The World of Dragonfly

Have you ever had an experience in your life-call it a setback-that you found difficult to work through?  Most people have.  After all, if you live long enough, adversity does show up in your life.  Well, I want to share mine, not just to discuss my life but also to encourage you if you’re going through a challenge in your life as well.  So let me set the stage for you.

It all began almost five years ago.  When we lived at our old house, there was a hook for hanging plants between the garage and porch.  It was a spring day.  I’d potted a nice hanging basket of petunias and was stretching way out to hang it on the hook (rather than breaking down and finding a stool).  Pain seared my middle, and I found I had to sit down on the steps and wrap my arms around my stomach.  I knew I’d probably torn a muscle.  I just didn’t realize how badly.  Gradually, it dissipated, and I went on about my business, including exercising.

Fast forward four years or so to 2009.  It’d been a busy summer.  Moving.  Training hard for triathlons.  I’d completed two that summer and was in probably the best shape of my life.  Until December when I decided to do crunches on an exercise ball at the gym.  Well, the next thing I knew, I had pain in my middle.  Thinking it was something like a gall bladder attack, I went to the doctor.  The PA recommended an ultrasound, which showed that nothing was wrong.  ”So what do you think it is?” I asked.  She thought it was a muscle tear and recommended that I simply let it rest.

I did.  Yet the tenderness never really went away.  Each time I worked out, it flared until one hot day in June this past year, I actually had to stop cycling to let what I thought was a stitch in my side subside.  The one triathlon I completed was awful.  Finally, I returned to the doctor, who asked a myriad of questions.  Then it happened.  He admitted I’d stumped him and sent me to physical therapy.

I must say that physical therapy was one of the best things that happened to me last summer.  It didn’t take long for B (yes, that’s what he told me to call him) to diagnose that I’d suffered from a torn hip flexor muscle.  It’s the muscle that starts at the top of the thigh.  It wraps around the core and splits, with part of it attaching to the inner back part of the pelvis and the other part wrapping further around the core and attaching to the spine.  My leaning several years before had torn it, and scar tissue had formed.  My exercising had inflamed it.

Unfortunately, while in therapy, I couldn’t exercise.  It didn’t help that last summer was extremely stressful.  I have to admit I was a basket who went completely out of shape and gained weight in the process.  When I received the go-ahead from B to begin exercising, I was ecstatic.

So why am I writing about this?  I want to set the stage for what I hope will be a way to trace my comeback to physical fitness and ultimately (I hope) to running an Olympic distance triathlon in September.  I’ll periodically update everyone here.  God willing, I truly will accomplish that goal.  I hope tracing my experiences will also serve as a source of encouragement as well.  Stay tuned for the next installment.

Last Wednesday started out like any other normal day.  I had a hard time waking up.  Then I dressed and had breakfast while Steve took the dogs for a walk before we carpooled to work.  As I took my vitamins and got my lunch ready, the phone rang.  And it was Steve.  ”Go and get a washcloth,” he told me.  The strain was evident in his voice.  Then he announced, “Wallace has rolled in something really smelly.”

You see, we have two dogs.  Two basenjis, to be exact.  They’re African dogs from the Congo, and quite frankly, not too far displaced from the jungle.  And they’re hunters who use both eyes and ears to smell prey.  Aspen is our female, and Wallace is our male.

Now, each has a different set of preferred smells.  Aspen, the princess of the family, prefers good smells like Dove soap, body splash, and shampoo.  She loves to be clean, and I think her favorite time is right after a bath.  Wallace, on the other hand, has his own idea of what smells good, stuff like fox pee, fox poo, and stinky, smelly towels.  He hates to get baths and will do everything in his power to destroy that good smelling aroma as soon as he can.

So last Wednesday, that fateful day, I knew immediately what had happened.  Wallace had rolled in something.  I just didn’t know the extent of it until the door opened, and in came two basenjis, one with a contrite expression, and one with an expression of great satisfaction.  Yes, Wallace had scored again, and not only had he gotten a basket, he’d gotten one from deep in three-point land.  Poo coated his neck, and even from ten or so feet away, I could smell it.  Yes, he’d successfully rolled in fox poo.

For the next five or so minutes, grumbling emanated from Steve as he used the washcloth to wipe off the poo.  Then he went about the business of getting ready so he and I could carpool to work.  Wallace slipped away and ran upstairs.  When I hadn’t seen Wallace for awhile, I went looking for him.  Lo and behold, I found him in what he now considers to be “his” room, sitting on the bed in the smaller guest room in what only could be described as a sloppy sit.  When he saw me, he promptly rolled over for a belly rub.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?!” I screeched.  ”Get down from there!”  For those of you who have watched A Christmas Story, picture Ralphie’s mom yelling at him.

Wallace escaped for only a few more hours because that night, he got his second bath in two days.  Do you think he learned that being stinky isn’t worth it?  Absolutely not.  I’ll be waiting for the next poo incident.  Probably with washcloth in hand.  Again.

10.  Take it easy after not working out after awhile, especially after being sick.  No point in running 4 miles if you can barely do 2.5.

9.  Advil is good, especially after running.

8.  Chocolate milk is even better.

7.  Eating right and getting enough sleep are equally as important.

6.  Beware of goose gangs if running, especially when fields are nearby.

5.  It’s fun to be in pain (usually).  It’s even more fun when you’re done and see how much you’ve accomplished.

4.  The best part of a workout is the shower afterwards.

3.  Chocolate milk is really yummy.

2.  Working out encourages great sleep.

1.  Have fun!  Working out should indeed be fun, so pick an activity that’s enjoyable.

Spring is a beautiful time where I live.  The grass is green.  The flowers are out.  The temperatures are moderate.  And the geese are plentiful.  If you’re a Canadian goose, why spend all of your life and energy flapping your wings in a desperate attempt to get from place to place when you can winter over in a place such as North Carolina?  Raleigh is filled with them, and they leave plenty of evidence behind such as goose poo.

Now, nesting time is upon us.  There’s a nest across the major road from where we live.  And where there’s nests, there’s geese.  Now, I’m not sure if the goose I encountered tonight was the dad/mom belonging to said nest.  All I know is that the pups and I were coming back from a long, long walk.  We were tired, hungry, and simply wanting to get back before it was too dark.

Until we met The Goose.

Now, The Goose was sitting in the utility strip between the road and the sidewalk as if he didn’t have a care in the world.  Problem was, The Goose was essentially blocking our way.  There wasn’t a good way around him.  It was either go out into the street where we’d get hit or way into the grass, which was wet from a recent storm.

The Goose saw us.  Stood up.  Started sticking his tongue out, hissing at us, and bobbing his head up and down in typical goose aggression style.  It would have been comical had I not known from experience that if a goose bites you, it hurts!

Then Wallace goes bananas.  Keep in mind that The Goose is as big as he was, meaning that he was bigger (and nastier) than Wallace.  Then he started acting like he was going to charge use.  All I could see in my mind is the goose charging, nipping Wallace, and Wallace, gentle boy that he is, biting back.  It would have been an all-out bloodbath that Wallace would probably win.

I didn’t want anyone to get hurt, even The Goose.  So I did what I thought I needed to.  I jumped.  Landed loudly on both of my feet.  Sounded like splat!  The Goose jumped, so I did it again.  Then I started trying to edge past.

We repeated the whole thing.  Finally, we managed to worm by him.  But as we were vacating the area (and quickly, I might add), he came after us again!  So I used the jump/splat technique once more.  Finally, success!  The Goose left us alone, and we were on our merry way home to dine, thankful that-at least today, we were safely out of goosing range.

It’s a New Year again.  And this year, I had one resolution – to not have any resolutions.  The reason?  I never keep them.  Instead, I wound up getting frustrated about not keeping them and instead rebelled against the reason why I made them.  Take eating healthier.  Very vague.  A nice, vague resolution.  And easy to break.  Which I did so quite nicely and instead went the other direction.

So this year, I have some goals.  Not too many because I don’t want to get overwhelmed.  One?  Get the three novels I have ready to go out on the street by writing query letters for them.  Another, run the Patriots Olympic Distance Triathlon in Williamsburg.  Big goals, I know.  A home run.  And impossible to achieve by just stating that goal.

The key to reaching those two is to develop a series of smaller goals.  So, with a lot of thought and more to come, I’ve done that.  For the writing goals, the steps are baby steps.  Tonight, I drafted a query letter for one of my novels.  Tomorrow night, I’ll revise it, and this weekend, I’ll revise it again with the hope of sending it out to one agent on Monday.  And after that?  I’ll send it to other agents.  Regarding the triathlon, I’m planning on entering at least two sprint triathlons, maybe three, with one of those being in a tidal river.  I’m still working on the smaller goals to reach the sprint triathlons.  All of these?  Base hits.

Maybe, after 38 years of living on this earth, I’ve realized that God works in our lives more by base hits than home runs.  So I’m hoping that these are base hits that will help me reach my goals.

Happy 2009!  I can’t believe that 2008 is already gone.  It seemed to fly by, and now I’m sitting here at the end of the first full weekend of 2009 contemplating the following year and the other thing that seems to stalk everyone’s mind this time of year-resolutions.  Oh, I’ve made and broken my share of those over the years.  Eat better.  Yeah, right!  Take Moes away, and maybe that will happen.  Get more sleep.  Hardly!  Though that’s an admirable goal.  Exercise six times a week.  Again, an admirable goal, but the second it doesn’t happen, resolution broken.  Matter of fact, my husband and I jokingly call folks who sign up at the gym “resolutionaries” because most of them won’t last beyond March.

So as I was waiting for my tea to brew a moment ago, I was wondering why we make resolutions.  To better ourselves.  We want to improve something (sleep time, eating habits, exercise).  How do we measure it?  By some quantity, like “I resolve to get eight hours of sleep a night.”  Or like earlier:  “I resolve to exercise six times a week.”  Or “I resolve to eat five servings of veggies, four of good carbs, etc.” Unfortunately, the second we slip up, we moan and say, “I’ve broken my resolution!”  Discouragement sets in, and then we give up and flop back onto the couch to watch another television program.  It’s easier to give up because we’ve broken a promise to ourselves.

Now, I’m not saying that goals aren’t a good thing.  They’re a great thing and are the drivers for bettering ourselves.  I’m just suggesting that rather than make all of these declarations at the beginning of the New Year in the form of resolutions, look at what you want to do as goals.  I think then, when something goes awry–life is that way–we don’t give up.  Sure, we may throw our hands in the air, but we generally don’t give up.

So this year, I’m making no resolutions.  I do have goals.  Yes, I’d love to eat better.  Yes, I’m planning on doing some triathlons this year, hence the need for exercise.  Yes, I hope to get on a better sleep schedule.  But none of these are resolutions because I know that most likely, I’m going to get busted on them.  I’m already busting that sleep goal.

But if I did make one resolution, it would be to live boldly and day to day.  Not to worry about the future.  To paraphrase Christ in the Book Matthew, each day has its own troubles, so don’t be anxious about tomorrow.  May you endeavor to do the same.  Happy New Year.

As they say in the South, I’ve gone done lost my mind.  Well, not really.  That just sounds kind of cool to say and can leave non-southerners scratching their heads.  Anyway, some people make think that.  You see, I’ve signed up for a triathlon.

Now let me explain.  I like to work out.  And yes, I don’t mind sweating.  But the problem is that lately it’s become easier to rationalize not going to the gym.  Excuses such as “It’s too hot” or “I got out from work too late”  or “I just don’t feel like going” have gotten to be way too commonplace for me.  And because of that, I hadn’t worked out for almost two weeks.

Also, my husband has gotten back into doing triathlons after about a 20-year hiatus.  Three weeks ago, he ran the Bandits Triathlon up in Wilkesboro, NC.  For those of y’all not familiar with the great state of North Carolina, that’s up toward the northwestern part and getting into the mountains.  We left from Winston-Salem, where we’d overnighted.  We got up at 4:45 and left by 5:15–and that’s AM and not PM.  The energy when we got up there was infectious.  And it was cool, the mid 50′s to be exact, and all of the triathletes were more than ready to get into the 80 or so degree water.  What with the crowds gathering, the milling around of people, and the loud music playing at 6:30 in the morning, the energy just started zinging around.

That got me to thinking, “Well, maybe next year I’ll do one.”  Then Hubby egged me into signing up for one in two weeks.  Okay.  So it’s not international distance (almost a mile swim, 20-something mile bike, 10k run) or even spring (half that distance), but it’s a good, solid start.  It’s called Dash for Divas and has been billed as a way to get women interested in the sport since it’s for women only.  It’s a 250-yard swim, 7-mile bike, 2-mile run.  Short, I know.  But hey, I’d already done those things separately, so why not string them together?

I did just that yesterday as a test run, just to make sure I could do the whole thing.  Boy, the adrenaline was pumping in my body!  I fumbled a bit getting ready to start.  But then I did.  Of course, I started out too fast and had to order myself to slow a little on the swim.  Then came the transition to the bike.  That went well.  Then came the run.  Ouch!  My leg muscles had been so used to the bike that the transition was a little on the difficult side.  But I did it.  I know I can do it.

So what’s going to drive me to finish this?

• I know I can.
• I’ve got an encourager since one of my friends is going to do it with me.
• I’ve got groupies.  My husband will be there and also my friend’s husband.
• It’ll be fun.  Okay.  So a different, weird kind of fun.
• It’ll be a start to something bigger.

You see, I’m hooked.   While I may not have the body of a cheetah or move like one, I think I’m going to actually enjoy this.  So in two weeks, I’ll drag myself out of bed, most likely at 4:45 AM and head out to do what I once thought was impossible.  And that will be my reward.

Who is a hero? I think we all have definitions of who they are. Most of us can readily identify a hero as someone on the battlefield who saves the lives of his comrades by paying the ultimate price. To some, a hero may be a superstar in a sport like basketball or football. Or someone who saves a life such as a fireman or a doctor. Yes, all of these people are heroes in their own ways. But I think that too often we have heroes right in our vicinity and don’t even realize it.

One of my heroes is my mom. For years, she’s known that she’s needed to have knee replacement surgery. You see, she likes to be active. To keep that quality of life that she so desires, she finally decided to go ahead and have one of her knees replaced.

The surgery went well. But as her doctor said, the surgery was the easy part. The rehab to get the knee functioning again has been the hard part. She’s had a lot of pain, as is expected. A whole lot. A lot more than most people can imagine. She’s also had to spend lots of time with a device called a passive motion device, which meant many hours lying on her back and letting the machine do its work. She’s endured physical therapy, which as many of your physical therapy veterans may know, is no walk in the park. Now it’s starting to pay off. She can see the light of the tunnel because the pain is finally beginning to diminish, and little glimmers of how her knee will be when it is completely healed are beginning to show.

I’m proud of her. She’s a quiet hero. She knew what she wanted, and she knew it would be tough. But she’s not given up. She’s stayed on course with her therapy, and soon, her life will be better.

So look around you. Who are the quiet heroes in your midst? The ones who are enduring under tough circumstances? The ones who are facing incredible odds? Maybe it’s the neighbor who’s the single mom with two small children. Or someone you know who’s battling cancer. Or maybe it’s someone who’s finally beat an addiction. Whoever they are, like the heroes who are obvious, they won’t brag about their valor. Instead, they’ll live their lives as they are–the quiet heroes.

Tonight is Basenji Beauty Night at our house.  We bathe them, brush their teeth, clip their nails, and trim any longish paw-pad hair.  Honestly, it’s like a spa night for dogs.  However, Wallace and Aspen usually don’t view it that way, Wallace more so than Aspen.

First, the bath.  Understand that basenjis hate water.  It usually goes like this.  Steve gets into his swim trunks because on occasion, there’s lots of splashing water.  Then he snags one of the dogs, usually Aspen since her curiosity overrides her caution.  While he’s scrubbing her, I go in search of Wallace.  He usually lurks underneath the dining room table.  What ensues is my chasing him around the table.  He threads his way through the chair legs like a champion agility dog and then takes off into the other room.  Finally, though, he sees that the end is near and runs up the stairs into our bedroom, essentially trapping himself.  Once they’re finished, an all-out slam session to rival the WWE happens.  Wallace chases Aspen.  She chases him.  They bite each other on the neck.  He slams her onto the carpet and holds her for the count.  I’m wondering if he’s expecting us to give him three points like in a typical wrestling match.  Then they tear around the downstairs some more, finally dashing outside.  Knowing that there’s exposed dirt out there, I cringe.  But somehow, they avoid rolling in it.

At last, they calm down.  It’s like throwing a switch.  One moment it’s Slam!  Crash!  Pow! as they play.  Then it’s ZZZZZZZ!  That’s the perfect time for our next phase, the nail trimming.  Aspen’s great about it.  She allows us to trim all sixteen digits without a problem.  Wallace, on the other hand . . . You see, he’s our firstborn doggy son.  When he was a puppy, we clipped his nails and cut one too short, quicking him.  Since then, it’s been a trial.  Once more, it’s like WWE, except this time, it winds up with me practically lying on top of him.  Steve shines a bright light on him to see his quick (We ‘av vays of making vou talk!), and we fight to clip each nail.  Finally, we finish.  Everyone’s chest is heaving from pent up stress, and Wallace skulks away to sulk in private.  One time, he literally stole the nail clippers and hid them in the living room.

However, all of that is changing tonight.  We actually bought something from the television called Peticure, which is like a Dremel tool to grind down their nails.  We did a test run a couple of nights ago, and it worked!  So a new era is starting.  Gone are the struggles, the thievery, the skulking (at least for nail clipping).  It’s a new dawn out there, and I’m looking forward to it.

Last is the teeth brushing.  Well, it’s more like gnashing on a toothbrush with doggy toothpaste on it, but the dogs enjoy it.  It’s also necessary since basenjis, who in their native Congo usually don’t live past the age of six, could feasibly lose their teeth at age six.

All in all, it’s a great night.  The dogs smell good.  Their nails are shorter.  Their breath smells better. And we sleep well that night.  Such it is for Basenji Beauty Night.

I work for the State of North Carolina. I love my job, and I applaud efforts by the government to move us in the direction of efficiency. In one such move, they changed our timesheet management system so that everyone across the state will utilize the same system. It’s a great move in concept, but not as smooth as all would have hoped in reality.

Our big move happened on April 1st, and I’m still trying to figure out if the powers-that-be meant it truly as an April Fool’s joke or if it was just a sheer, though somewhat painful coincidence, that they implemented BEACON then. Needless to say, it’s been, well, interesting. The support teams have been great at striving to work out the kinks, and yes, it is getting better.

But one thing that’s not gotten better, at least for me, is the amount of time that it takes to enter my time. This is how it goes. It happens at the end of the day. I pull of the Web page that sends me to the portal. It starts spinning the hour glass around and around. I stuff the water bottles and coffee mug that I’d brought from home into my bag.

My login screen pops up. I enter my User ID and password. Once more the hour glass does its spin. I stack my papers and straighten my desk. The home page pops up. I click on the icon to go to the time entry system. Now, a two little circles, one blue and one gold, start forming and keep forming over and over again. I go to the restroom and come back.

Now the timesheet entry home page is up. I click on the link to enter my time. The circles again appear. Staring at them, I’m mesmerized. I blink and pull away before THE MACHINE tells me to go and sell all I have to the widget maker.

The timesheet screen pops up. I click on the day and row for the time I want to enter. The circles start going again. I jump up, refusing to be taken in by their schemes. I wander the hall and talk to a coworker or two. I return to my office. The circles are still going. Suddenly, they stop. I can enter time!

The actual time entry to that one cell takes three seconds. I click on another row for some more time. The circles start again. Time slows in a time warp. At last, I can enter the remainder of my time and log off. By this time, I’ve about lost my sanity. I log off, which takes even more time.

All in all, I’m now late for my after-work activities. But at least I made it out alive. BEACON hasn’t taken my sanity–yet.