global warming makes ninjas of us all

This morning, I slunk down the street to the bus swaddled to the eyes against 17 degree crystal-clear hell. I took a note from my brother T. and executed a Ninja-Arctic-Suspension move, as pictured -->
You can't see me. I am not even here.

In fact, I looked just

like this, nah-ha.

I lived to tell the tale, despite the suspicious looks of bus-riders and building security. I have made it; I am in the building. The weather will determine whether I leave it again this evening or not.

What the hell is with weather in the teens in the Pacific Northwest? This is bullshit. Grr.

Speaking of ninjas and doing good and saving the world, (which we were, yes) check this out. Patrick Rothfuss, author of the wonderful world I like to visit called The Name of the Wind, is offering some really cool prizes to help raise some money for Heifer International. If you are unlike me and have anything to spare after the economy stopped treading on you, check out the amazing things you could win by helping him hit his goal.

And also speaking of ninjas, I am not one. A real ninja would not only have seen that truck coming (which I did), she would have successfully dodged it (which I did not). So I admit freely that I failed it; wanna-be ninj-ette, that's me. The result of which is apparently a spinal lumbar disc injury, which is "incurable", as well as a potential hip labral tear.

All kidding aside, stop reading here if you don't feel like reading protracted whining and complaining.

I thought I was disgruntled about the lumbar disk injury. I mean, the chiropractor says it's incurable, and the best I can hope for is that (with daily exercises and hanging-upside-down-in-strange-traction-thingies, pictured to the left) I will be 'asymptomatic'. But if I fail in doing these daily, time-consuming and vertigo-inducing exercises, then I will be 'symptomatic' and in great pain. By which I mean so much as a cough will send a spasm of significant pain through my lower back. I'm 32! And I walk and sit and sleep like I'm in my 50s or 60s.

But after reading up some on this hip labral tear, I'm upset in a whole new, I-see-needles-and-pain-and squick-in-my-future kinda way. I've been dealing with this worsening pain in my groin area that kept me from rotating my right leg outward or inward. As this article states:

Typical symptoms of a hip labral tear include:

• Groin pain
• Clicking and snapping sensations in the hip
• Limited motion of the hip joint

I got all those, baby. Sprawling in bed is impossible for me--I have to lay very carefully with my legs stretched straight, because though I can lift my leg straight up all I want, the second I let my foot flop outward or inward, or shift as though I'm going to turn right, or try to cross my right leg over my left? yeeee-OUCH! (There's that clicking and snapping sensation.) Trying to tickle my son is increasingly out of the question. So is shifting every day to get out of the bus seat, crossing my legs in a business meeting, leaning down to fetch something from under my desk and last but not least, sleeping. I cannot even search subconsciously for a comfortable position without being jerked awake from a jolt of pain. And the worst part? I've been mentioning this to my chiropractors for months, and they only started taking me seriously about 3 weeks ago... 5 and a half after the accident. And only then because I threatened to go to my regular doctor because I was in so much pain.

But enough of whining. I've reached my tolerance quota for the day. I need distraction.