Run. Dog. Cat. Cat. Me.

There goes the castle.

It’s a grey cold windy day with flakes of snow blowing sideways past my window.  None of it is sticking, although we woke to enough to lightly blanket the grass and the deck was white.  I have Italian herb bread in the bread machine (I cheat, but it makes such a nice dough!  Then I bake it in the oven, not in the bread machine.) and minestrone will soon be on the stove.  Murphy is curled up in the bed and Chunk and Mo are off somewhere asleep.  They should be, they were crazy this morning.  thudthudthudthud thundering down the hallway.   thudthudthudthud back down the hallway.  thudthudthudthud up the stairs.  thudthudthudthud down the stairs.  Suddenly the happy little felines went thudthudthudthud through the kitchen nearly knocking my coffee mug out of my hand.  Near death experience for cats.

Don’t break my new coffee cup!

I Love Grumpy Cat. *heart* *heart*

Everything went well in Oxford and Sunday I was surprised – I was not sore at all.  Rather like someone who just bought a matching set of Ford Pintos, I was, however, feeling deeply remorseful over the Fbombs exploding in my head Saturday and showering all over poor Maggie, who happened to be running next to me when they started igniting, and was regretting my effing slightly effing negative effing attitude.  Not that I’m always Little Mary Sunshine anyway, but I’m thinking I may have also been spitting pea soup in a circle on the course.

Unfortunately Monday morning I apparently tried breathing or thinking or something and suddenly my lower back went “EFFFINGSUNUVABEECH” only louder and with a lot more intensity.  Who knew, we actually have live wires that run through our body and my back had stuck its finger in the socket.  I moved and it hit again.  My back was in labor.  I already have a back.  I don’t need to birth another.  I’m not even registered at Babies BackwardR Us.  Thank God for Lamaze classes, little did I know decades later I would be using the breathing techniques again.

Tuesday it was no better and I called Dr. Krackurback – who is out of the office on Tuesdays, oh yippee skippy – and got an appointment for Wednesday, resigning myself to spending the day walking around like a puppet on a string, jerking erratically.  Hey, it gave the cats something to look at.  Murphy slept through it all, curled up on his blanket.  Just don’t touch his blanket.  Ever.  He jumps like it just exploded and looks at you:  WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT DID I DO?  all sleepy-eyed and confused.  It makes you feel really guilty.  Especially the 7th or 8th time.

Wednesday Dr. K explained to me that muscles are like a castle wall.  Muscles are the first line of defense.  If the muscles hold the castle then all the kings and queens and little knaves and knavettes are safe.  If the invaders start knocking the wall down, and the wall is already rather rickety – maybe made out of bamboo instead of bricks – pretty soon the wall gives in, the castle is invaded and everyone starts screaming and trying to shove knives into the knaves and pouring boiling oil all over the place.

He’d already figured out that my Quadratus lumborum is weak and gave me some exercises to do but noted it would not be a quick fix, need to get the muscles strengthened and that takes time.   (Seriously.  Quadratus! lumborum!  Doesn’t that sound like some made up word that Harry shouted at Voldemort?  ZZZaaaaat!)

No, it’s just a stupid muscle in your back.  The short of it is I slightly sprained my SI joint (castle) because I strained the QL (rickety wall of bamboo) because it’s a sorry a$$ 99 pound weakling at the beach, all white and puny and skinny getting sand kicked in its face, stupid thing.  Probably it got a bit tuckered out, poor weak little jerk, feeling sorry for itself because my butt never invited it to the Falling Off Party and later when everyone else was all laughing hahahaha at inside jokes that happened at the party the QL got jealous and decided to go remedial.

So, it’s all good.  I know what happened and how, I know what to do to fix it, and I can be patient working on it.  I took it easy this week and moved carefully in order not to re-strain anything; every day it’s better.

I can’t feel too badly about any of this – I’m in a lot better shape than Becky, who’s got a stress fracture of the 5th metatarsal and possibly 6 weeks off running.  Today we swam.  I used the swimming buoy so I didn’t kick (no need to upset QL, the whiny brat, I’d go down like a rock) all arms pulling which is great as they also need to get stronger.  I did OK, got 1750 yards.  I wanted 2,000 but was losing my form – no need for that, just another way to get hurt.

While I was swimming, backandforth-backandforth-backandforth, for the first time I thought, this isn’t too bad.  I could breathe well enough.  I didn’t have to hold onto the side at each turn.  It felt … good.