technicalities

We flew in to the Netherlands yesterday, and came in to work for a few hours. I had misgivings (based on Rudder’s notion of “a few hours” but we did end up leaving early enough for me to do the errands I wanted and him to do 15km on the erg at the local boathouse (I’m on the injured list and won’t be erging much this trip).

Moving in November two years in a row is just annoying; it plays hob with racing season, the Concept II Holiday Challenge and the actual holidays. This trip made things even trickier; if we hadn’t left, we’d be getting our stuff including the ergs delivered within the next few days. We’d have a lot of days to make up on the Holiday Challenge, but it’s still easier when the erg’s in your house. And I’d have had my menorah ready for at least most of the nights of Chanukah, assuming I could find candles for it. I think I will be lighting a ‘virtual menorah’ tonight; there seem to be lots of them online. Rudder and I agreed not to exchange Chanukah gifts because all the travel has made shopping impossible, but I’ve reneged on that a bit; we can combine holidays and get our Sinterklaas chocolate letters tonight, and while I was shopping for socks yesterday I picked him up some too so he can have those tomorrow.

I think the hiking staff I bought to use as a cane did help with all the treks through the airport. It turns out using a cane is trickier than you’d think; when I had it at normal hiking-staff-length, it swung too slowly so that I couldn’t put it down with the injured foot at each step. I applied a little physics (pendulum theory) and adjusted it down to the length of my leg, and now I can swing it in rhythm. Of course the handle isn’t perfect for this because it’s meant to be held differently (compare a can handle and a staff handle) but it works well enough. Now I walk with the gait of House. I guess that means Hugh laurie gets it right. The only other problem is while the weight at each step does get split between the cane and my foot, which was the intention, it’s hard not to lean into it so that foot gets more weight than the other. Tweaking the height may help. I didn’t expect this to be a technical challenge!

I think it’s getting better. It hurts sort of on and off and didn’t hurt at all just now when I went down the hall for hot chocolate, though longer walks do seem to make it hurt more. I get some funny looks, but I have the 30-second explanation perfected for anyone who asks.