The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I was just standing here eating broccoli when it occurred to me how odd both of those things are. I switched to a standing workstation a couple of months ago, and somewhere in the last year or two I've finally managed to make vegetables a part of my everyday life. I believe, but can't prove, that each of these changes has been good for my health.

So I got to wondering what else I've changed in the last few years.

( Turns out, quite a lot. )

It's Fiscal New Year's Eve here in the World's Tallest Basement--one of several key Last Times in my career.

Fiscal year-end is, as usual, a complete cluster-fuck. Frantic people trying frantically to finish financial transactions before the money goes away in this most frantic of bad fiscal years have made it Frantic City around here all day. Makes me feel so important!

Tomorrow morning--yes, Saturday--I have to be back here, nine o'clock sharp, to help guide the ceremonial closing of the books. If all goes well, we can get out by noon, whereupon I shall be free to sally forth in the too-hot sunshine and maybe go check out a couple of Pedalpalooza events. I'm considering Let's Go Bike To Queers (an LGBTQ celebration of Pride and the defeat of DOMA), at least to ride by and ding my bell (not a euphemism) in solidarity on my way to The Tiny House Tour.

Some days, I look up from my high-productivity dual-monitor computer around 5:30 and think, "How the hell am I going to get the courage to get on my bike one more time and hit the streets of downtown Portland in rush hour?" So far I always have, so I think, "You know, I'm pretty brave!"

And then I go and read about the Afghan Women's Cycling Team, and withdraw my own courage credentials.

( The kickass ladies of Kabul )

Tomorrow evening, when I'm pedaling in the polite (and incidentally mostly-flat, nearly-sea-level, and entirely paved) streets of Portland, where my most troubling hazard is the occasional out-of-state driver who doesn't understand about sharing the road, I'm gonna be counting my blessings instead of congratulating myself on my courage.

Note: There is, of course, a documentary being made. Good blog with some great photos I didn't want to borrow or hotlink here.

Crossposted to bicycles

Last night a goodish storm of the south-wind-and-drenching-rain variety knocked most of the leaves off most of the trees around here.

It didn't dampen the Occupy spirit, however, and though the Occupiers have been evicted from the backyard of the World's Tallest Basement (aka my place of employment), they've continued to march and chant every day in the downtown streets. The police so far have presented a vigilant and sort of rigidly non-violent presence alongside the marchers.

In a peculiarly Portland moment, I was riding westward across the bike-and-pedestrian-only lower deck of the Steel Bridge this morning while a very vocal Occupy protest more or less blocked the upper car deck. A guy had stationed himself about mid-span on the lower deck and was bangin' with drumsticks on the bridge railing and a couple of pots. He was keeping time with the rhythmic chanting of the protesters above. Cyclists, including me, were ringing their bike bells in time to the percussion as they sailed past. It had a kind of gleeful, sonic solidarity to it.

It's been colorful. ( Here are some images. )

Friends, theater, bike rides, sunshine, moonlight, food, shopping, Janis Joplin, and Madonna Vs Gaga: It's been a fantastic day!

After Zumba, I rode up to my sister's house, where her best friend, visiting for the weekend from Seattle, was out on the porch. "Oh. My. God!" the BFF practically shouted. "You look fabulous!" (She went on in this vein long enough to convince me that I really, really do look much different than when she last saw me, more than a year ago--which was gratifying and discomfiting in equal measure.)

My sis, her boyfriend, her friend and I all got on bikes and rode in the lovely cool sunshine the four miles to Portland Center Stage to see "Janis," a new play about Janis Joplin. It was an interesting and uneasy melding of rock concert and theater, in need of some serious rewriting before going to the big time, but rousing and musically satisfying enough that we all left the theater in a state of enthusiasm, which only began to dissipate as we sat over dinner an hour later and began to dissect it.

The city center had a carnival air, since the tired and dreary old Rose Festival reached its parade-y climax today and a whole lotta people were in the streets who don't really get how to be in the streets. (One is...persnickety about these things.) It was lively, though, and people on foot in the streets are a good thing, even neophyte pedestrians.

A bit later we took the good friend shopping--also by bike, since she was game to keep going--and wound up having another dinner, outdoors on the sidewalk at Pambiche: Cuban delicacies until the sun went down and the moon was bright.

On the way home we encountered a massive phalanx of bicycles on NE 18th--lit up in the dark, pinging their bells, playing music, and blocking the entire street. It's Pedalpalooza! And this was the Gaga Vs Madonna Mobile Dance Party. Participants, dressed as their favorite diva, were just voting as we squeezed past them. Madonna won, and they rode off to wherever they were taking their feathers and wigs and pointy bras and music.

I think the friend from Seattle was utterly charmed by the whole thing. What can I say, friend from Seattle? Portland is pretty awesome.

I went to medical school over the weekend and have diagnosed myself with piriformis syndrome.

The piriformis is a butt muscle, involved in rotating the hip. When it gets balled up and inflamed, it presses on the sciatic nerve, and when the sciatic nerve gets pressed on, your ass hurts. A lot. And your thigh, and maybe your knee and calf too.

The syndrome has been building for a few weeks, and became acute last Sunday as I was shuffling through a crowded IKEA and couldn't readily get off my feet. The pain was...significant.

The treatment I've prescribed for myself is a series of fun little stretches, some of which involve sitting on a tennis ball. I'll probably get acupuncture this week, and I expect I'll wind up at massage therapy too. Maybe some BodyTalk if I can afford it.

The cause of piriformis syndrome in my case is almost certainly bike-riding. And stress. I think I'll try giving up stress first.

( Eleanor O and the Flower Run )

Oh, and for The Eowyn Challenge, it's been slow going since I left Rivendell: nothing but crossing small streams in "empty country, rough and barren," and camping in hollows, for the last 80 miles. It's still a really long way to Moria. Thank goodness there are Trader Joe's No Name Salted Rice Cakes in my basket, huh?

We finally got a bit of snow on the ground. I woke up in the early dark to see the neighborhood all blanketed in white, and for a few minutes I entertained the idea of riding my bike to work very early, to avoid traffic and have that first commute-in-the-snow experience that I've managed to avoid so far.

So about 8:00 I get a phone call. It's my sister. "Are you riding today? I'm out in front of your house. Are you still asleep?"

Oh, I was so asleep. I was sleeping the sleep of going back to sleep because it's snowing. I was sleeping the sleep of two duvets in a cold bedroom. I was sleeping the sleep of pure white light seeping in through the blinds. "Yes," I said.

By the time I woke up for the day half an hour later, the temperature had risen and the streets were clear. The worst I had to contend with was a snowy bike and a rather chilly ride.



As usual in "bad" weather, I had the bike lanes and paths largely to myself.

My life is, on the whole, pretty awesome.

• Wonderful: Scale shows a reduction for the third day in a row
• Fabulous: For kicks I tried on a pair of Land's End straight leg jeans in size 18 tall, to measure how many more inches I would need to melt off to button them. None, apparently. I'm wearing them now.
• Not bad: this damn cold has sloped off ten times faster than it sloped on and I'm feeling mostly human today
• Very good: I came home last night to find that Leroy, the neighborhood handyman, had been by to complete a yard task that he began about a month ago, and while he was here he fixed the flat on Clyde's back tire! (Poor Clyde has been flat for a couple of months because I hate changing the rear tire). It was such an unexpected gift!

So next we're making a family excursion--sis and BF, mom--to Ikea for some kind of little shelf on which to display my Fibonacci plates. And it's not even 11:00 a.m. yet.

Excellent Saturdays FTW!