Lock Up Your Fancy Cars

I was right; it's hot out there. I'm back from physical therapy. Thank God, driving is working out okay. I am able to fold up my walker to stick it in the back, and then I just lean on my (filthy) car to get back around to the driver's seat. The toughest parts are reaching up to pull down the hatchback and then hoisting my legs into the car; whichever muscles those are that help you lift your leg off the ground when you're sitting (hip flexors?) -- mine are very weak. Still, it works, and I am SO glad to be able to get around a bit. I don't feel comfortable driving any real distance, but tooling around the neighborhood is just fine with me. I thought about going to Panera for lunch today after therapy (big excitement!), but in the end I chickened out (as it were) and went through the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru. One less getting-in-and-out of the car.

Physical therapy is a pretty nifty occupation. I mean, I probably wouldn't want to have to touch so many strangers, but if one were medically inclined, PT would be pretty cool. They get to use a lot of creativity and intuition in trying to problem-solve patients' issues -- and they have really cool toys. Sometimes they even get to work in the pool! With my therapists, I've used those ubiquitious rubber resistance bands, all kinds of balls, a rocker board, big hunks of foam, heating pads, weird sticky tape, a hand-bike and a recumbent bike, and today even a pegboard. This pegbard has tiny holes, and piles of tiny pegs, washers, and nuts that you use to create little patterns on the pegboard. It's supposed to help with dexterity, which my left hand still lacks. I pointed out to the therapist that, although it was useful, the pegboard exercise still didn't address the biggest problems in my hand, which are my middle, third, and pinky fingers (I was using my thumb and forefinger to pick up the tiny pieces). She said, 'well, use your thumb and your pinky.' Hmpf. Well, that didn't work at all. Typing is a pain, too -- I can type as usual with my right hand, but my left hand has been reduced to hunting-and-pecking with my forefinger -- none of the other fingers can hit their correct keys.

Hmm. I wonder why the fire marshal is parked in the street?

When I went to Chick-Fil-A, I was good and ordered diet lemonade instead of sweet tea, but now I have a bottomless craving. I'm going to go make some sweet tea. At least mine will be decaf -- and have slightly less sugar.

p.s. Excellent TV series -- Entourage. D and I have been watching on DVD, and it's hilarious, although it definitely includes a bit too much "educational" information about how men are that sometimes, as a woman, you'd rather not know. Excellent book (so far): "Suite Francaise," by Irene Nemirovsky. About the intertwining lives of Parisians who flee Paris ahead of the Nazis, written by a French writer who died at Auschwitz. I started to read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy (his Pulitzer-prize winner), but it's too horrifying and sad -- the book begins with a man and his small son who are walking across the wasteland of a burned-out America after a nuclear disaster! It's beautiful -- but no, thanks. Baby gives me bad dreams already. OK, off to make tea.