Happy Birthday to my Big Brother!

Because it had to happen at some point during the yAARRR.

And today's it.

Quote of the Moment: Tolerance does not mean what it used to mean.

"Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions." -G.K. Chesterton

I heart, therefore I hurt.

Despite great worry and consternation, last evening I took to the water in a single and rowed five miles. I ♥ rowing. It was so peaceful out there in a boat all by myself that it was worth every moment. I can't wait for those late afternoon fall days when the sun shines just right on multi-colored trees. It's a thing (and moment) of beauty.

Today, I hurt. But I've come a long way - my problem now isn't so much about carrying my boat up and down the steep, cheese-grater ramp; it's getting in and out of the boat that is toughest.

Tortuous Torture

-A device that tortures me in a very devious way? Game Ready. This thing compresses like mad and it takes me a solid 1/2 hour to warm up after wearing it for 15 minutes. It's painful in a really good way - kinda makes me realize what it must feel like to be a car being compacted at a North Pole junkyard in January. (Also, in case you were wondering where the "tortuous" part comes in, there is a lot of ankle and foot bending involved in the physical therapy, and frequently it feels completely unnatural, even though my other foot does it all completely naturally. For an hour and a half, twice a week, PT's all torture, but all for the best.)

(See? It looks really cool, like an awesome gaming system console...until you realize it's attached to an awful contraption via hose and cable...)

With help of the twice-weekly torture, I felt myself get through a turning point on Sunday afternoon, and the swelling and pain have been substantially less since then, and I'm doing some every day things a bit more naturally since then. Also: my body does not try to protect itself quite as much (read: wince back from any ankle and foot movement whatsoever) since then.

-Tennis tortures me. Not only the injury, but also attempting to watch it. I only saw part of the Federer-Del Potro match yesterday, but what I did see was slightly agonizing, but in a good way.

-Playing my violin for the first time since May tortured me last night. Just like my ankle and foot are unbendable lately, so are my fingers, apparently. At least none of my strings were broken when I opened up the case last night.

-Losing my flip-flop callouses tortures me, 'cause either I'll have to suffer through regaining them for the next few weeks, or just call it a season and be done with them until next spring. Both are torturous ideas. I'd really like to try on boots right now and get a new pair in preparation for winter, but I'm mentally and physically struggling with that. I don't want it to be winter yet! I can't get my foot in that boot because of the swelling, so I can't really test for fit at the present time.

Obsession. And not the eau de parfum kind.

My two latest obsessions (though not necessarily new):

1. Maps. Particularly the ones in this book. Love this book. I also love the Rose books - all of these were gifts from my parents the last couple of years. Maps and charts and pictures, oh, my! And such glossy, glossy paper.

2. Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash.

Ah, Fall.

-I used to hate fall when I was a kid - to me, it meant time was going too fast, and soon I'd have to go inside and spend a lot of months in close quarters. Or something like that. Now, I love fall. I'm excited it's here (although it's been rather cool this summer, so it kinda feels like it's been fall since about July 1st; plus, my summer footwear season was cut short when I couldn't wear flip flops for all of August, and still can't even now, so that makes it seem much later in the year).

-Two words: Maui onion. Delicious chips from Target's Archer Farms. I could eat the whole bag at once.

-I started my fall Bible study last night - we're doing the first part of Isaiah in Precepts. I'm really excited about this study.

-My favorite dental floss is made in Ireland. Is it just me, or is that weird? I never would've thought dental floss - of course! Ireland.

-The only newspaper I really like to read these days is the Wall Street Journal - something you can probably gather based on my online bookmarks tally over in that right sidebar...anyway. My opinion of most newspapers these days (my own local papers included) is that they either a) report events, but in such a mindless way that you never actually learn anything (either because the content on which they focus is so poor or because, even if they choose to publish a story that is interesting, they don't actually write with any depth or discernment), or b) they just don't write well. The WSJ is one of those few media entities that manages to combine the two - they write well and have good content.

-Will never forget - and am thankful for all our men and women who fight to protect our nation's people and its freedoms.

No, really: my dog ate my homework.

Things that make for a Happy LinnEy

-Rowing on the river for the first time in a month

-Booking tix to Boston for an unheard-of $207 (and that includes the taxes and fees! I don't think I've ever before flown to the east coast for so cheap)

-Coffee: what would I do without it? Oh, that's right: die a painful death

-Coloring pictures with some California cousins - thanks to five-and-a-half-year-old LGC, I now have new artwork on my fridge (although I did find it hilarious that she drew fire instead of grass - and then colored the two of us standing in the fire, but hey! we had crowns and our own apple tree, so it's all good)

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

Ways to make the Minnesota State Fair even better:
1. Attend a high school rodeo (hilarious - especially the trick horses).
2. Eat a freshly-made, warm, nougat-filled, salted nut roll, only replace the peanuts with pecans, and then dip the entire thing in chocolate. (Although I do like the traditionally plain peanuts and nougat, too.)
3. Drink about 7 gallons of fresh lemonade.
4. Even if you haven't injured your ankle recently, expect everything from the ankles down to swell up to astronomical proportions...talk about salt intake. But man, those deep-fried cheese curds are worth it.
5. Try out a pot roast sundae. I also heard rumors of meatloaf being served in an ice cream cone, but I didn't want to wander around too much on the bum foot to find it.

Eating my way through the week.

For a while there, I was dropping weight this summer (like I do every summer when I row). But since I'm not rowing right now and still eating like I am rowing all the time, I kinda figured I'd put it all back on the last few weeks. Only I haven't - I finally confirmed that yesterday morning. So. Yesterday I decided to take matters into my own hands, and eat my way through St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Lunch at Cafe Latte:
-Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad (which conveniently contains BOTH the pasta AND the salad)
-Smoked Gouda Soup
-Cheddar Pepper Bread
-Creme de Menthe Chocolate Cake
-Grapefruit Izze

Dinner at Saffron:
-Baba Ghanoush
-Haloumi Cheese
-Bread with Hummus
-Beef Strip Loin, served oh-so-conveniently-and-delightfully with parisian gnocchi, asparagus, peas and taleggio fondue
-House Made Ice Cream Flight: spiced chocolate, fresh mint (as in, tasted like actual fresh mint, and not just mint-flavored), and vanilla cherry

All amazing, and probably helped me pack on a pound. And that was just yesterday. Today I went to the State Fair. More on that later.

Ordering Hair

I got my hair cut this week. It's so much shorter than it had been...but that's not saying much, since it'd gotten so long. I realized something, too: I order hair cuts like I order dinner in a restaurant. Most of the time when I go to a restaurant, I have a couple different ideas of what I'd like to get...and then never really know which menu item is going to pop out of my mouth until the server asks me what I want. And then I just blurt out one of my selections, and that's what I eat for dinner.

I order my hair cuts the same way.

I go in to see Jen, the nice stylist who chops my hair whenever I bother to go in to see her, and I usually have a couple of ideas of what I could do with it, but I never really know what I'm going to decide until she asks, "So, what are we doing with your hair this time?" And then something pops out of my mouth, and that's what we go with. However, since my hair cut is something that I'll have to live with longer than the time it takes to eat dinner, I should probably put more thought into it. Or not. It turned out pretty well this time, as it usually does.
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In other news: physical therapy is so un-fun and shocky to my body that I threw up after my first session yesterday. That was more of a reaction than when I hurt it in the first place. There's nothing like feeling all the blood drain out of your head - and not so much from pain. 'Cause a lot of it didn't actually hurt. It was shock from having my ankle bent like a pretzel...well, it felt like it was being pretzel-ized; in reality, I think she moved it about 2 or 3 inches. But I guess I'm a glutton for bulimia, 'cause I'm going back twice a week for a little while now. And I do this because even in one day of PT and doing exercises on my own, I have more range of motion. Also, the ultrasound machine that's helping me get rid of the swelling was kind of soothing.