Day 22 Death Race 2011, School-Zone Style
I planned to go to a morning yoga class today, but after the school run, all I wanted to do was get off the road. Is everyone rushing out for free McDonalds coffee?? Are they all on crack?? (Are those two things related?)
Today I witnesssed the following:
-one driver clearing his windshield of ice, with his bare hand, WHILE HE WAS DRIVING.
-two drivers making left-turns without looking at on-coming traffic, and without there being a sufficient break in on-coming traffic to do so safely, which they’d have known if they’d looked. Which is probably why they didn’t.
-numerous drivers blasting right through the school cross-walk. Nice.
-one particularly unpopular lad, so determined to turn left out of the school parking lot that he had a line-up of at least 15 cars behind him, drivers growing more vocally irate by the millisecond. Turning RIGHT at that spot is a challenge. Left is usually impossible. One car finally squealed over the median to get around him. I’ve timed it: he waited longer than it takes to turn right and go all the way around the park with the lights.
-and the deadliest of all, teenagers. The first time I almost killed one, I was sitting at the afore-mentioned intersection, waiting to turn right out of the school parking lot, craning my neck to the left to find a break in the traffic, when I saw an opening. Inching forward at about 0.5 km/hr, suddenly, out of nowhere, a skateboarder whips around me from the sidewalk on the right, slamming his hand on my hood and grinning as he passed. HOLY $#!& I was wobbly for hours.
But then it happened again. And again, plus once with a kid on a bike. It’s never the same kid twice. I don’t get it. It’s not like they’re all getting killed; we’d have heard the sirens. It’s as if they have to take turns or something. Maybe there’s a roster. “Good news, Braydon/Hunter/Carter/Dylan, you’re up for Monday’s Idiot Skateboard Kid role. Good luck! Don’t forget to sign your organ donor card.”
But I’m on to them. Now I wait for the split-second when they’re almost in front of me, then I lean on the horn and watch them soil themselves. I hope I scare the crap out of them, ’cause they sure scare the crap out of me.
Day 19 Dig deeper – thar’s muscle under that thar flab.
In a brillliant example of value-added service, my yoga studio provides massage therapy with a magic-fingered woman named Laura. I’ve been going to Laura every two weeks for several months now, and between that and the yoga, my back and neck have never felt better.
So now, of course, she’s trying to get to the bottom (har-har) of my hip problem. Yesterday, before we got started, I showed her which part of my right hip was keeping me up at night. She got into it, explaining about the hip flexors, the tensor fasciae latae, the iliopsoas, where they originate, where they attach to other structures, how they shorten and tighten due to (you’ll never guess) too much sitting.
“So, we’ll work on these today, okay?” she said brightly. She says everything brightly. “We’ll start with you lying on your back today.”
That’s when I realized I should have waxed.
What followed was a whole new kind of pain. I expect it when I go to Laura – a deep-tissue massage is the only way to fly – but these small, iron-like bands apparently rule my groin like little dictators in obscure countries. You don’ like da way I work? I keel you all.
“I noticed some tension in the left hip too,” she said afterwards. “Did you notice?”
Um yeah, Laura. I noticed. That was when I was white-knuckling the sheet.
“Next time, we’ll work both sides then. Don’t forget to use ice tonight,” she continued. Brightly. “You’re going to need it.”
*
Later:
Despite my fear that Laura had unleashed enough toxins, inflammatory products and demons to make me even more wimpy than usual in my practice today, I made it through all the postures. Without gasping, gurgling or groaning, even.
Huh. Could it be? Maybe I really am getting stronger.
Moving a Mountain
- At March 19, 2010
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Roxanne Writes On
- 0
Moving a Mountain
Do you want to see what I’ve been working on this past year? Actually, it’s been more like seven years, which is how long we’ve been in this house, but I only got serious about it a year ago. We have a large yard, but it’s built into a rocky slope, covered with loose fill that is the perfect medium for thistle and blackberry brambles. After I discovered that the coyotes had actually made themselves a blind amongst the weeds, from which to stalk our pets, I said THAT’S IT. Time to landscape.
See? Even the snow can’t cover the weeds. It’s very private, and jam-packed with potential… mostly unrealized. My husband estimated that it would cost somewhere between 30 and 60 K to do what we want. (It used to be that any project I wanted to do would cost $700. He just pulls numbers out of his, um, hat, mostly to shut me up.) So I kept imagining how awesome it could look… and quit talking about it.
Until last fall, when I lost it and attacked it myself. With a pick-ax.
Hubby had been largely AWOL, finishing his MBA, and I needed to destroy something. Can’t spend the money to landscape the yard? Fine. I’ll do it myself. Stand back, MBA guy. I’ve got tools and I’m not afraid to use ’em.
I started digging, just far enough to a) realize what a herculean task I’d undertaken and b) make it look actually worse than before, forcing me to finish the job.
Frank, the gentleman who’s helping me reach the finish line, is a Rock Star. See all those large, nicely cut hunks of stone? He hauled them all up there by hand. He cut the beautiful stone steps into the slope and he built the rock wall just below the first evergreen. So now I’m into the incredibly fun part – arranging the plants. Well, I’ve got a lot of grunt-work left; rocks to arrange, landscape fabric to cover, bark mulch to haul and spread… but it’ll be worth it.
What does moving a mountain have to do with writing? Besides the obvious benefit of creative procrastination?
Anyone who’s ever tried to write a book will understand the metaphor immediately. It’s so hard, and once you get to a certain point, you simply have to do the grunt-work to get it done. You can’t believe you started something that is so obviously past your ability to complete. You’re embarrassed because so many people keep asking how it’s going and you have to lie and say you’re almost done, just a few more revisions now, just a tweak here and there and it’ll be ready for submission. Or you start into a hideous, self-deprecating explanation of how your self-esteem has been in the toilet and you doubt the idea was any good in the first place, and your shoulders are seized up so you can’t type, and your publishing house went bankrupt, and your editor is a mean, mean man who doesn’t understand you and THAT’S why the book isn’t done yet.
Or you keep all that stuff for your journal, write the damn book, then go outside and work on your dirt farm.
I’ll let you know when the book comes out. I’m almost done, just the final scene to write, some character layering, a few plot points to fix…
Until then, doesn’t my yard look GREAT??