One Lucky SOB

If attacked, fight back works for a lot of things in life

If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me that I'm one lucky SOB I'd at least have 4 and that's just from one day. I decided to go for a ride last Thursday because it was suppose to be the last warm day for a while (rumor was a month but I think it's only a few days) and really wanted to ride. I haven't ridden since I did Hall a few weeks ago and started to get cabin fever so decided I would ride in the morning before work. I decided to do Chimney Gulch, the one I had done with Wayne at the beginning of December but skip the section with the waterbars (because I was going to be riding alone didn't want to crash over one and get knocked out). There is a place you can park that skips that section so I did that. I texted my roommate to tell him where I was riding and told him I should be off the trail by 11 (I always add in an hour extra than what I plan on riding just for shenanigans). I wasn't planning on being out that long so stuffed everything into my jersey pockets. Which means I left my knife in the car (If I learned one thing from 127 Hours it's to always have a sharp knife on you) but figured I'd be okay because it runs parallel with a paved road that has bikers on it all the time. I started the ride and the trail was in good condition some snowy patches in shaded coverage but that was about it. You climb for a little bit at the beginning and then the trail flattens out before it dips down into tree coverage and then you climb out and then you're pretty much at the top. I was turning the bend where it starts to flatten out when I saw something out of the corner of my eye bounding up the hill out of the grass about 20 feet in front of me. "Huh, that's a really big coyote....oh shit, that's a mountain lion." I stopped and it stopped on the trail and had its back turned to me. I froze for a second almost out of curiosity, I've never seen one and was captivated by it and then I remembered it kills people. I didn't want to turn around when it had its back to me because like my high school track coach said you should always see what's going to kill you (he used this when it came to running against traffic). I grabbed my phone (because I still had 2 hours until anyone was expecting to hear from me) and my tool was in the same pocket. Not that my tool would really do anything to it. And then it turned and looked at me. Not going to lie I might of peed a little. It seemed like a few minutes but I'm sure it was mere seconds that we held the death stare when I threw my tool down on a nearby rock to hopefully startle him. It did and he turned and scampered down the hill. I picked my tool up and stuffed it back into my jersey with my phone and then kept riding. This is how I know my frontal lobe is still damaged. Those critical thinking skills just aren't there yet. It was about 1/2 mile before I heard my Godfather's voice go "How's this report going to look?" 

I should probably just stick to writing....

Which he always asks if I'm debating doing something stupid. I started to get into the tree coverage area when I realized just how stupid I was being. I was lucky that I saw him the first time but I probably wouldn't see him the second time. I turned around and booked it back to my car. I texted my roommate a mere 30 minutes after my initial text "....yah, I'm off the trail there was a mountain lion so I'm going to go run in the park where people are." I didn't call home for a few days after that because I knew I didn't want to tell my parents and freak them out so sorry mom and dad you had to find out this way. I did tell my Godfather just because of his voice popping into my head I figured he would be pleased to hear that. He asked me if I got a picture. I told him that I wasn't exactly thinking about my blog at that point. He said too bad I should just draw one.  The picture isn't that accurate, I cut my hair so my braids aren't that long and I was wearing knickers not short shorts. But the mountain lion was definitely bigger than me. Just kidding. 

You'd be scared to not do your exercises with this guy

When I was driving home one of the thoughts I had was, well at least I'll have something to tell my physical therapist. Last time he asked me to tell him stories of my adventures the most exciting thing I had was I finished my book. The therapist is really cool though, if The Dude from The Big Levowski was a hand therapist this would be him, he even looks like Jeff Bridges. The first time I was in he was evaluating my strength and flexibility on both hands and after my right hand grip test he asked me what else I do besides biking. I tried to think of all the activities I do related to hand use and rattled off a few, "running, reading, knitting, writing, and swimming, not so much with the swimming and knitting these days because those bother my hand a little much." 
"Hmm well your grip strength is off the charts." I thought he was being sarcastic so I laughed and told him some of the guys at the shop call me farm strong. He wasn't kidding though. For a girl my age the normal range is 37-59 pounds. I'm at 87 for my right hand my left hand (which was broken for 5 months) is in the normal range at 39. He's also pretty funny which is good because I'm stuck with him for 45 minutes two times a week. He was asking me what I want to do with my life and I responded with my generic "oh you know maybe this maybe that." He suggested I go to school to be a hand therapist so I can give hand jobs the rest of my life. I told him I might just so I can make jokes like that! The exercises are definitely helping though, I get to play with silly putty two times a day as part of it it. I still notice some limitations with flexibility and strength but I'm sure it'll get there. I did play volleyball one night and bruised my left hand on the outside. I was trying to get a ball out the net and when I fell and I must have stuck out my hand but didn't want to catch myself with it so smacked it right where the ulna and triquertrum meet. It left a bruise which my therapist wasn't too happy about. I told him it's kind of funny though because I've been played volleyball pretty consistently for a good 7 years and never injured my hands in any capacity, not even jammed figures from blocking. He didn't think it was that funny and just said he was putting it in my file to cover his ass. 

I'm pretty good at that!

I've noticed more improvements with my head, at least when it comes to long term memory. One of my friends was talking about her favorite movie, The Sound of Music and how the younger ones have a ski resort in Vermont and I said, "Greta?" which I have no idea how I remembered that but was really excited when I did. I also go my hair cut recently and had seen her before Halloween when she was telling me about her costume and I remembered that she was going as a Toddlers in Tiaras with her friends. There are still definitely lapses. The new running shoes I ordered I wasn't super stoked on, well I was because they're awesome trail running shoes but I thought I ordered them in blue but was super excited and surprised when I received purple and green. I doubled checked to make sure they didn't mess up my order and I ordered them in purple and green. I also went to Zero Dark Thirty the other night (which is a great movie) and was really amazed at how fast the production happened given we had just killed Bin Laden in May, and then I realized I was missing another year. Whomp whomp. 

"This photo validates how cool I am" said everyone on instagram.

Running has been going well, I'm thinking about signing up for a 5K just to see where I'm at. Because my therapy appointments are in Boulder I usually run after those but before going to work (thank goodness we have a shower at work!). The only problem is that it tends to be a little windier there than in Denver, which is great when it's a tail wind it just sucks when you turn around and it's like running into a brick wall. It reminds me of the sled pulls we used to have to do in college for volleyball the only big difference is that I don't throw up after.