La-la-la-la-Life Goes On

SUMMARY: Good knees news, and not competing is remunerative--maybe--

I went grocery shopping today. Got so involved with my shopping (remember, there's food involved here, which is always an attractive thing for me) that I forgot to walk sedately. Suddenly realized that I had been blazing around the store shoving the cart before me at my usual brisk pace and my knee hadn't even noticed. So this is the point where, if it were up to me, I'd say, "Cool! I'm better now! Time to go compete!" OK, so once when I stopped and braced myself to torque the cart to one side, that sideways muscle pressure on my knee evoked a protest, and that turning to get out of my driver's seat is problematic, but hey, I'll bet I could run and have no problems whatsoever.

The author doing bouncy bouncy therapy at her desk.

I have plenty of people monitoring me, though.

• Arlene: Listen to your doctor.
  
• Mom: Maybe it's time for you to think about taking some time off from competing.
  
• Ken: Ice, Motrin, elevation...
  
• Arlene: Listen to your doctor.
  
• Dad: Please take care of yourself.
  
• Mary: You have to try and clear your head here and start thinking about long-term consequence.
  
• Arlene: Listen to your doctor.
  
• Karey: (After I said that my physical therapist told me I'm not competing:) If you were a dog, we'd all be saying "Good mom" to your PT.
  
• Steph: Spend more time focusing on getting better and less time focusing on ignoring the problem.
  
• Arlene: Listen to your doctor! Listen to your doctor!

So, since all of these people AND my physical therapist all seem to have their heads screwed on backwards, I think I'll go right out and start competing RIGHT NOW DAGNABBIT! Who do they think they are ANYWAY!?! (Technically, that would be WHOM do they think they are... anyway...but I digress...to distract everyone's attention from my knee...)

Certainly not competing is quite lucrative financially:

• I can work more billable hours.
  
• Don't have to spend $50 on gas for the round trip (hey! I paid under $40 today for a tank of gas! How crazy is that? All the way down to $2.59/gal!)
  
• Save entry fees--for two dogs, that's $200 plus or minus $50 for a weekend.

But all things considered, I'd rather be doing agility.

On the down side financially:

• $3 of gas for every Kaiser round trip.
  
• $5 per x-ray.
  
• $5 for every doctor visit or physical therapist visit.
  
• $10 for an ankle brace that I used once and decided it aggravated my knee more than it helped my ankle and, when I went to stash it in my supply of first-aid equipment (they're not returnable), I discovered I already had one. Sigh.
  
• $15 for a therapeutic bouncy ball to help with my knee.
  
• $18 for therapeutic elastic bands to help with my shoulders. (I *used* to have some. Knew where they were before I moved. Don't know where they are now. Either loaned to someone or I put them away somewhere where I'd be sure to be able to find them again...

Meanwhile--it's a good thing I've spent all this money on getting nice comfy dog beds for my dogs to rest comfortably upon:

Tika taking advantage of two dog beds simultaneously. Jake evaluating the paparazzi.

Although, actually, I didn't buy one of them--won it in a raffle doing dog agility dammit.