Happy New Yearzzzzzz

Somebody please tell me I'm not the only one staying in tonight. I do have a party to go to but last night Jonny and I decided not to go. We both get up early and a lot of stuff gets done in a day and we're both tired by the end of it and you want us to stay up how late? The party is way up in the mountains, about a 45 minute drive on dark, twisty mountain roads with the drunk people and various furry woodland creatures jumping out in front of you at the last possible moment to have a gander at your headlights. And the party is starting right about the time I usually start nodding off to sleep on the couch. Then there was the fiasco last year when Jonny got really really drunk and I was the designated driver which was fine except that he was the only one who knew how to get to the main road and we were driving around and around and around on icy skating rink mountain dirt roads in the pitch black, high winds drifting fresh snow onto the ice and no signs on any of the roads and way WAY past my bedtime and about -20 degrees outside on the freezing cold mountain. I was not happy and I was not shy about letting him know. He was lucky he was drunk and did not remember much of the not so nice things I had to say or the volume at which I said them.

So this year we'll be fighting the dogs for the couch and watching a movie and nodding off to sleep while our friends are only just starting to whoop it up. Can't even blame it on being old since many of them are older than us. Oh well, throw some confetti and make some noise at midnight for me, I'll be happily snoozing away.

Like something out of a movie

But tragically for real. The general manager of the Eldora Ski Resort was murdered yesterday by a troubled employee. The murderer had been ranting about religion and asking his fellow employees, including the victim, if they were Christian in the days before the murder. Yesterday he showed up to an early morning staff meeting with a gun, shot into the ceiling and threatened to kill anyone who wasn't the same religion as he was. The victim burst into the meeting wanting to know what all the noise and shouting was about and was promptly killed. The pscycho freak fled the scene by car and was later killed by a cop at the side of the road in a gun battle.

One of Jonny's bike friends works at Eldora and luckily had the day off. The day before he had been talking to the victim who had been telling him how great things had been going and how happy he was. He left behind a wife and some kids.

Eldora and the neighboring scenic mountain town of Nederland are not the sort of places that you picture when you think of crazy psycho murder scenes. I can't imagine what a horrible shock it must have been for his family and friends and the Eldora staff and Nederland residents. Jonny and I were talking about going up to Eldora a couple of days before but decided not to because the weather was inhospitable. We go cross country skiing up there all the time, it's just a 40-45 minute drive and I did a triathlon up there 2 summers ago. The whole freakish thing is so hard to believe. It'll be weird going up there, of course there's no danger but still weird to think about what happened.

To add insult to injury, the local news programs had the firing of the Broncos coach as headline news (I'm sorry but why is this even news?) and ranted on about it for a good 8 minutes or so before reporting on the Eldora shootings. Good to see the networks have their priorities straight. Can we go back to the 70's when the news was actually news and sports and weather little after thoughts at the end of the program?

Obviously you can't go through life worrying about the psycho freaks of the world but these little wake up calls do make you appreciate the notion of living in the present and enjoying every moment that you can.

Lazy Holidaze

We all had a nice relaxing 4 day weekend.

Great Cody, now you've got Strummer yawning too.

Strum sez 'when exactly do you go back to work? I need my beauty sleep'.

Lola, of course, doesn't need beauty sleep but she'll steal a nap when she can nonetheless.


I was out at the training field in all kinds of crazy, freezing, windy, sofa king cold weather this past week. 16 degrees one day, -5 degrees wind chill and 20-30 mph winds another day. Stupid running contacts. Stupid trial coming up next weekend and old school dogs have had no practice for weeks and weeks. Stupid obsessive compulsive handler/trainer can't make herself sit still for 2 seconds. Stupid knee won't behave so I can't redirect excess energy to running, have to obsess about stupid running dogwalk instead. No it was a relaxing break, really.

I discovered that the trick to a successful dinner party is to fill your guests with wine right from the start. That way maybe they won't notice the horrible carpets or the smoke from the food that was burned 20 minutes prior to arrival (that was Jonny for once, not me. Well, I did burn a tray of potatoes but that was after Jonny caused the smoke detectors to go off) or that the placemats, plates and silverware don't match. For some reason the most we have of any one pattern of anything is 3. We lose plates and silverware like normal people lose socks in the dryer.

The only downside to this plan is if you've asked one of your guests to take stitches out of your head which is probably already an inappropriate thing to be asking your guests on Christmas night but I have the sort of friends who will argue over who gets to do it. No bathroom surgery went down though because the stitches were deemed too tight and I realized that too much pre-surgery wine had been consumed. I got them out myself with my Swiss Army knife the following morning. Jonny was duly impressed. I was happy that I didn't have to drive to Niwot and back (20-25 mins. ea. way) and sit around in the doctor's office on my day off and probably have to pay another $20 copay.

I've been enjoying my life of leisure, sleeping in, walking the dogs in daylight after the sun has warmed things up a bit, mid-day naps-what a luxury. Not looking forward to waking up early tomorrow and scuttling around in the dark with my headlamp and 9 million layers of clothes and dogs going crazy at the slightest thing because everything looks weird in the dark. It's supposed to be 58 degrees tomorrow too, I should steal just one more day but I know that I won't. Hope you all enjoyed your holidaze too.

Garlic in my soul

I've been trying for years now to stop Christmas from coming, at least to my house. I'll save you the long winded 'I Hate the Holidays' rant because either you're already on board here and you've been undergoing your own personal hell for the past 6-8 weeks or you love the holidays and can't bear to have them spoiled by grinchy whiners like me. So if you want a good rant you can go over to Violent Acres and read the most excellent post, 'Christmas is consumer gluttony masked as religious sentimentality' because I don't think I can say it any better. This quote sums it up for me.

Hallmark and Kitchenmaid and Toy R Us have hijacked our holidays to the point where there is nothing actually enjoyable about them anymore. There’s just this vague, almost overwhelming urge to buy, buy, buy until we run completely out of money.

The very worst part is 90% of the shit we’re buying is crap that no one needs or wants. I mean, how many of you have ever sat around thinking, “You know what I could really use? A basket of salami and mustard…”

For years I've been begging my family for a truce on Christmas. We all have more Stuff than we need and the ability to buy whatever Stuff we want so why stess over it all? We know we love each other, why do we need to express it with Stuff? Most of the Stuff they give me goes straight to the Humane Society's thrift store because I have a small house and not a lot of room for more Stuff. At one point I gave up and starting giving checks and gift cards then last year decided that's it I'm opting out and didn't get anything for anybody (except my grandparents because I will never in a million years get them on board with this). I figured that that would be that, finally they would all realize I'm serious and leave me out of it this year. But sadly like the Grinch I find myself standing on top of the hill listening to the damn Who's singing away down in Whoville. Or rather my family still gave me gifts, checks, etc. Even my aunt who was on board with the moratorium last year and in years past. Sigh. My plan foiled yet again. I don't understand this compulsive need to give Stuff at this time of year (my family is mostly Jewish for chrissakes) and I hate getting gifts without giving something in return so I'm in something of a pickle. I can hold firm and not give anything again this year in hopes the message will finally get through and feel bad about all the gifts I've gotten or I can cave in and send last minute checks/gift cards again but then the cycle continues.

On the bright side the one thing I do really like about Christmas is getting together with my friends and this year we're having the festivities at my house. This means we've been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning which is not a bad thing because things were getting dire. The dust bunnies were starting to turn evil.

I'm no Martha Stewart but I'm pretty sure it's frowned upon to have dust bunnies threatening your guests.

I guess it's also bad form to serve wine in regular drinking glasses. Or so Jonny informed me on Sunday. The Sunday before Christmas. Because everybody who hates crowds and shopping and stressed out mayhem loves to go to Target on the Sunday before Christmas to buy glasses that they're going to use maybe once a year and probably break in the dishwasher anyway. We barely have space for the 3 wine glasses we already have, where are the new ones going to live? Jonny assures me there is a home somewhere for them and that it's important to serve wine in proper glassware even to our friends who aren't the sort of people who typically fuss over this kind of thing.

I'm unconvinced but I see that if I volunteer to go to Target maybe I can convince him to go to the grocery store to buy me some salad stuff for next week's lunches. Because I HATE Christmas music. To the very depths of my being. It sends me straight to Crazyville in 30 seconds or less. Last Thursday night in the grocery store I was at my breaking point and ready to claw my eyeballs out as well as the eyeballs of everyone around me. Because they've been playing this insipid repetitive treacly crap in the grocery store since before Thanksgiving and frankly I've had enough. It's very hard to avoid the grocery store because of needing food for survival and all. Now the other part of the story here is that Target, at least the one in Boulder, does not play Christmas music or music of any kind for that matter. I love you Boulder Target. So I decided I'd brave the chaos of the parking lot and stressed out last minute shoppers on the Sunday before Christmas if only Jonny would buy me some food so I'm not a danger to myself and others in the grocery store.

In the end it was not so bad, I didn't even have to wait in a line to check out. I hit a bit of speed bump when I discovered that apparently you need different glasses for white wine and red wine but I decided screw that noise, I have no idea what sort of wine we'll be having and at this point people will be lucky not to be drinking out of novelty Scooby Doo glasses.

I'm looking forward to a fun night with friends, a relaxing 4 day weekend and the day when I can safely return to the grocery store. Now if only someone could do something about the bad 70's music they play in there the rest of the year. Hopefully the rest of you are not as cranky as me and enjoying your holiday season.

Stacy Peardot-Goudy Timing Workshop

I went up to Stacy's place today for a 1/2 day workshop on timing. This is a weak point for me so I'm always happy to get help from someone with a good eye when I can. I had a great time, I always love going up there. It's a beautiful facility as you can see from the video. The floor is so nice and springy, great for my gimpy knee, great for the dogs. I thought Strummer was struggling a bit with the footing, more so than Cody did last year but I think the small loss of traction is well worth the cushioning.

Strummer was such a good boy, I was so pleased with him. He was mostly quiet in his crate, a few bits of barking here and there but no hysterical out of his head screaming/lunging/etc. at the dog in the ring. He had a few lunges when I was trying to get him outside and a dog was running but only 2-3 and no screaming and I got him back quickly enough. He had no problems with any of the other dogs and the only time he ran off or broke focus was during one of the first runs where Stacy said loudly 'Oh what a good boy' just as he was running past her and he had to run over to flirt with her. He held all his stays and had great focus and enthusiasm.

Holy smokes people, it is hard to handle a dog like this, so little margin for error and at times my brain was a blur. It was like 13 degrees or something outside first thing in the morning and only minimal heating inside with a few space heaters so Strum was super speedy. I'm so glad I had someone tape me, just like the swimming I can't believe what a spaz I look like at times out there. Front crosses have never been a strong point for me so it was good to be able to practice so many. I did only one rear cross the whole workshop and that was only because I was out of position and behind with Strum blasting out of a straight tunnel and I was working purely on damage control. Stacy made a good point that if that happens the best thing to do is to stop and reward the dog and try again rather than try to salvage something gone wrong. It's a hard thing to remember in the heat of the moment but it makes good sense so I'll have to try to drill that into my brain.

I'm forever forgetting to use a quiet little 'Strum' to get his attention. It works great and once I finally remembered to do it I was able to keep him out of multiple tunnel traps. I use very few verbals when I run so it doesn't take much to get his attention.

I felt totally hopeless when we ran the first course the first time and by the end after we'd beaten it to death it felt so easy. Now if only Stacy could follow me around the course at trials and tell me what to do and I could have multiple do-overs I'd have no problem. I'm getting better at working it out myself but somehow it feels like I should know what I'm doing by now. I wished I could have stayed for the afternoon workshop but the one workshop was already a huge splurge. I suppose I have enough stuff running around in my head for one day anyway.

There were no course maps so it's hard to discuss the video but I thought I'd show off my baby dog anyway. It's a nice documentation of where we're at in our training right now.

Somewhere in my soul, there's always rock-n-roll

Saw a great movie courtesy of Netflix last night called 'Young at Heart'. So good I managed to stay awake through the entire thing. It's a documentary about a group of seniors (ave. age of the group is in the 80's) called the 'Young at Heart Chorus' who sing all manner of rock songs-punk, alternative, new wave-you name it. The movie starts out with a rousing rendition of The Clash's 'Should I Stay or Should I Go' and showcases the bands live performances, videos and practice sessions as well as their lives. They're not a funny novelty act either, they're awesome and some of their versions kick butt over the original (give me their version of Sonic Youth's 'Schizophrenia' over the original ANY day). They tour (been to Europe even) and sell out huge concert halls. They performed in a prison and reduced a field of inmates to tears with a song dedicated to one of their members who had died that morning.

I hope I'm rocking like that when I'm in my 80's. Heck, I wish I was rocking like that now.

Here's a link to one of their videos, a cover of The Ramones 'I Wanna Be Sedated'. Not the best example of their singing abilities but I love the Ramones so there.

-12/-36

It was -12 degrees this morning with a -36 degree wind chill factor so needless to say nobody got their morning walkies. Strummer rushed outside to do his business and came back in limping after less than a minute or 2. All the dogs have trouble with their feet in the extreme cold. Cody & Strum have booties but Lola doesn't. I bought her a pair a long time ago and they lasted not even 5 minutes. I'd try again now that she's older and not quite as crazy but we have so few days that she needs them and they're so expensive. Cody wears them on his back feet but gets pissy when he has them on his front feet. Sometimes he'll get 20 minutes into a walk then stop and refuse to go any farther. Strum tolerates his booties but only just. At some point I decided it was easier to wait out the bad weather than deal with their foot fetishes. And there's the weirdness that the extreme cold brings on as well. This morning Strum broke out in his stress dander and had his tail tucked on the short walk from the parking lot to the office. Is there nothing this dog won't react to?

But today I have Strum with me at work and it's warmed up to -1/-1 at lunchtime and the sun is shining brightly so I put on his coat and booties and we managed almost 15 minutes of walking. His feet were cold when I took the booties off so I was glad I didn't try to go much further. I was fine bundled up in layers and layers of fleece & down and what have you. Several years ago I bought a neoprene/fleece face mask and that makes all the difference. Still it's the kind of weather where it hurts to breathe the air and I don't see the point of hanging out in it if I don't have to. Supposed to go up to the 30's tomorrow so hopefully we can get back to our normal exercise/training routine if it's not too horrible first thing in the morning.

SwimLabs session and arctic agility

I'll go out in most weather because I fancy myself a tough Chicago native and most of the weather here in Boulder is so mild by comparison. I'm fine as long as I'm moving. But I don't think it got much above 6 degrees today with a -12 degree wind chill. For our non-American readers 6 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius translates to freakin' cold. Too cold for skijoring despite 5 inches or so of fresh snow. Yes, you Canadians can laugh at the wimpy Chicago native but I wasn't going out in that. O.k., I went out in it for a bit when the sun came out-shoveled the driveway and a good portion of my backyard so we could continue running dogwalk practice and took a short 30 minute walk with the dogs but that was it. I swear it took more time to get the dogs in their coats & booties and waxy stuff on the feetsies of those who won't wear booties and all my jackets and fleeces and heavy boots and Yax Trax than it took to take the walk.

I decided to work up to a 4' height plank/table in the backyard which meant another trip to Home Depot yesterday for more PVC and more sawing and PVC shavings everywhere. Good thing I never cleaned up the first batch, I'll wait until Strum's dogwalk is perfect then clean up the mess. I'm going in 6" increments rather than 4" from 2' to 4' because he's doing so well in the backyard and I think he can handle it. Sure enough he was 10/10 yesterday afternoon for his first time at 2'-6" and was again 10/10 today. I haven't had time to cut the 3'-0" legs so he'll have to stay at 2'-6" for a few more days. Plus it's such a hassle to change the legs out. I put grease on them each time but even so they get jammed in so tight it takes 2 people to pull them out. This will be even more fun with temps in the 10's-20's at night this week when I get home from work.

I'm still having trouble with him at the practice field. Some days he's 90-100% and I feel like a super training genius and other days it all falls apart and I want to tear my hair out. He's not been able to progress past the top part of the down plank of the 2' lowered dogwalk. As soon as the place he hits the down ramp changes he can't/won't adjust his stride to hit the bottom. I do think he understands he's getting rewarded for something about the bottom because he'll get lazy and run halfway up the plank then turn around and run back down. Or maybe he thinks the treat gizmo is randomly rewarding him and he's in a hurry to get back to the gizmo in hopes it'll spit kibble at him. And don't get me going about the gizmo. It's started not working again, especially at a distance. I changed out the batteries in the remote and the gizmo but still it refuses to dispense sometimes. It's o.k. if I stand right next to it but that defeats the purpose.

At least we can still practice in the yard. There's a bit of snow still on the ground where I shoveled but not enough to be a problem. Only trouble is that the plank gets slippery with snow that Strum tracks back on it if I do too many reps so I have to brush it off or stick to 10 reps. This will be the only sort of agility I can do all week with any of the dogs since the practice field will be snowed in. No indoor drop in or classes at Boulder County Fairgrounds this week either so I'm stuck. Poor Cody and Lola have a trial in 3 weeks and have had practically no practice in how many weeks? Lola has had nothing and Cody went to course run thru's at Boulder County Fairgrounds on Monday for a special treat but I couldn't do a whole lot of training. Oh well, no point fretting over it, not much I can do short of going out to Biscuit Eaters with a couple of hair dryers and an extension chord. Hmmm, maybe that's not a bad idea.

I was supposed to go up to Stacy Peardot's place for a 1/2 day seminar but thankfully she canceled. The highways were terrible and the steep dirt road up to her place is no fun when it's icy. Plus the cold people. If it was 6 degrees down here who knows how cold it was up at 1000 ft. or so higher and her arena is indoors but not heated save a few space heaters. I was SO happy she canceled, I can't imagine that would have been much fun. Plus it probably would have taken me at least 3 hours each way. I think we're rescheduled for next Saturday and hopefully the weather will be better.

Since it was too cold to do much of anything we spent the day cleaning the house since we'll be having people here for x-mas. What a nightmare, Morticia Adams would be jealous of all the dust, cobwebs and assorted grime. The worst part is once you start cleaning you start noticing dirt you didn't even know existed and it all seems so hopeless. Every year we clean the house for holiday guests and every year we can't believe what pigs we are and we're going to be better and every year it doesn't happen. Would be nice to hire a cleaning service. Not going to happen unless we win the lottery but I can dream. Surely someone can design a vacuum that a dog can push. I have all this boundless energy bouncing around my house, there must be some way to put it to good use.

Yesterday I went down to the south suburbs of Denver for a training session at SwimLabs. My masters group arranged a group session so for $25 I got a 20 minute evaluation in their fancy pants endless pool with mirrors on the bottom and sides and underwater video cameras. They film you, play the video back on a big screen, give you suggestions on improving your stroke then let you try them out and film you again. In the end you get a DVD with Dartfish analysis to take home so you can remember everything from the lesson.

I know, every 44 year old woman's dream to be videotaped from all angles in a swimsuit. But it was a real eye opener for me. The instructor didn't tell me anything that my masters coach hasn't already told me over the past few years but it was something else to see myself swimming and see all the mistakes right there. Every once in a while the instructor would switch over the video to footage of a top swimmer as comparison and the first time he did it I didn't realize and thought 'wow, I improved so much with that one little tip and hey I don't look so bad in a swimsuit after all.' Then I realized the real reason my stroke was so perfect and I had suddenly lost 10 lbs. I knew my stroke needed work but I had no idea what a complete and utter spaz I am in the water. I need to practice more drills and he gave me some good ones. I'm going to try to get to masters a little bit early so I can work on them before practice. I'm happy to have the DVD too, it's so much easier to remember things when you have a visual. Maybe I'll take my video camera to Stacy's seminar next week and beg someone to tape me. It makes such a difference when you can see what you're doing.

We should get temps. at least back into the 30's next week, hopefully won't be too bad in the morning so I can at least walk everybody. I hate messing with the booties and Cody is a pain in the ass about them sometimes flat out refusing to walk but it's the only way we can go any distance without their feet getting too cold from the snow or sore from the deicer on the streets & sidewalks. I'm glad we don't have this weather all the time, I'd go crazy with all the hassle. Hew many weeks until spring?

That's what I'm talkin' about

If you ever needed a reason not to attempt an ultra-marathon:



I'm sure this has been all over the web on the ultra sites but I only just found it on somebody's blog and I can't help sharing the love. If that's not gross enough for you perhaps you'd like some tips on how to make your own toenail necklace. The perfect gift for that special someone this holiday season.

Conehead

Silly lawn statuary.

Was in shorts riding my mountain bike on the trails on Sunday and woke up this morning to skijoring weather. Just got all my harnesses, towlines, etc. in the mail last night but the custom made harnesses don't fit quite right so they'll need to go back for adjustments. I was all set to head out to the park at 6:15 this morning and thought it would be better to wait and get the harnesses just right. Much to Jonny's relief. He's mega busy at work today and didn't want to have to deal with a trip to the hospital. He was furious when he saw the towropes, etc. last night. I'm sure I told him what I was up to and he just wasn't listening. That's my story anyway. Temps. in the 40's and 50's this week mean it'll be a while until I have the chance to try again plus who knows how long it will be until I get my new harnesses. I can feel it though, this will be the year I finally get to try it.

Strummer's First Trial

First off can I say what an awesome husband I have? He came to the trial at 2:00 to videotape us and cheer us on. We didn't have our Tunnelers run until around 4:40 and our Jumpers run was at 6:40. Now he likes watching agility and was especially keen to see Strummer's debut but he doesn't love it that much that he wants to sit around for over 4 1/2 hours to watch less than a minute of Strummer in the ring, especially when they turned the heat off at 5:00 and it got so cold he was shivering and he had hardly eaten all day, etc. Heck, I don't love agility that much either.

The highlight of the trial for me was Strummer's behavior. I worked so hard on that and yesterday it paid off. He had absolutely no problems around the crowds of other dogs, had wonderful focus on me, no lunging at the dogs in the ring, nothing even approaching an outburst, what an awesome boy when I think about how far he's come. I realized I need to teach him a few more tricks and improve on the ones I've already taught him so he has more to do while he's warming up and waiting his turn.

His first run was Tunnelers and it was a bit wild. He had a zillion run-bys, not entirely sure why. On the one hand you could argue that we never practice a whole course of just tunnels so maybe he was confused but I can't shake the feeling that maybe it was something with my handling. I was mad at myself afterwards for having him go back and redo every tunnel that he missed. My plan, as it always is, was to keep going if he missed a tunnel, not sure what gremlins took my brains hostage and made me do otherwise. Honestly I could care less about a novice tunnelers Q. I'm not sure how much NADAC we'll end up doing anyway, I only signed up for this trial because it was 20 minutes from my house at the arena where Strum takes classes and goes to practice run-throughs so I thought it would be a great opportunity for him to get some trial experience. And it was.



After that crazy Tunnelers run I was determined we were going to do better in Jumpers. The course was easy, no side changes for the way I chose to handle it and only one trap. He had a beautiful fast run and I had a stupid timing error with my handling, pulling him off a jump. At least I was early with my cue and not late but in essence I ended up calling him off a jump he was supposed to take. Poor guy did it too, he's such a good boy. I felt terrible about confusing him. Highlight of the run was his recall to heel on a 3 jump lead out. We've practiced this a zillion times with 1 or 2 jumps but not so much with 3. He collected perfectly and had a nice turn. What a nice startline stay too, I was most nervous about that. He broke his stay at the warm-up jump a couple of times which was unusual, I think I've been careless about pairing too much motion with my arm and his verbal release. He was solid in the ring for both runs but I'll have to proof that stay a bit more so there's no confusion in his mind.

I thought his jumping looked nice for a baby dog, no ticked or knocked bars and nice take-off and landing points for most of the jumps. Still I think I need to work more jumping drills. I've been slacking off of those lately because of the focus on weave pole training. I hate to work him on too many strenuous things at once.

I didn't hang around to find out what his placement was but even with the 4 seconds lost to the refusal he was 6 seconds under course time. Technically it was a Q because NADAC doesn't charge refusals but again I don't care all that much and it didn't feel like it should have been one. Didn't even think to pick up his Q ribbon. Jonny thought I should have since it was his first but oh well. It would have ended up lost in a pile somewhere anyway.



Poor guy was exhausted when we finally got home. I'd taken him and Cody for a 3 mile walk/run in the morning before the trial. I left him in the car rather than bother with a crate inside where it was noisy and crowded but I have no idea how much he rested. He seemed calm enough when I went to get him out of the car but who knows if he slept any.




Can't wait for our next trial, he's a kick in the pants to run. I signed him up for a DOCNA trial at the same venue in February. Not sure if his contacts will be ready for the ring but I figure we can run past them if we have to. I'm more interested in getting some ring experience at this point and I want to take advantage of the opportunity to do it at a laid back one ring trial on his home turf.

The Bee's Knees

This guy cracks me up and I'm supposing that anyone who's been through knee surgery can relate to this (I know I can). I've been going through PT since, oh, June or something for my knee which has been screwed up even further as a result of the foot surgery and my husband takes every opportunity to laugh at me doing my silly exercises some of which involve me hobbling with an elastic band around my ankles back and forth across the living room like that old Frogger video game.



I don't know Helen so I'm missing out on part of the joke but I get the gist of it. If I was her though I wouldn't take that smackdown, I'd have some words for that smartypants.

Strummer's first trial is tomorrow, just a round of Jumpers and Tunnelers at a NADAC trial less than 20 minutes from my house. I started us both on the Vallium last Tuesday. Goal is not to get banned from NADAC for life.