That Worked Out

"Do one small thing that will set you up to accomplish what you want in the next six months," my meditation guru advised yesterday morning. As I considered her words, I thought of all the trouble I have been having with my right foot since I turned my ankle in Maine last summer. 

Despite custom orthotics, exercises, NSAIDs, and a variety of splints and braces, my heel screams every time I walk farther than a few yards. I've been toughing it out, but if I want to get in shape to take advantage of that reservation I finally scored in theGrand Canyon Phantom Ranch lottery, I need to be 100 percent. 

With that in mind, I opened the portal to schedule an appointment with my podiatrist and was pleasantly surprised to find availability this morning at 9:45. He saw me right away and offered several treatment options. One was PT, which happened to be right across the hall.  

Another was an X-ray. "Do I have to call to schedule?" I asked. "You can go there right now," he said. "They'll take you today." The third was a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory, which he sent to my pharmacy. 

After scheduling my follow-up appointment in four weeks, I walked over to PT and booked three sessions. Then I drove up to the hospital and had barely sat down after checking-in when they took me back for my X-ray. I was out of there so fast, I didn't even have to pay for parking. As I headed out of the garage, my phone buzzed; it was the pharmacy: my prescription was ready, so I stopped on the way home to pick it up. 

I walked in the front door less than two hours after leaving home, with a sense of accomplishment and optimism that my foot will soon be better.

Crisis or Opportunity?

I know myself well enough to understand that doing something active early in the day usually gives me positive results. Once I get started, I stay started, but the temptation to sit a while reading the news and drinking coffee can be powerful now that I'm retired. With no strict schedule, I can sit there for hours, and soon it's time to walk Lucy and wait for Heidi to come home. Not much gets accomplished on days like that.

Tuesdays are usually pretty productive; I'm up at 6 to get Heidi off to school, and I have my bowling league at 10. Even so, I sometimes skip my meditation and have to rush through breakfast and showering, just to linger in my comfy chair. 

This morning, though, as I opened the bedroom drapes, the curtain rod came crashing down when the center bracket screw pulled out of the wall. Consequently, I was up on a ladder with drill and drywall anchor in hand, making the repair before 7:00 am. 

Now that got me going! Meditation, shower, and breakfast were all checked off my list by 8:45, and I even had a few minutes to relax in my chair before heading out to bowling.

Anglophilia

My brother and I were recently talking about our mutual admiration of the actress Claire Foy. We agreed that she was luminous as the young Queen Elizabeth in The Crown, and it seems as if she's been a bit underutilized since. 

I was just telling my sister yesterday about my new pastime of reading magazines for free on the public library app. I'm especially fond of those published in other countries; they offer a glimpse into everyday life and culture that feels immersive. They also cover topics that are not widely reported on in the US publications I usually read. 

For example, this morning I read about a new movie based on Helen Macdonald's memoir H is for Hawk, which I read and loved when it came out a decade ago (right around the time the early episodes of The Crown were first broadcast). 

And, what do you know? As HELLO! magazine informed me, the main character is being played by Claire Foy!

Two Decades On

In another case of too much to watch on TV and none of it appealing, we clicked play on the first episode of The Closer a couple of weeks ago. Back in the mid-oughts, when the show was new, we TIVOed it and watched the weekly digital recordings religiously. 

We were a little late to the game, though. The first episode we ever saw was sometime in August of 2005, after the series premiered in May. It was a Monday night in Stonington, Maine, and Heidi, our dog Isabel, and I were staying in an efficiency motel room on the harbor. We had taken the mail boat over to Isle au Haut that morning and hiked the uninhabited side of the island all day. 

It was the same summer that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published, and there was a moment on the cliffs on the windward side of the island that I just knew the entrance to the cave that Harry and Dumbledore visit in the opening chapters was right below us. Later, on a cobblestone beach, I fastened a fetch toy for Isabel from driftwood and the line of a washed-up lobster buoy, and she swam tirelessly in the cold water of that little inlet.

That night, the three of us tired and happy, we ordered fried seafood platters and feasted on the saggy couch in front of a bulky cathode ray TV. There were only a few channels available, and we settled on a show with an actor we recognized, Kyra Sedgwick, playing Chief Brenda Lee Johnson of the LAPD Major Crimes unit.

In the way of watching back then, we never saw the episodes of the series we had missed; broadcasting reruns was a thing of the even more distant past. I wasn't sure if I would know it when we got to that first episode, but the other night, when the squad started investigating the death of a young Mexican girl, I knew that was the one, even though the details were very hazy. 

Twenty years is a long time, but the show has held up somewhat well. Sure, technology has progressed, and there's not a single bearded character. The bigotry toward immigrants, women, and the LGBTQ community that some characters flagrantly express may have seemed anachronistic a year or so ago, but you know what? 

That might be coming back around.

Mature Audience

To prepare for the upcoming season of Euphoria, my 18-year-old niece recently re-watched the series. It's been four years since the last episodes aired, and her take on the show has changed a bit. "I can't believe you let me watch that when I was in middle school!" she told her mom. "Those kids are messed up!"

A Little Extra Pep in Our Step

A typical Friday night for 2 50+ladies: dinner, one maybe two episodes of some TV show, and bed by 10.

Friday night for the same ladies with an 18-year-old niece in town: dinner party, late-night crow gazing, corn chip taste test, still having fun at 11:30.

Good Puppy's Choice

 Lucy and I were on the last leg of our walk and passing through the little local shopping district when a sign on a door caught my eye. Holiday Merchandise Half Price, it promised, and below it was a placard that read, Dogs Welcome, so in we went from the cold. Two little boys and their mom were standing near a display midway along the wall, and they were thrilled to see Lucy.

"Dog!" said the teeny toddler.

"Can we pet it?" asked his brother.

"She's friendly," I assured the mom and asked Lucy to sit. Immediately to our left was a jumble of, of all things, squeaky dog toys, on the floor, so the command presented a bit of a challenge, but Lucy is a trooper, and soon her butt was on the floor. 

After the boys said hello, we all explored the pile of toys together. "Which one should we get?" I asked them, drawn to a pair of crinkly sandwiches, one a BLT, the other a PBJ. "Should we let Lucy choose?" They liked the idea, and so they each put a sandwich down in front of them. Lucy had other ideas, though. When I gave her the okay, she snuffled through the pile instead.

"Maybe she's not hungry," I joked.

Just then, she picked out a squeaky plush soda can.

"She must be thirsty!" the older boy said, and collapsed in giggles at his own joke.