Sculpin

About a year and a half ago we asked Qwest to knock it off with the phone books. It worked. I’m hoping it works as well with Verizon.

It was, again, surprisingly easy. I called Verizon’s directory department at 1-800-888-8448 and gave my name, number, and address to a slightly surprised-sounding customer service rep. (”You don’t want phone books?” he clarified carefully.) I encourage anybody who’s tired of the big paper phone bricks to give the companies a call. They do have ways to ensure that you don’t get the phone books; they just don’t advertise the fact.

The hold time wasn’t even that bad. Really, the worst part was having to physically handle the phone books themselves. They smell awful. Ugh.

If my notes are correct, tomorrow will be our 6-month anniversary of being car-free. Hooray!

I knew that January would be the test of my resolve, and this January was one fine test. But I’m still happy with our decision not to keep a car around.

There was one day, one icy slippery-sidewalk day, when I thought twice about it as I flailed my way to the bus stop. (And then kept on thinking twice as I flailed my way back from the bus stop, having forgotten about holiday schedule changes. That day stunk.) But one grouchy day in six months is not worth having a car for. I thought the rain and cold might do me in, but in fact, I kind of like short bike rides in the rain, and I have yet to meet a cold day that my balaclava can’t handle just fine.

By and large, life’s been more fun without a car.

I’ve been busy with physical therapy lately. It’s about what you’d expect from me: weak VMO, internally rotated femurs, sub-optimal hip muscles… if I’d realized how much of the body’s well-being comes down to the muscles of the butt, I would have been a lot more careful after being tossed through the air by a van and smacking my derriere on the pavement a few years ago. (”You’ll be fine in eight weeks,” indeed.) Fortunately, I don’t seem to have done myself a whole lot of real damage — no torn ACL or anything.

It’s been sort of fun working on the VMO part of all this — I get to run a small electric current through the VMO while flexing it. It feels like I’m ripping Scotch tape off the skin there. Dan the PT also has got me doing little tiny interval training: I boost my heart rate to about 135 for thirty seconds or so, then cool back down to below 110 for a minute, and repeat.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with oddball resist-dyeing methods. So far, my experiments have not been particularly successful.

Yesterday, Josh and I dropped by the open house at Two Cranes Aikido, which has moved to my neck of the woods. We’re thinking about giving it a try, starting probably in April.

A minor rite of passage: I had my first bike wipeout on January 13. Out on the tandem a block and a half from home, we hit a patch of ice and went down. My thought on the way down: “Oh, man, I really don’t want to have to tell the physical therapist about this.” Because, really, being out on that road that day was plain crazy. But I’m glad to have the first wipeout over with. I’d been fairly afraid of falling on the bike, especially since it’s a tandem—I’d imagined the combined force of bike, pavement, and captain all working together to snap my femur. But no, I just jarred a few joints.

I placed a super order at Raintree Nursery a few weeks ago during their winter sale. Arriving in the mail at some point are two kinds of strawberries, three kinds of lingonberries, two kinds of thornless blackberries, two kinds of blackcurrants, and a Stevens cranberry. (Oh boy oh boy oh boy….) I’ve gone plant-mad. I want to rip up the parking strip and plant it with raspberries. I want to train apple trees on wires into a living fence in the front yard. I want a greenhouse. Yeah, it’s January, all right.

How fantastic.