throbbed incessantly from blood circulating in the foot and ankle regions. This is a huge improvement, especially since I'm pretty sure that that whole circulation and swelling thing has hurt more the last week than the actual injury (which, not gonna lie, was pretty bad).

I am so grateful that for 99.2% of my life (yes, I actually added up how old I am and how many injuries I've had over the years and how long it's taken me to recover from each of the few I've had - I am really that bored), I have been whole and able-bodied. I am thankful that I've had such a healthy life with very few injuries, and pray that I don't have any more. Any. Time. Soon. please.

And since I'm well on my way to recovery, I hope to post about things other than my foot and ankle in the near future. It's really starting to bore me, and I can't imagine how bored of it you guys are. But thank you for tuning in to my progress.

Random Thoughts: Monday edition

Today it looks like I was so bored, I played with a yellow highlighter all over my leg and foot. Rest assured, this is not the case.
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To my rowing coach: please do not send people over to break my tennis racquet. Friend and tennis partner Emily already stole all my tennis balls (and she doesn't even row!), and one never knows when one will need to use a tennis racquet as a cane.
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I am glad that I don't drive a manual transmission car right now. Also: apparently my left foot is finally getting the idea that braking is not the same as putting the clutch in (and I am no longer in danger of whiplash). Somehow it took a while for that instinct to go away, even though it's been years since I last drove a stick.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Esteemed Colleagues, Family, Friends, Well Wishers, Gawkers.

My foot has jaundice. The jaundice is eating its way upwards and has also taken over my entire ankle and part of my shin.

Oh, wait. That would just be the bruises turning weird colors. Also, I now have a purple middle toe. I have no idea how that happened, but it started yesterday.
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Ways to entertain yourself on a Saturday afternoon: Ella. Maybe it's just because of my recent boredom and constant threat of insanity because of the boredom, but I was vastly entertained by it. So, if you, too, have been staring at a wall for several days and the most exciting thing that's happened to you is replacing an ice pack, I recommend you go see it, too.

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It's way easier and more balance-y going up stairs with crutches than down stairs.
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This place came highly recommended, and now I know why: Be'wiched is delish. Their baguettes remind me of Paris, as does the ham, brie and delicious baked apple-y mostarda that comes on top of their ham sandwich. Also, I ate salad there, and I'm pretty sure that I was eating weeds. But they were tasty weeds!

(Again, maybe this just means I need to get out more.)

Ambulatory v. Ambulance

My brother and niece came to visit me last night. I'm glad someone likes my crutches (besides Brad, our research assistant at work who would like to use them in races around the office where everyone gets a chance to be timed and someone will come out the winner). The niece really loved trying to suck on the rubber part of the crutches (she's getting more teeth in; apparently it's a great ginormous teething ring). Also: even though I gum the crutches less, she can walk better than me.
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I am glad to get in to work each day this week, even if only for a few hours at a time. I'm grateful that my boss and co-workers are so understanding, and don't make fun of me too much. Also: I would go stark raving mad if I couldn't get out a few hours each day.
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So since gaining adulthood, I've tried to be all Ben-Franklin-mature and not put things off until tomorrow when I can do them today. For example, I was exhausted on Saturday morning after practice and still had to go do a million things that day, but for some reason, I decided to quickly clean my bathroom in between stuff instead of just sitting down like I really wanted to do. And now I'm glad I did that, because there is no chance of me cleaning a bathroom right now. Even the thought of attempting to clean a bathroom is comical to me. So maybe that whole responsibility thing is a good thing, and I should always attempt to get my work done before playing, just in case I can neither work nor play because of stupid crutches and ankles that can't take weight.
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New roommate K is awesome. I've officially decided she may stay, particularly when she made me dinner last night!
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And finally, today the swelling is much better and I no longer have the desire to take a hacksaw to my foot and just chop the thing off. I can even see where my ankle is supposed to be (even if it's not really that visible yet). I am grateful for the small improvements I see each day.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Rear Window

Tuesday: Slight signs of improvement. Although my skin did swell up a lot, and for a while it felt like something was going to rip out of my skin all Alien style, but without the actual alien. (Today, Wednesday, it feels a lot better.)

As one of the guys at work said, at least I just gave myself a pedicure, so if nothing else, my toenails look pretty in all these pictures.


So Jaymie gave me something to do that will help me out with 1) using all my spare time, and 2) meeting my goal of 6 million Lego. In my own Lego home of the future, I can now have a replica of the MN State Capitol in it, and the good news is I now only need an estimated 5,999,905 more Lego to complete the project.


Old roommate K and her soon-to-be-husband B sent me a birthday gift, which has really just turned into a convalescence care package. I'm sure it was vastly entertaining for the flies on the wall to watch me get the box up to my third floor apartment (even with that elevator - woohoo! Love the elevator these days). I don't know why I bothered to try to get it upstairs, except when I put the key in to where they hold boxes for the residents, I couldn't get the key back out, so I had to take the box, and there was not a soul around from whom I could beg assistance. But there was a handy dandy little hole in the box, so I just made it bigger, stuffed it on my finger like a Chinese finger trap and went on my merry way, box banging against the crutches. I'm glad that when I finally opened it, there weren't small shards of glass or a small kitten to be found, but instead many tootsie rolls and some lotion, which made me very happy. Thanks, K and B!


So this is my view these days. It's totally rear window, except I fall asleep. And besides, the only digging going on outside is the landscapers replacing rock with red cedar chips. Pretty sure they aren't burying any bodies. Although I do sort of relate to this right about now, since a) they can't get me in to see a podiatrist to determine if I definitely do or don't have a hairline fracture until August 25th; and b) I am missing summer and all the cool things that go with it.

One final thought: I'm in pretty good shape. With these horrid crutches, I get winded walking down a hallway. I don't know how people who are not exercising all the time immediately before their injuries can handle getting around on crutches.

This Is Your Life: Monday

Hmmm. Radiology wants to see me this week.

Apparently there's an "irregularity" in my x-ray, and they want to make sure I don't have a hairline fracture in my ankle.

Also, they want me to go in and get crutches this afternoon and check out the brace thing I have and potentially replace it with a bigger, better (read: uglier) boot.

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In other news: I love Kona coffee. I love the scent, taste, everything about it. I love how it warms me up and makes my little heart go pitter pat, pitter pat. (Although that could just be the caffeine that makes my little heart go all aflutter.)

I should stick with what I know.

And obviously I know nothing about tennis...or better yet, warming up. My friend Emily and I had just started to play, and basically I was still in the warm-up phase when I landed funny on my right foot while returning a ball. I wasn't going after it hard, I wasn't jumping that high, I wasn't twisting weirdly, nothing. I landed funny. My ankle didn't twist, nothing like that - just came down at the perfectly wrong angle to make this the shoe I will be wearing for the next few days:

It was a total freak thing, and I had just been telling Emily that I was not sure tennis was a good sport for me since I'm so bad at it, today wasn't going to be a lesson in how one plays tennis, and that I should just stick with something I know better...like rowing. And boom. This happened.

Within about 1 minute, 47.3 seconds, my ankle bone swelled up to about twice it's natural size until it looked like my ankle ate a tennis ball from off the court. Other than about 20 minutes of nausea and a bit of pain (that I'm not taking anything for), I was and am still in good spirits. I refused the crutches and would rather hobble around without added armpit pain since I can walk in my little boot thing.

For all you rower friends out there who read this, my doctor and x-ray tech told me I still might be able to row in the regatta a couple weekends from now, and I might even be able to practice lightly by the end of this week. We'll see. I'm praying hard that this is the case.

Also, I will not be playing tennis again any time soon.

Random Musing.

So, if you are supposed to dress for the job you want, should you eat for the person you want to be? 'Cause if that's true, then yesterday i wanted to go back to elementary school (PB&J, fruit snacks, and chocolate milk twice). I don't know what today is: from breakfast alone, I'd be a bodybuilder/hippie/sugar addict (protein drink, yogurt and fruit, brownies and mini pastries). And there is still plenty of time left in the day.

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I got my new driver's license. It doesn't have a great picture, and they even let me look at it at DVS and asked if I liked it. I just didn't care. So. Not a great picture. In the words of roommate K, "Did they tell you not to smile?" It kind of looks like I'm British and embarassed of my teeth, yet I'm still kind of smirking (the smirk is unintended, but it's my usual DL facial expression).
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Happy birthday, Jaymie.
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Rather than attend a staff meeting this morning on a refresher on how to transfer people on the telephone (really?), one fellow co-worker in my department called another, and then we just transferred each other around the department for the fun of it. And it took about 19 seconds total, instead of however long the real meeting is lasting.
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Happy birthday, Ben M.
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Why? Why, indeed.

Lego of Reality

I recently discovered David Thorne. Although not one to always use very genteel language, he's hilarious. Here's what he has to say about how he's building a house out of Lego (I was informed earlier this summer that Lego is not pluralized by adding an "s").

"I have been collecting Lego blocks for nearly four years now as I intend to build my own home. I currently have exactly 1,692,008 blocks of various sizes and only need another 4,836,029 to complete plans of constructing a four bedroom home with sunken lounge and indoor swimming pool. Prior plans to build a home from seawater were abandoned due to physics. The advantages of using lego blocks over traditional building methods, in regards to durability and gaiety of colour, are without question. The only issues are finding a block of land that has a flat green plastic base and gaining council approval but that should not prove a major obstacle as my local member of parliament...is not adverse to a bribe."

Upon reading this, I realized something. If you really want to be your great American self, all while living in a castle like some European, yet don't want to do it in the usual way like all your neighbors, the best way to do it would be to build your very own life-sized Lego castle, complete with drawbridge. I mean, it would really only take a few million of them, right?

If you'd like to read more of his hilarious emails and other stories, you may find them here, but I leave you with this caveat: if you're averse to four letter language, don't visit the site.

See? Starting to look more like home already.

No. That is not an orange wall. After my last apartment, I said no more orange walls. This is "Chili Pepper Red." Apparently we are two years behind the color industry. Also, we have added one half-full paint can to our living room as a conversation piece, and I'm thinking we should name it "Chili Pepper Red Paint Can on 12"x12" Plastic" and leave it there for the foreseeable future.

How Iowegians Celebrate Birthdays

Photo courtesy of Kent, crazy person. (Also, my friend, and one of the only ones I can think of who would willingly spend his birthday this way.)

July is over. August is now here for our enjoyment.

I guess that means my birthday celebrations are about done, too. It was a fantastic birthday. Besides Broders' and the facial, other events included:-Getting a specially requested birthday gift from my dad (yay! He found me a red metal tool box. I know, I'm a dork. But I really wanted a red metal one!)
-Eating birthday doughnuts with co-workers at work
-Celebrating with really cool boat club people (eating MB's brownies and Wuollet's snickerdoodles at 7am? Works for me!)
-Going out to lunch with the new roomie (um: yes. I WILL have more mac'n'cheese at noodles and co., thank-you-very-much)
-Eating a birthday present from a co-worker: a bag of starburst jelly beans (well, that took a couple days)
-Going to dinner at Burger Jones, and eating the "White Trash Burger," a deliciously horrible burger that may have taken off a year of my life with its chicken fried bacon, fried cheese curds and velveeta on it. Anyway, it was rather tasty but left me no room for dessert (ok, the jelly beans earlier on the birthday may have qualified as dessert, but it's candy, and not a malt with nutella in it)
-Keeping the any-excuse-to-go-out party going on Friday with pizza at Black Sheep, where adding cracked green olives to a meatball and ricotta pizza is definitely the way to go
-Also, there was cheesecake on Friday, provided to me by 18-month-old twins (who also provided me with great entertainment that morning)

And then on to August. To begin the month of August out right, it was time for another bridal shower for my (now-old) roommate K, this one a brunch at Cosmos at the Graves Hotel in Mpls. Crab cakes benedict? Um, yes, please.

Kari and me

The three sisters, L, K and A

Amy and me

Kari - I'm going to miss you! but I'm glad you and Ben are finally tying the knot.

So in case you really wondered what it is I do every day at the crack of dawn, here's your answer.

As much as it really makes me cringe to watch this video of myself, it shows me that I really need to work on my finishes (that's when the oar comes out of the water). Really.