Slow Progress: Better than No Progress

Yesterday I felt like I made some headway.  The Cavalry is home, if squeaky when cold, and runs very reliably.  Starts right up, and does not protest its work.  They let us off more cheaply than they estimated, so that was a welcome relief.  It got through its emissions test with flying colors.  Now I have to get it re-registered.  Its registration expired a long time ago (didn't make sense to renew its registration when it wasn't running--but it's still insured.)

I still don't feel right, but it's only been a short time.  Just under a week.  I've got the hyper-vigilance thing going on the road.  Probably not a bad thing.  

I have to get some writing done today.  Have to.  I've been writing every day (well, more like editing every day) but it feels picky instead of, I dunno, flowy.  It's not even a zone thing.  I can get into my writing zone pretty easily.  I think I'm just impatient with my progress.  If I had several good hours in a row to devote to it ... but that's not quite it either.  I worked on one of my novels during O&A's fencing practice, and the hour flew by.  I thought it was weird that the class ended that soon, until I stood up and realized my butt was numb.  I think I'm putting in more writing time than I realize.  It's just slow going right now.  I suspect that when I'm concentrating my thinking is slower than usual.  It's not some sort of faulty perception.  It probably has everything to do with my persistent low blood pressure.  I'm sure I edit fewer pages per hour than I normally do.  This too will get better.  I just hate for so many aspects of my life to be affected by the accident.  Yet another exercise in patience, I guess.

Thanks to everyone for your encouraging words and well-wishes.  I really appreciate it.  Thanks to you I don't feel alone and at a loss.  I have all kinds of hope that everything will be all right in the end.  And it's been good for me to look on the brighter side of things.  Yay, I'm alive and relatively unhurt!  Yay, no more car payments!  Yay, I have transportation!  And especially yay for reminding me that these things happen, that I wasn't reckless or unlucky or dumb.  If anything, it sounds like I'm a late-bloomer in the whole totaled car thing.  Live and learn. 

Recovering

Recovering is kind of an odd word if you think about it.  In reference to life and living, it makes it sound as if covering is the normal state--both in the sense that you're doing everything that has to be done (or that you're doing stuff for other people, or maybe covering for yourself, but not actually doing what you want and love,) and a strange metaphorical sense that life is a facade, a cover, for something else that's more real.  Or maybe it's a combative thing--you're defended, your targets covered.  I could look at the etymology but it's more fun to speculate at this point.

Anyway, I am.  Recovering.  Dire car news is less dire than I feared.  The car repair to have a working car is not good--timing chain (it did not break, yay! but it and all its little timing chain accessories had to be replaced.)  Timing chain stuff is expensive.  The labor just to get to them and then get back out is much of the problem.  There's an old water pump along the way.  We're having that replaced too, since the DeathMobile is going to be our primary car.  

The car needs a new name.  It no longer smells like dead mouse.  I'm thinking the Cavalry, since it's coming to our rescue.  And it needs its registration renewed.  It's still insured, so no fuss with that.  Just have to get it home.  They guesstimated that would be sometime today.

My head hurts less, and my appetite has improved.  No neck pain, not much soreness, though I did discover that I hit my shoulder and elbow.  Didn't notice at the time.  Weirdly, I'm still dizzy (probably that low blood pressure) and I'm afraid to exercise.  I know, it's early, but I really do love to run.  It had been so long, and to have the accident so soon after my very first run in years ... there's no correlation in my mind as far as running caused the accident or whatever.  The fear stems from this dizziness.  What is my body telling me?  Is it saying you're getting better, you're fine so it's time to have some fun running by the river and you'll perk right up, or is it saying stuff is still wrong, you need to rest and if you push it you'll pass out?

I don't know.  If I know what's up inside me I can judge what to do.  I don't know what's causing the low blood pressure, and I don't know how far my head injuries go.  They could be just skin and a few blood vessels, or it could be something minor inside that might become a more serious problem if I push it.  I guess I just have to err on the side of caution.

My running shoes and the dog leash are by the door, waiting.  I miss them.

Captain Obvious

Yesterday I went to workout.  After some time on my favorite elliptical torture device, I went to stretch and I discovered something.  My low, low back was tender.  WTF?  I toyed with it, figuring it was just tight.  It didn't get worse with exercise, and I had no problems during my weight-lifting routine.  My physical trainer (the train part being that thing with the bright headlight that hits you when you're in the tunnel) ran me through an arm routine that made me a bit sore in the shoulders but nothing debilitating (yet.)  Not even a twinge from the back.  But sitting in the car?  OMG!  Sitting anywhere, unless I'm careful to keep a curve (toward the stomach, not hunched--that makes it worse) is painful.  

I went over my activities.  I got that furniture from IKEA, but I used equipment to move it and I used good mechanics and it wasn't even hard.  I didn't do anything weird at the test.  I took the garbage to the curb.  I vacuumed--hmm, I have a track record for doing bad things to myself while vacuuming.  But that doesn't seem right.  So I checked my IUD to make sure it hadn't started to migrate.  No, all good there.  My friend M suggested it might be back cramps.  Well, it's early for cramps, way early, and I don't get them like I used to.  Still, I took ibuprofen.  Didn't touch the pain.

So I'm telling my DH all this over the phone, and then tangentially mentioned that O and I moved the futon down to the porch the day before yesterday.  And it happened.  I had my Captain Obvious moment.  Or, to quote MST3K for "Cave Dwellers" (a classic!) "This arrow may have something to do with her pain."

Moving that futon was a bear.  It was awkward and dangerous and at one point I slipped and had to catch myself before me and the futon as one big nasty package were delivered on O downstairs from me.  Could I have tweaked my back?  Heck yeah!  I'm surprised one or both of us didn't end up in the hospital when I slipped.  (Note to self, scrub algae off of deck when feeling better.)  

I feel dumb, and yet, vindicated.  I figured it out, and I didn't hurt myself doing something innocuous like drying myself off with a towel.  (Been there, done that.  *sigh*)  I hurt myself valiantly.

I just didn't realize it at the time.  D'oh!

Chaos and Sunshine

I heard the dogs whining.  When the dogs whine, it's usually the goats or the dobies across the way.  I was in the middle of a phone call, so I dawdled, until finally I got my butt upstairs.  

Goats.  Goats everywhere.  Well, near the barn, anyway.  Gah.

I apologized to my DH and headed out in mud boots.  The so-called cunning plan was to get one dog on a leash, head out there, and herd the herd back into their enclosure, followed by an investigation to try to figure out how they got out.  Finn sat tidily and calmly, so he got the coveted leash.  Now, normally, I can squeeze through the fence and through a combination of mild expletives, snarls, barks, shouts, shoves and admonitions, I can get me and just one dog out the gate.

Not today.  

Beast rammed past me with surprising force.  The goats scattered.

Great.

I shouted at him, but the airedale is strong in this one.  Goats climbed onto the stack of straw we have on our archery range.  Goats circled and faced him off with horns.  Scooter disappeared into the barn, and Beast went after him.  A second later Scooter came out, Beast appeared to bound onto him, and Scooter went down.  And lay still.

My heart leapt into my throat, just like in the cliche'.  I managed to snag Beast.  It was like a fight, but luckily he didn't use his teeth on me.  I knew if I scared him enough, he might panic and bite.  My throat was raw and I couldn't get enough air to fuel the effort of getting a very powerful dog so he can't slip away while simultaneously getting the chain collar off another dog that's trying to help and get that collar on him.  I think it took about four minutes.  

For the record, four minutes of giving it your all sucks.  

I finally succeeded.  Finn is good with the goats, so he was fine off leash around them.  He trotted into the pasture and started a perimeter patrol.  I couldn't take Beast over to what was left of Scooter--I had to get him back to the dog run.  I couldn't get the thought out of my head.  I have to shoot my dog.

No, I'll adopt him out.  Can I do that?  I don't think so.  What if he hurt a cat, a dog ... maybe an owner with no animals, maybe if I put out a plea--

Negotiations of a desperate mind.  I got him in and started back toward the barn.

And Scooter, the little butthead, stood up.  He was fine.

Fainting goat.  He must have fainting goat in him.  He overloaded and collapsed.  He was down, oh, I don't know how long.  Four minutes?  Another long four minutes, the kind where you have death in your hands and you don't want it.

So relieved on so many levels I was on the verge of tears, I looked Scooter over.  He didn't have so much as a scratch.  He wasn't limping.  He was fine.  Beast didn't hurt him.  He didn't hurt him.  He just scared him.  It still wasn't good, but it wasn't a death sentence.

I got the goats in, still relieved by my near miss.  Next time, the good dog gets to go in through the house.  It'll be like an air lock.  If one or both get by me, they might trash the upstairs, but they won't get out to the goats.  Brian would be fine, but Beast ... Beast was born and bred to chase deer, and goats are the next best thing.

Exhausted, I gasped my way back to the house, tasting blood in my throat, trembling from adrenaline.  It took fifteen minutes or more for me to feel like I might not pass out.  My DH called back and we talked while I sipped a shot of Navan to soothe my throat, and then I went back out.

I found what I thought was the hole, plugged it, dealt with another weak area for good measure, and thought that was that.  I was filthy, smelled like wet dog, mud under my fingernails--and it was sunny and gorgeously warm, beautiful in only the way a day can be after a near miss.  Time to garden.  I planted a tree (not the Christmas tree--I'll need help to get it off the deck) and some bulbs I'd left out in the weather just before the storm (all of them except a few anemones looked good, and I bet even the really pathetic anemones will be fine too,) did some weeding, placed a couple of edging boulders, leveled a couple sections of path.  About that time the goats got out again.  This time I had help from the kids.  I managed to notice that the truck gate was leaning.  Aha!  Andrea and I got it tied back in place.  No more goat escapes.

Chaos and sunshine.  It was a very good day, but I'll be sore tomorrow.  I feel it coming on already.

Broken, not sprained, and the Rejectophile

I got a call from the girl's doc yesterday.  The radiologist saw something on the film, so she gets to go back this morning for a consult.  I don't think they'll change the splint/ibuprofen thing, but they may talk to her about what it means to have a bone break and how long she'll have to take care of it and how.  She's feeling okay, doesn't seem to have any functionality issues and she's getting around at school, which is the important part as far as I'm concerned.

In writing news, I got a swift rejection from Sword and Sorceress 23.    Sounds like it was mainly a miss by tone, or at least she didn't spend any of her time to mention any other issues.  That's great news as far as I'm concerned.  She also reminded me to keep sending it out.  I'll definitely follow that advice.

I have yet to meet (in email or in a rejection letter, or, come to think of it, face to face) a mean editor.  So, where are the heartless fiends that writers complain about?  I've definitely got to send out more stories.  I suspect that they're a rare or even a dying breed (if they ever existed) and I think I'll make it my goal to find one before they disappear altogether.

So, added to my aim to become a regularly published author and my goal to keep adding to my rejection collection (does that make me a rejectophile?) I'm adding a quest to find a mean editor.  My quest will be especially hard because I'm only going to be submitting to paying markets and focusing on ones that pay professional rates, but I guess every quest has its limitations.  Sometimes when you're looking for Aztec gold you can afford to go to Guatemala but not necessarily Belize or any other central American country.  Also, I won't count any meanness that results from baiting, so I can only submit professional, polite cover letters.

I have a feeling this is going to be a tough quest. 

Doctor and Vet bills mounting

Another beautiful day in paradise.

I was out taking pics of the garden and I'd planned on getting to take some more of birds that come visit the feeder.  I'd just taken this pic of a mutant double tulip (the double flower is normal--but the two large flowers together come from the same stem, and that's not normal) when the phone rang.

It's my mom.  The girl took a bad fall off her bike.  She's okay except for a very swollen wrist and my mom was taking her to the hospital for Xrays.  

We met at the hospital.  Surprisingly they didn't make us wait long.  Aside from a small hiccup (the tech took images of her hand but not the wrist so we had to return to Xray) the staff took great care of her.  No break, just bad soft tissue damage.  So she's in a brace and on ibuprofen.  On the way home she got a chocolate milkshake to help take her mind off the pain.  What is it with me and wanting to reward clumsiness with yummy treats?  As much as it makes no sense, I'll probably keep doing it, though.  

In Kat news, the red-eared one kept after her stitches so she got to play the part of a kitty flower for a while.  She's being good now, but if I catch her at it again, the e-collar is going back on.  Like all right-thinking cats with the barest shred of survival instinct and/or dignity, she hates it.  I don't blame her.  Her ears are red because despite the mites being taken care of for the most part, she also has a yeast infection.  For those of you contemplating adopting a stray cat, this is life as usual for the first several weeks.  Stray cats have ear problems, often have kitty colds due to the stress of being on their own, ear mites, fleas, intestinal parasites, ringworm (which they can pass onto humans) and they may be feline HIV positive or have feline leukemia among other things.  Those first vet bills are bad news.  The spay is the least of it.  We got her microchipped so she's all officially Kat Miller with a number and certificate.  If anyone is missing their kitty, sadly, they have missed their window of opportunity to reclaim her.  If anyone is looking for her, I hope they can hope and dream that someone good took their animal in and is taking good care of her.  I sometimes hope that about Misty and the Claireness, who we still miss terribly.