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Festivus header courtesy of USA Today

virtual advent 2018: festivus with a side of translation FAIL

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On 23 December, 2018

In random

Welcome back to yet another installment of sprite’s Virtual Advent 2018!

Today we will take a quick journey to the land of Festivus, the anti-commercial made-up holiday that falls on December 23. It’s the product of a 1997 episode of Seinfeld. It’s best explained by watching this compilation clip from “The Strike,” the episode that started it all.

The basic gist of Festivus is that it’s a holiday that eschews the normal tropes of Christmas. It evolved out of a fight over an in-demand toy at a local store, after which point Frank Costanza decided he would drop Christmas and create “a Festivus for the rest of us!”

Rather than a tree, there’s an aluminum pole (chosen for “its high strength-to-weight ratio,” according to Mr. Costanza). Instead of singing carols, celebrants engage in feats of strength (which typically ended up with George crying). And rather than reflect on the good that happened over the past year, there is an airing of grievances over the family dinner, where members call each other out on how disappointed they are in each others’ behavior over the year.

If this sounds like typical Seinfeld fare, it is. That said, it evolved out of the family history of one of the show’s writers, Dan O’Keefe, whose father made up the holiday back in the mid-1960s. While originally a celebration of the anniversary of the elder O’Keefe’s first date with his future wife, the celebration was given a new spin when featured on the NBC sitcom. That’s when December 23 was decided upon as the date of Festivus as observed by folks not names Dan O’Keefe.

Rather than remain a bit of “nothing” like most Seinfeld gags, Festivus has been adopted all over the world as a way to cleanse oneself from the bad aspects of the ending year. In the Adams Morgan neighborhood in the District of Columbia, it was tradition for many years to celebrate Festivus with an aluminum foil clad lamppost, and a grievance board taking over the community announcement kiosk at the intersection of Columbia Road NW and 18th Street.

I see Festivus as a necessary grounding tonic to some of the overt commercialism and romanticized, manufactured sentimentality that seems to be ever-present during modern Christmas celebrations. That’s not to say I’m a humbug, but it’s good to air out the things that annoy in order to start the new year tabula rasa.

And besides: it gives you something to celebrate on December 23. Otherwise, it’s just Christmas Eve eve.

So that’s about it…. right?

NO!

In order to add a little bit of levity to this post (it is me, after all), I’m posting one of Malinda Kathleen Reese‘s excellent Translator Fails. This year, she’s taken on “White Christmas,” the Irving Berlin classic. In doing so, the song morphs into an ode to white… wine.

She also released this medley of various holiday songs that had a similarly absurd outcome:

Enjoy – and Happy Crimble to all!

This post is part of sprite’s Virtual Advent Tour 2018. Click here for more info.

virtual advent 2018: caja tio

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On 9 December, 2018

In random

Catalan Christmas traditions tend toward the weird. With that may I introduce…

CAJA TIO – the pooping log!

Caja Tio by Valerie Hinojosa - Creative Commons 2.0 licensed

Also known as Tio de Nadal, Caja Tio is a staple of Catalan Christmas tradition. The basic gist is that a household has this wooden log sculpture, typically 30 centimeters long, in their house for the holiday season.

Starting on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8th), the “tio” is fed a bit of “food” (candy or something similar), and is kept “comfortable” by covering it in a blanket. This continues until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, when the log is placed in the fireplace and ignited, then beaten with a stick until it “defecates” its treasures. (In recent years, the decreasing commonality of fireplaces has many families skipping the immolation aspect of the Christmas Eve/Day culmination of festivities.)

The beating of Caja Tio tends to also involve singing songs in praise – or perhaps sarcastic spite – of the holiday log. This was famously immortalized by Norah Jones on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations Holiday Special in 2011.

Another Catalan tradition around Christmas is the addition of a Caganer figurine to the nativity scene. A cajaner is a person in the act of defecation (the term literally translates to “the crapper” or “the shitter”), and is typically represented by a peasant in Catalan dress. Learn more about this strange figure here. 

This post is part of sprite’s Virtual Advent Tour 2018. Click here for more info.

 

Warren Miller

here’s to warren miller (r.i.p.)

By

On 26 January, 2018

In skiing

Warren Miller died yesterday at the age of 93. To any alpine skier, his name brings to mind images of gorgeous alpine vistas, with good looking skiers performing extreme feats of derring do – or neophyte skiers battling their equipment as they crash getting off the chairlift.

I was still fairly new to skiing in 1985 when my dad took me to my first Warren Miller movie, Steep and Deep. Back then, Miller still did his movies as a roadshow, taking them from town to town and narrating them live at the theatre. His delivery was warm and funny, with a slightly deadpan approach to the zinger lines.

I left the movie completely sold on becoming a better skier. The movie featured a mix of big mountain skiing, local mountain humor, and some awesome ski racing footage. With immersive visuals and Miller’s narration and humor, I thought to myself, “this is a sport I really want to do – and do well!” By this point in my youth, I was considering entering the world of alpine ski racing, and seeing some of the best skiers of the day (especially the U.S. hero of the Sarajevo Olympics, Phil Mahre) racing gates on a gigantic screen at Highland High School in Salt Lake City sealed the deal.

Sure, there were some things I wasn’t going to try – like telemark mogul competitions:

And while I really loved seeing the powder skiing at Snowbird, I wasn’t about to do a full gainer into the bottomless snow:

I’ve enjoyed Warren Miller films ever since. His older films still resonate today with the sheer beauty of the cinematography and the elegance of the retro fashions. Sure, the skiing may look different, but when the skier is the late, great Stein Eriksen, it’s never out of style:

Fortunately, one of Miller’s 1990s films, Black Diamond Rush, can be streamed for free as of this writing. Sure, ski films aren’t everyone’s cuppa, but this is a good example of the Miller formula: mix great skiers with great venues and see where the chips fall. Mix in humor, some occasional sidetracking, and some memorable quotes, and presto: your classic ski movie is made!

As Miller got older, he gradually handed over the film business to his sons, who in turn sold Warren Miller Entertainment to Time Inc., who in turn sold it to other investment groups. Miller’s narration slowly disappeared from the films, as well, replaced by the more au courant likes of Johnny Moseley. It’s not quite the same, yet it’s still the Miller formula at work.

2016’s Miller film, Here, There, and Everywhere, celebrated Miller’s 90th birthday by interviewing the man, himself, while asking current ski heroes what the Warren Miller films meant to them. It was, and is, a fitting tribute – and it’s available to stream from all the usual sources.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some of my favorite “Millerisms” that will always make me smile.

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. If it still doesn’t work out, failure may be your thing.”

“If you don’t have any idea where you’re going, you’ll probably end up there.”

“Adventure is the invitation to common people to become uncommon.”

“Gravity is love and every turn is a leap of faith.”

“You can’t get hurt skiing unless you fall.”

“If you don’t do it this year, you’ll just be one year older when you do.”

“Don’t take life seriously, because you won’t come out of it alive.”

And then there’s this passage (from Miller’s autobiography, Freedom Found: My Life Story), which hits home with me because I can still clearly remember the first time I skied in 1981, age 7, at Parley’s Summit Ski Area:

If I ask any­body who learned to ski after the age of five, they can remem­ber their first day of skiing – what the weather was like, who they went with, what they had for lunch. I believe that’s because that first day on skis was the first day of total free­dom in their life.

So thank you, Warren Miller, for lighting a fire in this Utah boy. It’s taken me on some incredible journeys, and continues to do so.

 

Light trails

virtual advent: random christmas trivia

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On 15 December, 2017

In random

Christmas is a weird holiday for me. I’m not really in on the religious aspect. I like the fact that it happens around the winter solstice, which heralds the arrival of my favorite season of the year.

It snowed this morning in New York City, where I happened to be on business. The city is particularly beautiful in a fresh coating of white, with the lights of the holiday decorations (both Christmas and Hanukkah) adding a dash of color to the mix (necessary in a city where black winter coats rule the fashion landscape).

But today isn’t that day. Today is December 15th. There are 9 shopping days left until the big day.

December 15th is also International Tea Day – so appropriate for sprite, given her fondness for a nice, hot cuppa.

“That’s trivial,” you say. Well, it is, to an extent. And I like trivia, so here are some random bits of Christmas trivia (thanks to the Daily Mirror and The Telegraph UK for giving me some insight on these).

  • From 1647 until 1660, Christmas celebrations were banned in England by Oliver Cromwell in the aftermath of the English Civil War.
  • Greek (i.e. Orthodox Christian, including Russian) Christmas falls on January 7th, thanks to an adherence to the classic Julian calendar. In Greece, the presents of the season are opened on New Year’s Day.
  • January 7th is Three Kings’ Day in most non-Orthodox Christian traditions, the day it’s said the three wise men arrived with their gifts for the baby Jesus. Some folks call this “little Christmas” and exchange gifts on said day (as was the case in my house growing up, a mash-up of Orthodox Christmas and the “little Christmas” gift giving).
  • The needles of conifer trees are edible and are a good source of vitamin C. That said, I’ll stick to orange juice.
  • “White Christmas,” as performed by Bing Crosby, is the best selling Christmas song of all time, with over 50 million copies sold since its release in 1942.
  • Electric Christmas lights (i.e. “fairy lights” in the UK) were invented in the U.S. in 1882. Certainly the first case of frayed nerves from trying to deduce which light threw off the whole strand started that same year.
  • Even though a decorated tree is a tradition borrowed from Saturnalia in the pagan traditions, the first reference to a tree used specifically for Christmas celebration dates back to 1570, as seen in a German pamphlet.
  • In Japan, practicing Christians will often source their holiday meal from Kentucky Fried Chicken – one of the easiest places in the country to find a (mostly) whole chicken for sale. Colonel Sanders may look a little like Santa… sorta.
  • Estonians celebrate Christmas Eve with some time in the sauna – never cold on Christmas, those Estonians.
  • Oh to live in Greece, Italy, Spain, or Germany, where workers receive a Christmas bonus of one month’s salary by law.

So there’s a list of weird facts and traditions about Christmas. Trivial? Absolutely.

Necessarily trivial.

This post is part of sprite’s Virtual Advent 2017. And now I go to sleep… zzzzzz….

Skiing Santa from Ho Ho Pro

virtual advent: skiing santas!

By

On 7 December, 2017

In random, skiing

Welcome to another stop in sprite’s Virtual Advent 2017! I love that sprite carries on this tradition every year – and I try to provide something unique to the mix every year.

This year I’m sharing the tradition of the skiing Santas. Many ski areas kick off their season in early December, and most of them have a skiing Santa to welcome skiers, especially the children.

But some ski areas go a bit further. Witness Sunday River, Maine, where the annual “Santa Sunday” brings out hundreds of skiers in full Santa garb (though the helmet is a new nod to safety). These skiers can ski for free on this day, provided they wear their full Santa regalia all day. Here is footage from this year’s Santa Sunday, which took place last weekend:

And because everything is bigger in the Alps (though the Alps are geologically younger mountains than the Appalachian Range, of which Sunday River’s peaks are part), Verbier, Switzerland, hosted over 2,600 Santas (and associates of Santa) for their annual “Santa Après Ski” festivities this past Saturday:

And because I really can’t wait for the beginning of ski season, here are two cheesy ski videos. First up: Hansi Hinterseer, former Austrian downhill racer, graces us with the latest rendition of his hit song (in Austria, of course), “Ski-Twist”:

And as Christmas for sprite and me is never complete without a bit of John Denver, here’s his video for “Dancing With The Mountains,” from his 1980 album, Autograph:

I’ll be back with more Virtual Advent later in the month – stay tuned!

The header image is a still from “Ho Ho Pro” – another fun video of a skiing Santa, this time at Telluride, Colorado.

Stone Hollow

coffeeneuring 2017: new places aplenty

By

On 18 November, 2017

In cycling, food

Another autumn means another of Mary G’s Coffeeneuring Challenges! I’ve always enjoyed riding my bike in search of a cup of joe. Or an espresso. Possibly a flat white. Or maybe a cortado…

Regardless, it’s always fun. This year, I once again couldn’t come up with a “theme within a theme.” Rather, I decided to do my coffeeneuring at places where I hadn’t previously done the challenge. So while a couple of these might be coffeehouses where I’d been before, none had previously seen me for some good old-fashioned coffeeneuring!

Read Mary’s intro piece for the rules (and they are rules in this portmanteau of “coffee” and “randonneuring,” the latter of these words being a form of cycling so laden with rules as to make me wonder why I’d want to lug around a control card… yet I kinda want to), then read along as I go on this year’s journey. As with last year’s post, clicking on the mileage will take you to the Strava record of each journey.

Stop the First:
Date: 13 October
Distance Ridden: 5.7 miles
Location: Qualia Coffee (Eckington location), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 7/10 (one block from a major east-west bike lane and the Metropolitan Branch Trail, but no real bike parking out front – Joel, the owner, invited me to bring the bike inside the shop)
Drink: cortado (beans roasted at the other Qualia location)

#Coffeeneuring stop the first of 2017: a cortado at @qualiacoffee’s new Eckington location! #caffeine #bikeDC

A post shared by Rudi Riet (@therandomduck) on

Lesson Learned: Qualia’s original location is in Petworth, run out of a converted house with a laid-back, homespun vibe. So when I’d seen signs advertising their new location in Eckington, a block from the Metropolitan Branch Trail and thus on my daily commute route (more or less), I thought I should drop in. The new space is airy and light, even though it’s not too huge. It’s part of the new Gale at Eckington apartment complex, and is still developing a local clientele. But the coffee is still the excellent quality stuff offered in Petworth – they just need a bike rack or two out front to make it a bit more cycling-friendly.

Stop the Second:
Date: 15 October
Distance Ridden: 5.7 miles
Location: Sugar Shack Donuts (Shaw location), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 6/10 (not a lot of space for bikes to park, but enough signposts for locking that keep bikes out of the narrow sidewalk right-of-way)
Drink: latté (Zeke’s Coffee)

Lesson Learned: sprite is also taking on the Coffeeneuring Challenge, and I’ve been happy to join her on some of her exploits. The coffee at Sugar Shack is made with beans from Zeke’s, a favorite local roaster, and was quite good. The donuts are also superb, and two of these we acquired by singing “The Hogwarts Song” from the Harry Potter series. I sang it to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” while sprite made up the tune as she went along (there is no proper music to this song, so why not make something up?). We also visited the Northwest One branch of DC’s Public Library, which was a really lovely library that replaced the kiosk-style Sursum Corda branch a few years ago. Read sprite’s account here.

Stop the Third:
Date: 19 October
Distance Ridden: 35.6 miles
Location: Bread & Water Company, Alexandria, VA
Bike Friendliness: 7/10 (in a strip mall, easy to park bikes in front and sit next to them, and strip mall is on a bike-friendly road with a bike shop around the corner)
Drink: flat white (Caffe Lavazza)

Lesson Learned: Over the past year this stop has become a favorite one for coffee and awesome baked goods, so I make a point of going there whenever I ride south of Alexandria. I rode with my good friend, Ed, and we had a lovely ride with a tasty break. I bought one of the fresh baguettes as my snack and ate half of it at the bakery, packing the other half for the ride home. In a not-so-nice turn of events, I crashed my bike on the return to DC along the Mount Vernon Trail by DCA, suffering some contusions on my knee, partially separating my shoulder, ripping a favorite pair of cycling shorts, and doing in my favorite Kask helmet (it took a very solid hedge branch for the team). Luckily, #hip2point0 was just fine, as was my bike, and I rode the rest of the way home without any further incident (and I rode the 5.5 miles into work the next morning).

Stop the Fourth:
Date: 21 October
Distance Ridden: 4.7 miles
Location: Made in DC Pop-Up Shop (Dupont Circle), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 8/10 (staple racks and street signs outside, plenty of space to park the bikes without blocking the sidewalk)
Drink: double espresso (Small Planes Coffee)

Lesson Learned: another adventure with sprite, this time to the cool pop-up shop in our neighborhood that features only made-in-DC wares. Thus, the coffee is from a new local micro-roaster – it was tasty! The shop had a lot of great things for sale: food, drinks (I also had a local cider from Anxo), clothing, art (unsurprisingly, the Dupont Circle map prints were sold out), and jewelry. And the outdoor seating was perfect on this warm autumn day.

Stop the Fifth:
Date: 28 October
Distance Ridden: 69.5 miles
Location: The Little Country Store, Etlan, VA
Bike Friendliness: 8/10 (it’s a country store, so parking isn’t a big deal, the proprietors are friendly, there’s a great view of Old Rag Mountain, and there’s a store cat – what’s not to like?)
Drink: drip coffee (nothing special)

Lesson Learned: I’ve been here many times before, as this little oasis is a welcome respite when riding along the foot of Shenandoah National Park. It’s a typical locals place: basic groceries, a deli, pit BBQ, and a few neighbors discussing the local news. The coffee there is nothing special (probably Folgers or Maxwell House), but it was a warm beverage on a crisp fall day. And the store’s elderly cat (some Siamese mix, I think) is always game for some lap time – and happily posed for pictures. The ride was one that had over 40 miles of gravel roads, and while I wasn’t on an ideal whip for the task (a road bike with 26mm tires), I held my own.

Stop the Sixth:
Date: 1 November
Distance Ridden: 5.5 miles
Location: Chuck Brown Memorial Park (Langdon Park), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 8/10 (nice park, hilly to get there but the roads are quiet, bike racks in the park though not near the memorial area)
Drink: French press (Starbucks Pike Place beans)

Lesson Learned: Ever since I started my new job with JUMP Mobility, my commute has taken me past Langdon Park, where the Chuck Brown Memorial was built a couple years ago to celebrate DC’s “godfather of go-go.” So I decided to make a “coffeeneuring in the wild” stop at this memorial – very cool! It’s a dynamic sculpture that captures the essence of the celebrations that were his concerts (full disclosure: never had a chance to see Chuck perform live). I love Chuck’s music – give his “The Party Roll” a listen!

Stop the Seventh:
Date: 4 November
Distance Ridden: 61.2 miles
Location: Extra Perks, Alexandria, VA
Bike Friendliness: 7/10 (only a couple blocks from the Mount Vernon Trail, OK street parking tho sadly without bike racks, outdoor seating is nice, and a bike shop around the corner)
Drink: espresso (beans unknown but fairly good)

Lesson Learned: I’d already been to Vigilante Coffee in Hyattsville on this ride, but I’ve coffeeneured there before. So when we passed this place, I had to stop and get a quick espresso! Despite the name, Extra Perks is a British-themed eatery: full tea, English fry-ups, bangers and mash. But the espresso was a winner: tasty, not bitter, the size of a triple shot, and under $2.

Stop the Eighth
Date: 5 November
Distance Ridden: 2.4 miles (this is two separate Strava rides – the decimal is the divider!)
Location: Pear Plum Café (Mt. Pleasant), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 8/10 (we rode Capital Bikeshare for this one, and the nearest stops are a few blocks away. Otherwise, it’s not difficult to find racks or signposts for locking a bike, and Mt. Pleasant Street has a sharrow going each way.)
Drink: dirty chai (Oregon Chai and Counter Culture)

Lesson Learned: another ride with sprite, with a stop at the Mt. Pleasant branch of DC’s Public Library system, a lovely Carnegie-funded building dating back to 1925. This branch was devastated by a large neighborhood fire in 2008 and remained closed for repairs and renovations until 2012. The restored library is lovely, with bright, open spaces that invite a patron into the stacks. There are also lovely murals by Aurelius Battaglia, a DC native whose work is best known in the Little Golden Books series. After spending some time in the library (which also had a photo exhibit focused on Michelle Obama), we went to Pear Plum Café, which succeeded Flying Fish Coffee on Mt. Pleasant Street. Our drinks and pie were most excellent!

Stop the Ninth:
Date: 13 November
Distance Ridden: 9.6 miles
Location: Chinatown Coffee Company (Chinatown), Washington, DC
Bike Friendliness: 8/10 (there is a single staple rack about 20 feet from the front door, though the owners will let you bring your bike inside if it’s not too busy. Located on a busy street in downtown DC.)
Drink: cappuccino (Intelligentsia… maybe?)

Lesson Learned: I was en route to a work meeting with the Metropolitan Police Department and wanted some coffee and a snack, so Chinatown Coffee was the place to go. I’ve been here before, though never while coffeeneuring. My cappuccino was perfectly executed, and the chocolate biscotti was a perfect contrast and was tasty when dunked into my frothy beverage. The meeting with MPD went well, and I made some important contacts within the department. Above all: they liked JUMP’s business model and our commitment to responsible parking of the bikes (JUMP bicycles are meant to be locked to a bike rack, signpost, or other out-of-the-right-of-way object).

Total Miles: 199.9

Cover image is from the fifth coffeeneuring adventure, taken in Stone Hollow, Virginia.

a quick #hip2point0 update

By

On 3 September, 2017

In cycling, random, skiing

Yes, I said I’d give more regular updates about the new hip.

And I’ve not done so – at least not on this site. Bugger. Sorry about that.

I’ll make it brief and bulleted:

  • I made it through the high-risk for deep-vein thrombosis time without incident. Yes, there was a bit of a pickle with the anticoagulant meds, but that was fixed quickly and, as I said, no problems.
  • I was off crutches within less than two weeks of surgery, and off a cane not long after that.
  • My physical therapists have kicked my butt, and the result is ever-improving strength and range of motion.
  • I’ve put in over 1,000 miles on the bike since I was cleared to ride back in mid-July. There was a lot of rust at first, but things have come back quickly.
  • I’m now at around 80-85 percent of maximum possible strength, and as I’m already feeling far better than I did even after #projectfemur healing in 2014, this is a good sign.
  • My orthopedist says the new joint has healed really well, is stable, and should be good for a long while. My PTs appreciate that I do my work to build fitness and flexibility.

And that’s about it! There haven’t been any major bumps in the road, for which I’m grateful. I know that things can challenge me in the coming months and years,  but I’m prepared in case things go off the rails. I’m carrying on, and should be all set for ski season well before the snow flies.

Days since surgery: 118

Three faces of recovery

a #hip2point0 update: two weeks on the new hip, and…

By

On 22 May, 2017

In random

Hey there! It’s been a fortnight since #hip2point0 happened, and a lot has changed – primarily for the better!

The surgery went well. My previous post was thumb-typed in the pre-op prep room on my smartphone. I hadn’t yet had any pain meds or anesthesia, but I was confident about the surgery. My prep nurse had wonderful bedside manner and a great sense of humor. My anesthesiologist was similarly nice and friendly. My orthopedist initialed my right hip, and I was ready to go.

I waited. As the last surgery of the day, I had to wait for my doctor and his team to have lunch – a good thing, I’d say. That said, I hadn’t eaten since midnight, and my stomach was growling a bit (and not out of nervousness).

My surgery lasted almost four hours. My surgeon, Dr. Hanna, had to remove some of the #projectfemur hardware, which proved tough as the still-good part of my femur had grown around the titanium rod running down the marrow channel of my femur. I lost a lot of blood during this (“a sign of a healthy bone,” per a doctor friend), but after the hardware came out the installation of new hardware was fairly routine. Best of all, Dr. Hanna didn’t have to dissect any gluteal muscles to get to the surgical site, which meant a quicker recovery was possible. (All credit to pulling off a 45 mile bike ride the day before surgery, as it made my glutes limber enough to be moved without cutting.)

As was the case in 2014, I awoke from anesthesia in a great mood, though I can’t remember this as there is a period of unconscious awake state before actually waking up (thus why you sign a contract stating you’ll make no major life decisions while on anesthetic drugs). I do remember waking up in my room at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, a bit nauseous but otherwise OK.

And my hip felt great!

And my right leg was now back to equal length with my left – woohoo!

The blood loss took its toll on my original plan to go home the next day. When I was sat up to transfer to a chair for PT, I turned white as a sheet, my blood pressure dropped, and I almost fainted. I was very anemic, and it showed. So I ended up getting four units of platelet-rich plasma over the next two days, and it did the trick, getting my hemoglobin numbers moving in the right direction.

My inpatient PT and OT went well once I had the blood, and I was walking with crutches – fully weight bearing on the new hip – two days post-op. I easily passed all of the occupational tests, including climbing and descending stairs, getting onto and off the toilet, into and out of a shower, a car, and bed. The therapists credited my pre-surgical shape for being so capable.

What was really remarkable was the overall lack of pain in my hip. Sure, the muscles were sore – moving them out of the way, while less invasive, is essentially pulling them, so I felt like I’d been kicked in the butt extremely hard – but the pain level was so low that I was off of opioid medication less than 30 hours after surgery. The docs and nurses were pleasantly stunned, as was I – but best to avoid those things, I don’t like the side-effects.

The nurses and techs at Shady Grove were really caring and affable. It took me until Wednesday night (the night before my discharge) before I got a good night’s sleep, but that’s to be expected. On discharge day, the ward doctor said I had one new prescription: Coumadin, an aggressive blood thinner. This was due to the pulmonary embolism risks I had, my history from 2014 being the driver in this decision.

Coumadin is a samurai sword of an anticoagulant: it doesn’t mince words in its treatment, for better and for worse. The latter aspect is what really hit me hard. It meant: limited use of sharp knives (I could bleed a lot without clotting); blade shaving was out of the question (so I’ve grown a scruffy beard, drawing comparisons to Roger Waters‘ current state of upkeep); basically cutting iron-rich, green, leafy vegetables from my diet (they are rich in vitamin K – i.e. the clotting vitamin); and cutting my daily alcohol intake to a single drink. Given I live in a mostly vegetarian household, gutting green veg from my diet has been really limiting on what I can eat. And given I’m recovering from blood loss, I crave iron-rich things – and the vitamin K veg have the most easily metabolized iron of all foods!

But it was worse than that. I happen to suffer from a rare side-effect to Coumadin and warfarin: I get hypersensitive teeth, to the point where anything not pH neutral and/or room temperature causes my entire jaw to engulf itself in waves of pain. I cut my daily dose from 5mg to 4mg to make things less intense, but it only did so much.

I wanted to be on Xarelto, which was my anticoagulant after the PEs in 2014. It worked great, with no major side-effects, no dietary restrictions, etc. But my doctors insisted on Coumadin as it wouldn’t interfere with platelet production – a reasonable concern.

So I went home and since then, it’s been awesome (save for the Coumadin side-effects). I’m ambulatory, walking a lot, doing household things. I’m doing in-home PT with a great therapist from MedStar’s Visiting Nurse Association, and I’ve quickly graduated from crutches to a cane, and now only use the cane for longer-distance walking - I can walk unassisted and without a limp!

The nurses from MedStar VNA have taken blood samples, confirming my hemoglobin and hematocrit numbers are recovering nicely – so well that my primary care doctor switched me from Coumadin to Xarelto today! I’m already feeling my mouth returning to normal, which is a big relief!

I see Dr. Hanna on Wednesday to have my surgical staples removed, get some X-rays, and discuss PT and post-op consultations moving forward. I’ll still be in hip precaution territory for a while (to prevent dislocating my new titanium, ceramic, and polymer joint), but it should be a fairly smooth, linear trajectory back to normal life by mid-summer.

Thank you to Drs. Hanna, Olsen, Baxi, and Hofmann in helping drive this crazy ship called me through surgery and recovery. Thanks to all the nurses, physical therapists, and occupational therapists who helped me take the first steps on my new hip. Thanks to my friends for being there to cheer me up and keep me company. Thanks to my mom and dad for reaching out to care from afar. And special thanks and love to sprite for being there for me, helping me through rough patches, and keeping me grounded when I needed it.

In summary: the new hip is great, I can walk, I see a bright, pain-free future ahead. Yes, there’s work to be done, but I’m good for it - allons y!

#hip2point0 – here we go!

By

On 8 May, 2017

In random

Just checked in at the hospital. Old #projectfemur hardware is coming out, #hip2point0 hardware is going in.

I’m at ease with this. It is time. Yes, it’ll be a lot of hard work coming back to full strength, but I’m ready for the challenge.

Game on! See you after surgery…

Nats Park panorama, 28 April 2017

six days left to go…

By

On 2 May, 2017

In random

In six days, the new hip arrives – I can’t wait!

I have the clearance from my primary care doctor – my body is ready for new hip hardware. I have the surgical orders from my orthopedic surgeon – he’s ready to remove the last vestiges of #projectfemur hardware and put in shiny, new things. I had a nice call today with the admit nurse at the hospital – the hospital is ready to take me on as a patient.

But I’m not sitting idly by waiting for surgery day – I’m keeping busy!

My first Nationals Game of the season happened last Friday. The weather was perfect, and the Mets defeated the Nats (making sprite and me happy).

sprite and I went to the beach where I dipped my toes in the surf and received a wonderful natural exfoliation thanks to a wee bit of wind. We stopped at farm stands, ate fresh flounder sandwiches, tried out a new-to-us donut shop, and enjoyed Reese’s peanut butter Blizzards from DQ.

I’ve been cleaning The Burrow to make it more accessible in my post-surgical state. I’ve assembled a fairly large clothing donation for charity in the process (“I’m not half the man I used to be,” as McCartney once mused).

I just had my final pre-op dry needle and PT session – hip feels really great after that!

I’ll go on a few more bike rides with friends, to another baseball game (weather permitting), a meeting of the Pennsylvania Alpine Racing Association, and a few coffee and meal outings.

And Sunday I will eat like it’s going out of style – gotta for 12 hours prior to surgery, so I’m going to enjoy some of my favorite flavors in anticipation.

Like I said: I can’t wait for my new hip!

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