A lazy start to a Monday

I didn’t get out of bed until 7:30 on Monday and didn’t get logged on to my work computer until almost 11:00.

This week in my crutch weaning program, I’m at no crutches in the house and starting short walks of about 5-10 minutes w/o crutches OK on Tuesday. I was going to go back to work in the office on Monday but started having a lot of pain again, that could’ve been caused by my pretty active weekend, and decided to be completely WFH another week. Hence the lazy start.

This post is having a lazy start start, too – I started it Monday and finishing up Wednesday when I am again working in PJs, although I did get out of bed much earlier tofay, and Tuesday too, for that matter. And it’s International Womens Day.

I’m on my own today – Mark went to Chicago to see a CSO rehearsal. I guess they’re letting in small time donors like us for the rehearsals – it used to be more exclusive.  Anyways it’s at 10:00 AM so Mark left last night. My plan for the morning was to get up and do Mark’s chores (make the bed, feed the cat, open the blinds) and mine (open the blind, turn the porch lights off, bring in the newspaper, empty the dish drainer and put stuff away, take meds, make coffee), then do my non-weight-bearing exercises. Then get out the sourdough that’s rising downstairs in the fridge and shape it and get it rising in the cast iron pot it’ll get baked in. Actually pots because I think I’ll make a big and a small this time. And not get sidetracked and forget the bread like I did yesterday with the whole wheat, spelt, and buckwheat loaf that I forgot and let rise too long. See below. I think most of its flatness is related to being baked in too big of a pot – but still, it’s not very attractive.

Then not start work right away and finish this post.

Whew, but then of course I did get sidetracked and after my combined chore list up to take meds, I came in to my computer to answer a student email and started working on the post before coffee. I’ve rectified that now. I feel like I’ve been so cooped up with the knee and observing and thinking and no one to talk to – then when I do get someone to talk to I just talk about the damn knee and forget to share anything else. So you get it, dear reader. With a lot of damn knee talk still in there.

So the weekend: On Friday there was this cookies & coffee thing at work to meet two possible new faculty members. I took my vegan gingersnaps, made large to be chewy. After that I went grocery shopping by myself for the first time since crutches and that was probably too much lifting. I was buying groceries for a Sunday make ahead brunch cooking class, and the (not very friendly, I have to say) checker at the co-op put my two bottles of Prosecco for mimosas in one bag.

Saturday was WI Film Fest volunteer training. I drove to my parking lot under H.C. White Hall and crutched to Vilas Hall for that. I don’t think that hurt me at all, and I even figured out how to get to the Cinematheque room, 4070 Vilas, by taking the elevator – I usually go from the outside so as not to get lost.

Also Saturday there was also a memorial and reception for the late Rebecca Blank, former chancellor at UW-Madison, who we all called Becky. I felt pretty effected by her death, because she was almost exactly a month younger than me, dammit, and I was in about a million meetings with Becky – she started as chancellor in 2013, the same time I started on the Academic Staff Executive Committee, ASEC. And she was my neighbor – my house in this historic University Heights neighborhood in Madison is right down the hill from the university-owned chancellor’s house, a big old place where where the chancellor gets to live while they’re in office. I got to go to an annual dinner there when I was on ASEC. I used to see Becky and her husband Hanns Kuttner and their daughter Emily out for walks during pandemic. At the reception I shook hands with Emily and mentioned I used to see them – and she said they went every day at noon, during that time when she was doing remote college and everyone else was doing remote work. I was on a much less regular schedule then they were of course – that’s how Becky was. They had speakers from all three parts of her career – University of Michigan, the federal government, and UW-Madison. All male and they all choked up when speaking about her. The eulogist from the federal government, Mark Doms, told us that Becky’s federal work also had several parts; working during the first Bush administration, later Clinton, and then the last most prominent part during the Obama administration when she was Under- and Deputy- and finally the Secretary of Commerce – his predecessor as Under Secretary. Anyways, he asked her about highlights of each of these stints, and for the part working during Bush the first’s administration, she said, “That’s when I met Hannsie” (her husband). That got the biggest laugh – asking a woman with this incredible career about part of it and the best thing she can say is that’s when I met my husband.

Mark dropped me off at First Congregational where the service was, then I walked to Union South – only about 5 mins. I don’t think that hurt me either.

Then the Orange Tree cooking class was Sunday afternoon and three hours of standing probably didn’t help. Here’re the recipes, BTW. But I still think it was the two bottles of Prosecco in one bag.

Here’re some pics sort of from the class: a double batch of the biscuit cimmy buns I made Sunday morning so there’d be something for people to eat right away in the class, that didn’t rise overnight in the fridge but they did get about 3 hours refrigerated rise time; and a set of pics of the cimmy buns I made on Monday mornong using the dough I’d mixed in class after its overnight rise.

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I never told you much about last week – Wednesday, March 1, I went over to hang out with Emma and Jasper and learn more about his schedule. I had to go get a fasting blood test first thing that I was really stressed about. The blood test was prescribed by my primary care physician, the one who got all exercised about my blood pressure and A1c back in the fall when I was more concerned about my knee. Who, IMHO, anyways, is the one that doomed me to 5 months of PT that didn’t work until I finally got x-rayed and diagnosed with the stress fracture in January. I got the first results, the A1c, while I was still with Emma and Jasper, and I’m so glad because nurse Emma looked at it and said, even though I was up .1 <grin> and I thought that the doc would yell, that overall my numbers were fine. She said I should tell the doctor that this number isn’t my baseline because I haven’t been able to exercise for the last 6 weeks – really longer, but who’s counting – and see below for my sad graph. I got the cholesterol results later Wednesday and I’m down like 30 points. Then finally Thursday AM, the “Yer Fine” message from the doc. So all my stressing was for naught. Except I do feel a lot more relaxed now.

What else – since Mark left about 11:15 to spend the night in Chicago before the CSO rehearsal, Tuesday I had kind of a single girl day, too. I met Anna for lunch at Pasture & Plenty – my first crutchless 5-minute walk around the neighborhood!  I had a ham & cheese baguette sandwich. For dinner I ate leftover taco casserole that I made one night last week using up the tortillas from our huevos rancheros breakfast, I guess two Sundays ago now. The casserole had ground turkey and turkey chorizo, but I picked out the meat layers and crisped up the tortilla and refried beans and rancheros sauce layers in the oven and it was quite tasty.

And I gathered up all the old apples in the house and made applesauce.

Oh, and Monday the 27th, the rainy day when the basement flooded, I finally got the new aerator for kitchen sink faucet so the water doesn’t come out all splashy. It’s a beautiful thing.

I’ve been ordering fancy chocolates for baking – pics to come, promise – and  got a new purse.

And Jasper was a smiley guy on March 1.

OK, off to work. I think I’m going to treat myself to a second cup of coffee. It keeps Patti productive, why not me.