A couple hours after my usual weight workout yesterday, I went back to the gym to
try their new Pilates class (low-rent Pilates, with only a mat, rather than a
funky stretching machine). The result is that my hip and shoulder joints hurt like
hell today. So it must have been good for me.
With logic like that,
you just know that one of these days I'll end up on
href="http://badsnake.diaryland.com">Badsnake's doorstep begging for someone
to flog me one of these days. Though I seem to do a more than competent job of
abusing my own body.
This morning at rowing practice, we did some
balance drills. At one point, DI had us rowing for five strokes, then gunnelling
our blades (resting the oar handles on the gunnels (side walls) of the boat, so
that the oar blades are up in the air). For the last several of those, we had that
boat locked into balance, oars poised evenly on either side, no one daring
to move for fear of throwing off the set. I've never felt anything like it. I love
this boat.
Amusingly, I heard today that a couple of the taller
skinnier women are now wanting to get into our boat. It used to be that rowing
with the "big girls" was seen as the prestige thing....until everyone realized how
good our boat is. It's true that two of them might be a few pounds lighter than
She-Hulk, but they've rowed with us before and the boat as a whole never felt as
smooth. Anyway, some regattas seem to worry about only the average weight of the
boat. Since She-Hulk is only about 5 lbs over the lightweight limit, and the rest
of us are each 15+ pounds under it, we can still able to row as lightweights,
where that's the rule.
Yesterday, while engaged in my usual practice
of spending too much at the bead store, the woman asked me where I'd learned to
wire-wrap (here's what
that looks like). I told her I'd figured it out from books and looking at others'
work, and asked why. "Because I know I didn't teach you and you seem to know what
you're doing," she answered. Really. This is not rocket science (though basic
ballistics isn't that hard, either). It's similar to the technique I used to make
rings as a little girl, whenever I got hold of some electrical wire. The main
difference is that because this wire is stiffer, I use jeweler's pliers to bend
it. It's not difficult.
And the scary thing is, if I had learned how
in a class, this would have been the advanced class. It's a sad example of what
someone I know calls the Ownership of Knowledge -- if you're not a recognized
expert, you shouldn't be able to figure anything out on your own. It's hard to do
nice beadwork without proper tools and materials. With them, it's ridiculously
fast and easy. I may never buy beaded or wire jewelry again.