Neighborhood Organizers and Physical Therapists

Since my last post was a bit in-depth about my back, I should probably start there. I began physical therapy yesterday and went back this morning. Yesterday was interesting. Since I'd never been in physical therapy before, I didn't really know what to expect. I was starting my second set of exercises and all of a sudden, I broke out in a sweat, felt dizzy, had to sit down, and then leaped up to dry heave in the bathroom. I didn't know what was wrong with me - I'd had breakfast, I wasn't sick - until it dawned on me that I'd just had a panic attack. I said as much to my PT, and she said that pain can bring on that sort of thing. After talking me down a little and promising she wouldn't hurt me, we got down to business, and I felt leaps and bounds better as I walked out the door.

I'm still pretty stiff, but after I do my exercises, I stand a bit more evenly and my left hip juts out a little less. At my session this morning, I also got an ultrasound (no screen, just the roller thing with jelly) and I got plunged. Yes, plunged, with a plunger. My PT assured me that I won't have plunger hickeys all over my back, but I haven't checked yet to see if she was telling the truth. Regardless of the strange methods, I feel much, much better than I did Tuesday or even Monday. Unfortunately, my PT wants me to quit the vicodin, which is a bummer, because I kinda liked how the world feels when I'm just a bit cloudy. And, now that I've written that, I realize it's probably for the best that I lay off the drugs.

Yesterday evening, Andrew and I (while under the influence) went to a neighborhood planning meeting. The area we live in shares part of its boundaries with a small university, so it has the sometimes interesting combination of families and college students living next door to each other. In fact, one of our neighbors is a house of college students, whom we love. They're very quiet, and the few times we've even heard music, it's been snapped off at 10pm on the dot. Unfortunately, the "For Sale/For Rent" signs just popped up in the yard. Andrew and I are hopeful that a young couple like ourselves will buy the house next door, but anyone who has survived childhood and lived with the disappointment of an old couple moving in next door when you were hoping for your storybook new BFF knows that whoever you want to move in next door to you probably never will. Worse case scenario is that the house gets purchased by a corporate landlord operated in California. We have our fingers crossed that we just get another group of college student renters.

So, with these changing possibilities, Andrew and I thought it might make sense to go to the planning meeting. We were the youngest people in the room. There was one guy who looked to be 30-35, and after him, the next youngest person was in their late forties. And, we had really nothing to contribute to the meeting, since the basis was that you got to go to different city representatives and complain to them. We approached the library and told them we liked them because their online book ordering system was like a free subscription Netflix only with books, which unfortunately the librarians interpreted to mean that we like their DVD selection (which I do, since once a semester I run in and grab a stack of documentaries to show my students). We were a little insulted - just because we were 30 years younger than anyone else present didn't mean that we don't enjoy reading. We also suggested to the transportation people that they add in a connection leading from our house to the bike trail that is entirely downhill...both ways would be preferable. Unfortunately, the transportation people had been getting a pretty big beating from the old people who didn't like the bus schedule, so it took them a minute to get the joke.

Some people might think that such a meeting would be a waste of our time. However, we got loaded down in freebies. Each of us got a canvas bags with the 2010 Census logo on it (I love canvas bags!!), pencils, pens, post-its, about 5 brochures that we grabbed because the information seemed somewhat useful, and we were given 4 tickets to our minor league ball park for filling out a survey. And, if that wasn't enough, we also drank about 4 glasses of lemonade between the two of us and ate three cookies. The macadamia nut was quite good. If that's not an incentive to get involved with your neighborhood, I don't know what is.