Mon 29 Dec: Whew -- getting off that heel a day, felt like the right move. Knee felt nearly normal out of bed... but should be noted went to bed very early, and got almost 10 hrs of CPAP'd sleep -- still woke up at the right time... but damn, guess the heel & knee really did want some downtime Since just going sedentary all of a sudden --speaking of right / wrong moves -- is at least for me, universally moronic, consequences shipped... went to the mall and did only inside laps, about 3x the usual distance. No laps on top, and no park. Got some errands done and headed home to let my heel... heal But whoof -- all the normal faffing about today, just hurt. Guess part of my body craves the workout as much as others hate it (tbf, only the heel's really held me back, even from 8/10 pain like the 18" step-ups). The strength across the knees is there... but the R knee mechanism itself, were suddenly back in November. Had to take a ride in mum's car today, as she's on holiday and letting the battery go flat would be bad indeed (I'd have to take her everywhere her little octogenarian baba posse whim'd). And since she's of that old postwar generation where 'men do this, women do this', refuses to check her tire pressure -- despite how much it costs per year in tire swaps. Even gave her wet wipes and her own JACO dial gauge (a good company making good products, confirmed by Project Farm on YT)... nope, 30 / 28 F, 31 / 27 R. FFS... Getting to the air / water corner at a station... knelt down to squat to take a reading: knew the R knee hated life... but f*** me, the L's offside too now. Great -- 2 bad knees. Well, knew they were on borrowed time since running that 2 mi record in '22 borked them finally... but eff me, didn't think the L were doing too bad Getting that done... got two clients in ten mins getting home -- wow, after the crickets post-TG (& esp post-Xmas)... were wondering when they'd show up again. Grateful, no doubt... just weird they choose right before NY to get looked at, and not a month ago when the schedule were barest... Then, a call to shine brass at my classmate's temple, which has been my delegated task about 15y. Think it's the last year I can do it with my equipment, as the baseness of ash and constant salt air have damaged these ritual implements of solid brass, beyond my reach. Didn't polish up stunning like in past years (Flitz on a Dremel with a cloth wheel, baby), but nothing more I could do -- pounded on them 6h, any more was beyond my ability. Needs either replacement, or professional treatment, unfort -- both expensive. Have clients tmw, which always make the knee feel better. But won't skip the inside laps before breakfast -- have to get that heel healed w/o losing muscle. Going to bed early as well
Tue 30 Dec: Day 2 of 2 of the break. Still feels 'right', if also still rebellion from the body, and not just my R knee... Aside: have noticed my tendencies over the course of adult life, bias doing the opposite of what the crowd does (ya think? ). But seriously, doing the opposite's felt more apt than not but not reliably so... thus try to feel out what to do when offered this choice. Take walking around the mall. The upper level, accessible from the 3rd floor of the parking structure is where I warmup for normal rooftop lap days. One can either walk CW or ACW around it, from a purely physical standpoint there's nothing but minor difference when the goal's warmup up joints to take load. But man, this mall... have told in other posts here (think I did? -- reply if you'd like me to post the whole story), the former shop here my father managed in the mall in the '80s, was haunted. Like many, many other places public facilities were later built over... such is the nature of a culture without written record: no one knows where not to build, if you're trying to modernise the former plantation camps into American towns w/ American comm'ys, postwar. Not our fault, but certainly not theirs, logically. But the consequences of putting concrete-slab human habitation over the graves of ancient Hawaiians, has often made the newspapers and defo chilled many in the comm'y who know (my childhood house was built over one, with many weird and bad things subsequent needing a visit from a kahuna... tbh am not sure it's completely rid this insult, until bones are exhumed and reburied w/ Hawaiian traditional clergy presiding. A weird house in retrospect, but was mine and spent first 11y there, lots of fond memories to balance it all. But not at all surprising, have no interest in living there again. There's also a weird sense of clash in memory too, about this place. Remember (only a couple years back in my head... but 30 in reality) when this was a bustling, vital piece of Maui life, well-representing the County's then-current state of tourist-traffic success and resultant commerce. It's slow fall from grace, as Amazon became the behemoth it is, turned it into what malls all over the country became -- obsolete, neglected, but too expensive to demolish. Strangely the Fun Factory, an arcade from the '90s when the mall was given its upper floor... is still there. Pass it daily, remembering this new veteran playing the driving and shooting games after moving back the first time. It of course, is also a shadow of its healthiest days with throngs of customers, who're now content paying $800 to stay home. But the liminality of the place, is kind of overwhelming. Feel it walking thru, these early morning hours. Rust bursts from decades-old paint from supporting columns reaching the end of their non-condemned service life in the salt air (same w/ the structure). 10y from now, without robust investment from the gov't or private donors.. best scenario it'll be reduced to what it used to be: a ground-level mall w/ spendy glitzy architectural bits demolished, which were what it replaced in early '90s. I also have those '70s - '80s memories to overlay atop this crumbling former glitz... and often wish those innocent days could somehow be back... in vain of course. My knee's doing that thing again. After roughly 5 mins walking this level, concrete floor... the knee 'tweaks', and feel a rap of maybe 6/10 pain, something clicks, then it fades. Sometimes it works more like pre-injury, sometimes not. I drag it CW around this floor, do my gyrations around to lengthen the distance, then head out to the car. Have tried to do this ACW... and whoa, what a difference it makes, and not in a good way. Shouldn't be... but there's a wrong and a right way to do at least what I'm doing, walking thru 3 hrs before the mall actually opens for business (foot traffic's allowed, as centered on ground level fruit / veg vendors from the comm'y run farmer's markets, so set up early. Which would happen anyway, as have no idea what the rent-a-cops do all day but sit on their arses on golf carts taking laps at 0730 ). ACW feels 'wrong' somehow... and have no way to contextualise why, but what I feel, consistently and daily, doing that mall lap. By 20 mins my lap's over, and head to the car. There are spots and people I pass... some chronic (other walkers or vendors -- good; homeless in the open on this floor -- bad), some new every time. I wonder what their paths are to bring them here, but only for today. (cont. next post)
Tue 30 Dec (cont'd) Never thought about this stuff when I were in my 20s - 30s -- why would I. But did find moments where I'd wonder what I'd be like past 50... and have several little 'nodes' in my timeline, where I can recall doing so -- which is surreal, when you do it as quite a different person, 25 - 30y later. At 25, never knew something from 30y ago, to see wabi-sabi in action. Never met all the people whose paths'd cross mine, for better or worse... and how I changed, because of these often few-moments to several-years-long moments our destinies touched. Mostly driving around today, running another errand: having to buy another bottle of sake to offer the gods in the altar. In the culture I grew up in and enjoyed as half of a dominant two on Maui at the time... TG and Xmas were commercial holidays, celebrated because of the gift exchange and family parties w/ food and booze, not their religious connotations, despite being ever-present and non-negotiable, in the 1970s and '80s. We weren't Christians, though that dogma coloured everything about what was celebrated in being part of America... and America was far and away, a Christian nation with only performative acknowledgement of other religions, or ways of life as anything but un-Christian. There's a reason I treasure A Charlie Brown Christmas, which is overtly Christian -- because the zeitgeist of the time had firmly established that to be 'what was American'... and I wanted to like American things & be American, despite being born one. I'd grow to learn fighting for that right whilst honouring my heritage would last a lifetime, esp now with that demagogue and his thugs in the big House. The TV show's a universe away from the worst part of that hegemony... but also nonetheless made 60y before the phenomenon of Kpop Demon Hunters animation and its runaway popularity -- no one in 1965, would've even considered giving that sort of influence to an Asian, outside the niche. And were it made back then somehow, no path to even a molecule of its success in a (slightly)-evolved America. Got home and rested... after all, back to battle stations tmw AM. My heel's healed (firmly believe despite using my heel cracking it, walking gently on it accelerates healing, thru increased blood and lymphatic flow) & belly full. Just had to wait for the client... --- Client is a martial arts instructor, and had numbness atop the foot plus weakness in that side calf, upright and standing. Found severely adhered toe extensors and flexors... badly knotted calf muscles, and adhered nerves like the common fibular nerve, serving the outside of the calf. This were probably due to an unfortunate medical emergency 2y ago, where they were immobile in bed about 6 wks, pumped full of pharm. Getting that out... found the big sciatic nerve adhered to hams on both sides, and the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, stuck to muscles and tissue around it -- both are trunks for a big span of things plugged-in, and also prone to being stretched in normal daily use if adhered (causing them to tense and not relax as well, which is vital to cleaning themselves of waste for max efficiency). Once the feet and lower leg were zeroed... getting those sorted -- one a huge combo motor / sensory nerve trunk, the other solely for sensory use -- led to that smooth, effortless mobility on your feet you take for granted in grade school. Next was the debris field of compensation risen into the core, shoulders and back of hip. More of same -- stuck, knotted, adhered. Got them cleared and ready for more classes, which is keeping him afloat. Another session to address the L side... but for now mission accomplished
