cindy's world

The plan:
4pm – come back from Kaiser, eat something healthy like oatmeal and take my first pill (they gave me Nitrofurantoin Macro instead of my usual Macrobid, hope it works the same)
4:15pm – sort and do at least the load of laundry that includes my gi cuz that sucker needs to hang dry 2 days
4:45pm – while laundry’s going, shower
5:15pm – watch TV and do laundry in jammy mode, curl up in bed and watch DVDs on my laptop, maybe take up on Mr. W’s offer to go over there so he can take care of me (since I need to be there by 10a tomorrow anyway)

The reality:
4pm – stopped by Boba Loca and got a large green tea frapp w/boba and a fat free blueberry muffin (green tea’s got antioxidants…)
4:30pm – finished eating above items and popped a pill while watching TV on the couch downstairs
7:15pm – woke up on couch, read on prescription insert “This medicine may cause drowsiness. Do not drive, operate machinery, or do anything else that could be dangerous…”
7:45pm – drag myself upstairs to open windows and relieve the 90-degree stale air in the house, and to sort and do laundry
8:10pm – still laying on my face on my bedroom floor, next to unsorted bag of dirty laundry
8:11pm – get on phone w/Mr. W; lots of whining about how I can feel my organs when I’m laying flat and how my skin and hair hurt. Listen to his threats to call my parents and tell them what a bad patient I am and how I’m not taking care of myself. Sort laundry.
9:15pm – first load of laundry is in the washer. I hang up w/Mr. W and keep laying on my face, alternating with laying on my back, unable to fight the unusually strong pull of gravity this evening
9:30pm – shower, do nighttime routine
10pm – laundry is in the dryer; gi is hung up to dry, and I’m blogging. And annoyed because I haven’t gotten my stuff ready for all the stuff on the agenda this weekend. ARGH. Need to fill out stupid forms to volunteer for Special Olympics tomorrow in Fountain Valley. And get clothes ready for that event, my cousin Diana’s b-day thing after that, and for Sunday’s trip to UCLA, and Sunday evening’s dinner w/roommie Diana. ARGH! The stress is making all my organs hurt again.

*whimpering* I feel like poo. Based on what my trial DA told me (she’d gone thru a couple of these herself), my symptoms sound like a kidney infection. I want to take the afternoon off but there’s no coverage, and my supervisor said “I’ll see what I can do” 2 hours ago. That’s what I get for sitting on a UTI for a week and a half.

Well, in case it is old age, I’m trying to think positive about aging. I.e. the following email forward:

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we’re kids? If you’re less than 10 years old, you’re so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

“How old are you?” “I’m four and a half!” You’re never thirty-six and a half. You’re four and a half, going on five!

That’s the key.
(more…)

Guten morgen! Bitte sehen sie 10-11-05 entry, Oktoberfest. Danke! (Rest mouse pointer over photos for captions.)

Group shots (of just the early arrivers):

The Oompa band:

The ostentatious octagenarians:

Yesterday, it started with the outside of my glutes hurting. My lower back then joined in, and hours later, I noticed the right side of my neck hurts whenever I look left, as if I slept wrong. Mr. W attempted to rub out some of the soreness last nite but couldn’t do anything because any sort of pressure, no matter how light, sent me into pained jerks and yelps. This morning, my eyes and ribs right under my arms hurt as well. I think I’m febrile. I also think the pain is so deep that it’s actually my organs that are hurting in addition to all the muscle soreness. I feel my kidneys, intestines, and definitely my lungs. I’ve started coughing, and the expansion of the diaphragm and lungs even in a deep breath makes me want to draw myself in to escape the pain. That doesn’t work, by the way. I just have to endure the symphony of polyphonic pain as all layers of my body scream in cacophonous unison.

“Is this an aging thing?” I asked my reporter.
“No, it’s the combination of your return to jujitsu, your return to running, your harder workouts, lack of sleep, and PMS because your body’s so sensitive to any sensation of pain this week.”
Or maybe I have West Nile virus.

It’s a good thing Diana will be in today to have lunch with me and the judge; guilt-free excuse to skip the workout at noon.

Jujitsu was SO FUN yesterday. I’ve missed the camaraderie of the class. The problematic people of last semester aren’t there this semester for some reason, and the remaining returning students have great chemistry together. For the drills and training, we split the class up into 2 sides, the beginners and the returning students. Since we returning students already know each other, we were super comfortable and I’ve never laughed so hard while getting SO beat up. Even while I was made fun of for not being around more often. Oh, and I learned some great moves, too. The one I mastered almost intuitively, however, is one I probably won’t get to use much since it’s not something I could do on someone much taller than me, and let’s face it, most people are much taller than me.

Toward the end of the evening as we were packing up to leave, Josh asked me if I’d done gymnastics or been a gymnast in the past. I told him no. He said, “Oh, cuz you have that body type.” That’s not a compliment for me! Female gymnasts are built like men! Ew. But apparently he thought it was a compliment cuz he thought it was really cool how strong I am when I have him in a lock. Then again, he also said, “Do you wear contacts? Color contacts? [leaning in to look at my eyes] Just one?” HUH?
“What do you MEAN just one? Is the other one missing?!”
“No, well, you know how some people only wear one contact cuz only 1 eye needs to be corrected?”
“But my contacts are GRAY, if I were only wearing one, one eye would be gray and the other eye would be brown!”
…so who knows what Josh means by anything he says.

Those of you looking for photos of Mr. W, sorry. I’m respecting his anonymity. But here are some wacky photos of ME!

Doesn’t this just LOOK like a disaster waiting to happen? The boulder may as well have “ACME” printed on it:

Enjoying the view…

And what view am I enjoying?

My phallic shot:

Mr. W’s pretty and pristine shot:

Of course I climbed this after the photo was taken.

Another photo of me in contemplation.

Mr. W had mentioned something about a 5K race for an upcoming weekend, and I had originally declined participation, thinking I’m not trained up to a 5K (3.12 miles) right now. I sat in guilt for a couple of days thinking he’s so good about participating in my activities, that I shouldn’t have been so dismissive about his run. (Well, another reason I declined is because I didn’t want to barge in on an activity he’s involved in, even tho it was really nice of him to extend me an invite.) So today at lunch at the gym, I was curious as to just how far away from a 5K my conditioning is. So I raised a treadmill to a 0.5 incline, cranked it up to a comfortable 5.7mph, and did 3.5 miles without any difficulty.

I was shocked! I know the treadmill is by far an artificial running environment — no sun, no wind, virtually no friction, no hills, air-conditioning — but this is very encouraging. Maybe I’ll see if I can train myself back up to 12 miles again.

One of the memorable things about Cancun that I can’t believe I forgot to mention on the Cancun Thursday post was yoga that Thursday morning.

Diana and I met with the yoga instructor and walked to the white gazebo at close to 9:15a (the yoga instructor was again on Mexican time). I noted how the clouds over the sea were gray cumulonimbus clouds, and how fast they were moving. I told her I hope they hold out until we’re done.

They didn’t hold out. The gray was quickly over us, with light sprinkling. Since the weather’s warm and the rain is warm, we all said we didn’t mind a little contact with nature while we were doing our thing. The wind picked up, the drops got bigger and closer together. The gazebo ceiling became obsolete as the sheets of rain pelted us on a diagonal. Within minutes there was not one dry spot on the entire gazebo floor. Our yoga mats were soaked, all of us were soaked thru our clothes, and the torrential rain prevented me from even opening my eyes. We finally had to run for cover. This was only at 9:30a. The class stood by a covered station against the resort that gave out beach towels, discussing what to do next. The instructor and the other people in the class decided to continue their yoga in the ocean. I was not wearing a swimsuit underneath my clothes, as I normally would be. Plus it was getting a bit chilly without one square millimeter of dry fabric ANYWHERE on my body (and I don’t mean just damp; I mean DRIPPING, SOAKING WET), so Diana and I opted out to clean up and hit the gym and/or get breakfast.

On our way back to the room building, I remarked about the thoroughness of the resort staff to put cones on the outdoor walkways that say “caution: wet floor” into the 2-inch deep water collecting on the ground. I have never been that wet in my life, and that includes when I’m standing IN the ocean, cuz at least then water drips off certain body parts and leaves that area dry. The inside of my mouth was dryer than the outside of my body.

What a great experience.

“Raindrops keep fallin on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin red…”

We hit the gym twice as usual. Because it had rained late morning and the outdoor activities had to be canceled, the resort activities directors came up with new activities that can be done indoors, such as table tennis and making friendship bracelets (remember the 80’s?). Brian, one of the directors, was inside doing his friendship bracelet thing and at his prompting, Diana walked around the table to join him. This was when she brushed her knee against a protruding staple at the edge of the table and ended up with 4-inch long scratch. The ensuing whimpering resulted in the appearance of the resort nurse, a lifeguard, and Fredy (one of the activities directors) all with huge first-aid kits in hand. I wonder if this is first-class service or whether the boys just ran all over themselves at Diana’s bidding. (Hint: it’s not the former.)

In the afternoon, we got our second spa treatment, called the Mayan Treatment (scrub, rinse, body mud, wrap, facial/scalp massage, rinse, lotion). Diana’s experience was great, and she was all aglow and happy. My treatment woman was weird. She didn’t leave the room when I had to get naked or shower like she was supposed to, she kept complimenting me on how beautiful my eyes were, she giggled a lot for no reason I could discern, and she gave me a 50 min treatment not realizing it was supposed to be 85. When the last thing was brought to her attention, all she could do to supplement the time lost was give me a 35 minute massage, which she didn’t give me the full time of because she didn’t make up for the time spent on clearing up the (her) confusion with the front desk person.

In the evening, Diana changed her mind about going out on the town with me because she wanted to stay behind and play volleyball with the boys. So I went out alone. I wandered around, got some great photos, got lost (what else is new?), went souvenir shopping, discovered a great mall and spent 30 pesos at their internet kiosk only to learn that Mike’s server is down so that I couldn’t even blog (I know, I’m a loser, but I wanted to say hi to you guys and touch base from Cancun!), sent a couple of emails, and wandered back to the resort at like 8:30pm. Diana was worried as I knew she would be since it took way longer than I had expected to find my way back to Dreams Resort. There was a detailed note on my bed about where she was going to be, even tho I did run into her just outside the entryway into our rooms building.

I’m playing with Jusspress.com’s features for webhosting photos. I can’t control the size of the photos, but that does take the pain-in-the-arse resizing step out of my photo postings. These photos are for the post entitled Cancun by Days: Wednesday 9-28-05 posted on 10-6-05. You can still sit your mouse over the photo for the caption.

More info on Chichen Itza

I left the group and took this photo as the crazy tourguide was rambling on and on.

Speaking of the crazy tourguide…

Getting ready to climb the pyramid (91 steps).

Even tho Diana wouldn’t venture out far from the “safety” of the wall, this is proof that she did suck up her fear of heights and was really at the top of the pyramid.

The view from the top was spectacular:

I hopped down real quick (mainly to avoid the slowpokes clinging onto the rope while descending on their asses at the speed of .00065 miles per day) to take a photo of Diana’s triumphant descent.

My favorite structure at the central quad is the Temple of a Thousand Columns:

I got in trouble for this pose. Apparently the rusty sign has some hidden symbol that allegedly translates to “do not climb.” *shrug*

Detail on a structural wall: