Make God Laugh

Last night I laid out my plans for the blog. God is laughing now. Or maybe He's not. I'm not sure this time. I refer to the adage that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

I thought I was in quite a bit of pain when I got to the physical therapy office. Going through my mind repeated since yesterday was a prayer of gratitude that I had this double appointment. Relief was in sight. Physical therapy isn't always exactly pleasant while it's in progress, but it really works. When I walk out of there I always feel so much better than when I limp in.

And then there was today. We were running late, so I took the stairs, not the elevator. I could hardly stand up straight when I came through the door. They took me back immediately. First Jami worked with me. When that appointment was done, Ashley took me in for an hour, and even kept me about ten minutes over. I was feeling better than I'd felt all week—even after the last appointment. We discussed the upcoming week's schedule while I struggled to put the cast back on. I was still sitting on the therapy bed.

Can you just feel the other shoe getting ready to fall? I went to swing the leg with the heavy air cast off the bed without supporting it properly. I tore something in my back that connects to my right hip. I can no longer pick up my right foot.

I went home, medicated myself and went to bed. I just got up and I'm getting ready to take another pain pill. I'm allowed to take 1-2 every 4 hours. Believe me. I'll be taking 1 every four hours until bedtime, and then 2. I've got ice packed on my back and hip right now, and when I lie down, I'll switch back to damp heat. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I won't be going anywhere. Maybe I'll be up long enough to write about Venice. John's on his own for dinner. I'm having Crackerfuls.

Hours Later:

My back has calmed down enough so that I can tell where the real pain is coming from—the hip. I'm beginning to wonder if I either broke or cracked something in my hip. I guess I'll be calling my regular doctor tomorrow morning. I wonder if he works on Saturday. I've never thought to check before.

My Complicated Week

I'm running late with my last Venice blog, and tying up the trip home, but this last week has been spent dealing with physical therapy and and pain while I handle the effects the air cast has on my back and hip. It hasn't been pleasant, to say the least. I've spent a little time limping around the house feeling guilty about the laundry backing up and the blog not getting done. I have spent hours in physical therapy, though, and gone to a short writer's class on self-editing, which I needed for my novel.

The only thing of real interest we did was today, when we met up in Denver with friends we hadn't seen for nearly 25 years. We just reconnected with them online, and found that they had retired to Colorado Springs, not much further South of Denver than we are North. We met on the steps on the Capitol Building, had a quick tour, taken in slow motion by a guide who was very understanding about my mobility limitations, and then took the free shuttle to the mall area where we had dinner at Swing Thai.

I'll get photos up for that soon, too. The only other interesting thing that I've done, other than take long hours lying down rotating ice and heat on my hip and back, was to play guitar and sing for both services at church last Sunday. That went very well, as far as the music went, but by the time I got home, I was wiped out—happy, but exhausted and in too much pain to sit at the computer and think about photographs and memories.

This too shall pass. I'll get back to the trip, because it's what I want to share so badly. I have a double PT session tomorrow, and it'll be over early, giving me time to start a blog before I cook dinner. That's the one thing I've managed to keep up, since John depends on me for that.

So if you've been watching for the final Venice photos, I apologize. They're coming. Just not tonight.

I'm Being Punished

I can't think of what I might have done to deserve this, but our furnace went nuts yesterday, and started indiscriminately pumping out heat. John has since figured out that it's not actually the furnace. It's the heat pump, which is the thing that changes from heat to air conditioning. That means that every time the thermostat tells it the house is too hot, it switches to cold air. Since it's not working, it just pumps out hot air.

It's 95° in the house. I've had about eight cold showers, and if anyone comes over, I'll have to either run and hide, or run and put clothes on. I think of anything over 80° as a punishment. (What did I do this time?) Obviously, he tried to fix it himself first. Then it occurred to him that he'd better call for help and found himself on the receiving end of Memorial Day weekend messages. Perhaps someone can call us back Tuesday. Oh, wait. I have physical therapy at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. No one will be here to answer the phone.

I don't think I'll be doing a slide show tonight. I think I'll go take another cold shower and stretch out under the ceiling fan again. It's a good excuse to take off this hot air cast. (Please, God. Don't let the power go out. I really need the fans right now...)

Climbing the Walls in Dubrovnik, Croatia

Benjamin probably said it best. "We would never have chosen Dubrovnik, Croatia, except that it was on the ship's tour schedule. Missing it would have been a real loss." Or something like that. I took far more photos there than anywhere else. It was astoundingly beautiful, and the clouds that day were phenomenal. If I had painted them in, I would be getting complaints that they were too beautiful to be real. My slide show is longer than usual, but I cut it down twice already, and I'm not going to slice away any more photos.

John and I kept smiling at each other that day. It was hotter than it had been, but there was a bit of a breeze to keep us comfortable. I was enjoying the beauty of the day, the orange roofs and small alleys we could see as we looked down from the walls that surround the town. Of course, we had to climb long flights of stairs up to the walls first, but once up there, we had long stretches that were fairly straight. We looked down on yards with hanging laundry, flowers, churches, musicians, and (of course) lots of tourists.

We passed canon and craftsmen, including a man in costume making coins the old fashioned way: with a huge hammer from blanks in a very old machine that contained the reverse artwork that would be pounded into the blank with two or three strikes of the mallet. John collects that type of coin, as well as the souvenir pennies from various interesting spots we (or the kids) visit, so we had him make one for us.

This is one spot that I didn't buy a single post card. If you take a look at the photo above, I think you can get a pretty clear idea why I didn't. With digital cameras, it's easy to see what you're getting. I knew I had post cards in my camera already if I needed them. All I needed to do was print them out. Another thing I appreciated about Croatia was their music. It's another good reason for having a long slide show. I got to use two songs.

Again, the statuary and buildings were beautiful and attention to detail is amazing. It was obvious that "We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," as the saying goes. History, once again, was all around us. This is another one of those spots that we were getting to taste, when a full meal would have gone down really easily—maybe a week of full meals...

As we left Croatia to tender back to the ship, I realized that we would be leaving the cruise the next day, back in Venice. Our vacation, and the time with Ben and Ruth, Ashley and Kate was coming to an end. But what a way to finish it!

An Evening at Mykonos, Greece

The same day we left Santorini, we enjoyed short naps, had a light meal, and then caught the tender boats about 5:30 p.m. to Mykonos. We were still in Greece for this one more stop. It was delightful.

Still very light out, we were able to get some great photos of the ship in the harbor, the city as we approached, and the people wandering the small tourist shops along the waterfront. Then we disembarked and joined the throng. It was the slowest paced spot along our itinerary, and had a sweetness to it as night fell.

Most of the time we stuck together, walking and exploring, going into small churches and shops, chatting and just enjoying the evening together. As evening fell, however, we eventually split up. John and I wandered into a music store, finding some Greek music (you've been listening to it if you've been watching the slide shows) and a few presents for Ruth and the grandkids. I spent some time saying "thou shalt not covet" over lyres and lutes and Greek instruments I'd never seen before. It was a great stop.

We returned to the harbor and took the tender back to the ship just as full dark was falling. I loved the windmills along the shore, and the way the cruise ships looked resting out at sea. Still, I was aware that we had the next day at sea, then one stop at Dubrovnik, Croatia, followed by our return to Venice the following day. Our cruise was winding down. Reliving it by putting together the slide shows and blogs has been pure pleasure. Thanks for sharing these memories with me. Here is our Mykonos, as we saw it on May 5, 2010.

Santorini, Greece Was Unforgetable

If you have ever been to Santorini, Greece, you'll never see a photograph of the place without immediately knowing where it was taken. The place is just that striking. From a distance, I was amazed to see snow-capped mountains in the distance. As the ship pulled into the harbor, I realized that the snow on the mountains was, in actuality, white-washed buildings—not snow at all.

We arrived at the gathering station on board the ship early to take the tender boat ashore. Ben, Ruth and the girls, John and I all boarded the small boat and then a bus to travel along winding roads up to Oia Village.

We wandered and had a great time until it was time to get back on the bus and go to Thera or Fira, depending on who is spelling it, Greek or America, and had another fine time there, seeing so many beautiful sites I was instantly in love with Greece. I'm really happy with this slide show. I hope you don't think it's too long. (And I love the music!) The funny little man you'll see with John in one of the photos wanted me to take his photo with the "big man" and then, after I took the picture, he wanted me to give him money. I pretended not to understand him.

I think Benjamin and Ruth and I were passing the cameras back and forth quite a bit that day, taking photos of each other so that we'd all have pictures of each other on all the cameras with the beautiful scenery. The one above is one of my favorites, since it commemorates Kate learning to scream. She never did it for long, and seemed really proud of herself, even though it never got her anything. Still, I guess she was expressing herself. Ruth never screamed back, either. Neither did Ben, come to think of it. Grandma and Grandpa tried to hide their grins. I hope we succeeded. We really didn't want to encourage her, but it sure was funny.

I've never seen anything like Santorini. I didn't even think to wonder, while we were there, if they have earthquakes there or not. I found out that in 1956 they had a major earthquake along with a volcanic eruption (great combination) that caused such devastation that many of the villages on Santorini Island were deserted. Now, thanks to the tourism and wine industries, the island is once again prosperous.

I was so amazed at the beauty of this place, and how it all managed to cling to the cliffs like this. We stopped for photos so many times that I got a lot of rest stops, which made it a fairly easy day for me. At least that's how I remember it now. Still, by the end of the day, there was no way I was walking down all the steps like Ruth and Ben did. We stood in line and waited for the cable car. Now, that was a trip...

...but we made it safely. The people in the car with us really laughed when the car swayed wildly at first when we got in, and I made the sign of the cross in reaction, though. Couldn't hurt.

Walking on Air Casts

As I read over my travel blogs, it's obvious that I'm fairly obsessed with the number of stairs I needed to climb to get to the places we saw. Was it all worth it? Oh, definitely. That's what my podiatrist asked me, too, before fitting me for the air cast yesterday, and admitting to me that he would have been right beside me, making the same decision. Some things are worth the pain, he agreed, and consoled me that I didn't do any permanent damage to my foot. I didn't do it any favors, though.

Anyone with plantar fasciitis knows that you're told to "take it easy," and I didn't do that. I did my exercises, took the anti-inflammatories while they lasted, and kept going. Now I'll be in the cast for a minimum of three weeks. The good thing about this contraption is that it comes off at night and for showers. The bad thing is that it makes my right leg longer than my left, so my left hip and back, already in pain and inflamed from the arthritis, is going to take a beating.

If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, let me recommend the benefits of therapeutic massage. I had my second session a couple of hours after being fitted for the boot. My hour turned into 75 minutes, and I've pretty much decided that there are people who will do that for you in heaven. You just won't be in pain when in starts. My hip still hurts, but my back barely does. I'm getting used to walking with the air cast, and it's awkward, but but manageable.

Hopefully, in three weeks when the good doctor next examines my foot, he'll be telling me I don't need another one to three weeks with it. That is a possibility I'm aware of, but using the power of positive thinking to reject.