So here we are on September 22 September 23, and I have not written anything since the 9th, when I was in Denver for Ethan & Megan’s wedding. Which was a lot of fun – here’s my favorite picture. The DJ did a trick to get everyone onto the floor, and I took a few picture before I joined them. In this one Megan and her mom are looking at each other.
Other stuff we did while we were out there included a trip to the Denver Art Museum, after a breakfast of empanadas at Maria Empanada (as seen on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives). We also got ice cream at the giant milk can near Linger, a kind of hipster small plates place about 2 blocks away from our airbnb that we’ve been to a few times, just not this trip. The restaurant is in a little strip mall with a health club and I think some other business, with some stairs going up, and there was a pile of puke near the bottom of the stairs, at a spot where I guess none of the businesses felt it was their responsibility, but I was ready to clean it up myself when it was still there at the end of the weekend.
Mark’s picture of me taking a picture of the Claes Oldenburg outside the Denver Art Museum
My cone at Little Man ice cream – raspberry peach sorbet over vanilla. 20 mins. in line on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but was worth it.
My health app in the iPhone says I walked something like 16,693 steps that day, around 7 miles, which I have just learned wasn’t good for my bad knee.
I finally got to see the physical therapist on Wednesday and I got a sheaf of exercises & stretches (now also in my phone) and a brace and instructions to take time-release Tylenol, instead of the Advil that was making my blood pressure go up. I wore the brace on Wednesday and biked to work and home, and I also wore it Thursday and went for my regular 45 minute walk to Colectivo with Susan. And by the end of Thursday I was just about crippled and in pain. My leg hurt more than it ever had.
What was not clear to me from the aftercare instructions I got from the PT visit was that I am supposed to be resting my knee. Today Mark and I were going to go to Chicago and see a symphony matinee and then meet up with John & Megan for dinner and stay over and maybe get breakfast at Little Goat on Saturday morning, in honor of Mark’s birthday that will be Sunday. I was all packed and getting dressed with about 5 minutes to go before we needed to leave, and Mark suggested that I just stay home and rest the knee. Which I was super unhappy about at first, and of course I unkindly thought that he just wanted me to stay home because I’d slow him down, but in the end I think it was all for best. I wouldn’t have been comfortable anywhere, and the hotel was pretty spendy.
I cancelled everything and I called PT and they told me Mark was right – I do need to rest the knee. I’m on a program of no walks longer than 15 minutes and no biking until I go back to PT October 7. No yoga either – just the exercises & stretches they gave me. So I think that means I can drive to work and the Farmers Market and the co-op and the grocery store and walk small distances there. And I’m allowed to swim. I got website errors trying to check the West Y pool schedule on my phone but I’ll try on a real computer and see if that works better.
I was going to go out and do a little grocery shopping for the recipe testing I’m doing for DCFM anniversary cookbook that Terese is editing – I still have a pot roast and a cheese soup and a turmeric tea to test – bu I guess I’ll just do it tomorrow. Celebrate the first day of my confinement by being confined to the house. It’s kind of cloudy and chilly anyways. I haven’t been wearing the brace though. It just sems to make everything hurt more. I think it might be an instrument of torture.
I did a bunch of grading and attended a meeting that I thought I would miss and also spent some time lying down with my leg wrapped up in a heating pad and reading a detective novel in my phone – Susan has got me hooked on the Elly Griffiths Ruth Galloway books, and I love them.
I’ve read The Lantern Men, and The Night Hawks, and I’m working on The Stone Circle. These are all recent ones; I have the newest one The Locked Room, and earlier ones, The Janus Stone, The Crossing Place, and #1 The Crossing Places, on hold.
And what else – I did the recipes for CSA last week and my big home made one was pizza, crust and sauce. The one I made with fresh tomatoes in the picture was a little soggy on the bottom but was good reheated. I also put two of the crusts together for a bigger thicker crust and topped it with pizza sauce and sausage and peppers and goat cheese and pizza cheese (provolone and mozzarella mixed) and that one was really good.
And what else – I’m going to go put the squashes I got in CSA this week – and one I picked up at the food pantry on Tuesday – in to roast for a light dinner for my no-exercise self. And I think I’ll make batch of the Ovens of Brittany Sour Cream Apple Pie Bars, a.k.a. SCAP because I do have lots of apples.
But I kinda feel like going and lying down again with Ruth Galloway.