I don't mind the rat race but I could do with a little more cheese.

It's been an exhausting ten eight days (obviously exhausting: I can't do math). Last Tuesday, Hubbyfink underwent a thirteen hour surgery -- we were separated for fifteen hours -- to remove what turned out to be a tennis ball-sized tumor from the balance nerve behind his left ear and his spinal cord. Since I had nothing else to do but fret, I wound up putting in a full day of work from the waiting room. Around 11pm, I finally got to see Hubbyfink in the Surgical ICU and did a very good job of blinking back tears and being cheerful for him.

He looked like an extra from "M.A.S.H." His head was covered in bandages, there were bruises on the visible parts of his face, and he had wires and tubes all over the place. He faded in and out of consciousness but we did get to say that we love each other. I drove home in a terrible thunderstorm and got to bed twenty hours after waking.

When I got back to Holy Cross Hospital (in Silver Spring, MD -- about an hour from our home) on Wednesday, Hubbyfink was sitting upright in a recliner. He didn't have an appetite, but he drank Ginger Ale like a champ. His head was still wrapped in bandages, but the bruises had faded and some of the tubes were gone.

On Thursday, he felt even better and was eating breakfast when I arrived. He moved from SICU to a regular room that evening, no longer needed pain medication, and was off the saline drip.

Friday evening, Hubbyfink was discharged from Holy Cross and transported to Shady Grove Adventist Rehabilitation Hospital in Rockville, MD where he stayed until Tuesday morning. During his time in rehab, he underwent occupational and physical therapies. He aced both. I was present for his PT Saturday and Sunday, and during Monday's session, I told his doctor that he would be discharged Tuesday at the latest. The rehab doctor wanted him to stay through this weekend, but Hubbyfink was MISERABLE in the facility. He, his surgeon, and his surgeon's therapist tried to get him discharged, but it wasn't until I showed up in my ass-kicking clothes and boots and bullied the doctor that we got the process going.

Do not question Ass-Kicking Wife.

I sprung Hubbyfink from rehab yesterday morning and carted him over to his surgeon's office for a follow-up appointment. The office staff was amazed by his progress, considering he'd had surgery a mere week ago, and his surgeon told him to get rid of the walker the rehab center made him use. Hubbyfink's homecoming was an emotional affair. It took a little while before the cats warmed up to him, but we wound up with the entirety of our small family in bed last night.

He's moving around very well on his own, although I do watch him on the stairs. He's ecstatic that he doesn't have to ask someone to help him to the bathroom or to move from bed to the sofa. I'm working from home until I feel comfortable leaving him on his own. If he's up to it, we'll take my car over to the campus and I'll let him try driving a bit. He won't be fighting or back on the bike any time soon, but we'll work on getting him back to normal.

Oh, and speaking of my car, it's a good thing I love it so much because from Saturday to Tuesday I put 290 miles on Bebe. Sure, there are lots of folks in this area who put that kind of mileage on their cars in that time frame, but that mileage typically takes me a month!

I posted elsenet "At this very minute nine years ago, I was getting a mani/pedi with my sister Mimi. But, eight hours later (after making him sweat because I was 30 minutes late), I married my best friend in the whole wide world. Happy anniversary, my darling Scott."

I do love going back through my archives and reading what we did for each anniversary or what memories popped up on those days. We don't have anything special planned for this evening since I want for him to get in as many historical martial arts practices he can before his surgery next week (which I'll talk about in another post) since he won't be able to participate for several months afterwards, if ever. We'll go do something outdoorsy in the forecasted weekend weather.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
-- e e cummings

The last time I drove a stick shift was about fifteen years ago when I lived with Shannon. During one road trip, she coached me around the parking lot of the Christiansburg Waffle House and I did pretty good job except for stalling out Every Single Time I tried to reverse the car. Aside from that, I was pretty good at driving a manual transmission; I was practically a master at hill starts and stops.

Flash forward to yesterday when I talked Hubbyfink into let me try my shifting chops on his new Golf TDI. I drove in circles around the front parking lot of the Vz campus and stalled out in first gear only a few times. The trip around the campus was a different story. I stalled when taking off from Every Single stop sign (and there are a lot of them around the parking garages). I got frustrated, but Scott was patient and kind. Once I got out of first, my shifting was like buttah. Eventually, I tired of the stress and let him take over for a tour of parts of Loudoun County we've never explored.

When we got back to our neighborhood. He stalled out going over one of the treacherous speed bumps. I couldn't stop myself from laughing. And then he stalled out just before his parking spot and was able to coast in just before the power steering cut out. He swore that neither stall was on purpose but I think he was trying to make me feel better.

It's the first of May (NSFW for language), my eighth wedding anniversary, and the start of National Bike Month. Whoo hoo! I've signed up for the WABA-sponsored Bike to Work Day -- yay, free food and swag en route to work -- and am anxiously awaiting to see what activities the fitness center at work will provide on May 18.

In other news, I -- well, the staff at my LBS -- have made some upgrades to Circe and Lily. Circe got a new stem Friday afternoon and that change has made my road bike so much easier to ride. My hands usually went numb a few miles into a ride; on Saturday, I completed a thirty-two mile ride with no numbness or discomfort. I even felt comfortable enough to ride in the drops a few times and I didn't feel like I would take a header over the handlebar. The new stem has me riding in a slightly higher position which is a lot more comfortable on my overdeveloped ab and my back. As my core strength improves, I'll probably go back to the shorter stem.

Lily got a thorough bath on Sunday. And I do mean thorough. It was a two and a half hour ordeal, but I got every bit of road grime off the frame and out of the cogs and sprockets. Her rims, cassette, chain wheel, and chain practically sparkle. She's not showroom clean, but she's the cleanest I've seen her since taking possession. Unfortunately, when I put her in the two highest/hardest gears, there was some grinding in the chain wheel. I could have monkeyed with the front derailleur, but I let the professionals handle that and I had the mechanic change out the spiky pedals for the combo platform/spds I purchased a few weeks ago. It's going to take a little getting used to riding with pedals that aren't grippy, but I'm happy to have the option of riding clipless while commuting.

Every now and then I talk Hubbyfink into meeting me along the trail as I ride home from work. On Wednesday he decided he didn't want to deal with the gym and said he'd meet me for the ride home. I warned him that I needed to do a little shopping as well, but those stops would be mostly surgical strikes.

I wound up leaving the office later than planned thanks to a last minute IM from the Bossman and met Hubbyfink just before the blind curve on Smiths Switch. He turned around and fell in line behind me before a FedEx truck rumbled up behind us and then passed us with a WIDE berth. Heh heh heh.

Shopping and banking happened. The test run of my Avenir Softside shopping pannier happened (successfully). Not running down pedestrians happened. Seeing another cyclist in the shopping center happened ("He just left Eastern Mountain Sports so that doesn't count," said Hubbyfink). We headed for home and something new and exciting-to-me happened.

We rode up the blasted incline to the Route 28 overpass and I stayed in front of Hubbyfink the entire freaking time. I not only stayed ahead of him, I pulled away from him. Dude! Plus, I was loaded down with shopping bags, a tote, and my purse. I didn't need to gear down: I was in my middle gears the whole way up. I was breathing heavily when we got to the bridge, but I wasn't wheezing or jelly-legged.

There was a small amount of gloating and smugness when we got home. Hee!

I felt antsy this morning and wanted to take advantage of today's gorgeous weather so I suggested to Hubbyfink that we take our bikes over to Great Falls and explore. He suggested we hike instead and I agreed to that, especially since I've never been to the park.


Great Falls

Mind blown. I wasn't expecting to scramble over so many rocks, but the views were completely worth it. I told Hubbyfink I'd like to go white water rafting, which surprised him. ( Hubbyfink was totally in his element )

I took Friday off to accompany Hubbyfink while he had his wisdom teeth yanked. It was a fairly quick procedure but Hubbyfink's coming out of anesthesia took a while. I was tempted to whip out my phone and record his mumbled ravings for posterity, but Hubbyfink was so pitiful I didn't have the heart to embarrass him like that. Although, later it would have been useful for him to try to decipher what all he was raving about. I do remember that he was really wanted to go to Best Buy (I told him we could go on Saturday if he felt like it) and he was absolutely adamant about going to HMA practice on Sunday (yes, dear, if you feel like it) and he kept verifying that it would be okay for him to play video games this weekend (yes, dear, if you feel like it). He was most concerned about playing video games, which is pretty funny in retrospect since he didn't play any games this weekend.

We got home, propped him up on the sofa, got pain killers in him, changed out gauze throughout the afternoon, and took it easy for the rest of Friday. He was still rather loopy throughout Friday evening. Saturday was a little better. In fact, he'd started laundry and dishes while I ran errands early Saturday afternoon. I gently fussed at him for overdoing it. But gently. I've always promised him that I will never get upset with him for doing housework. :)

Hubbyfink was about 85% on Sunday. We went out for a drive to keep the cabin fever at bay and he helped with more housekeeping. My experience with recovery from wisdom-tooth extraction was sooo different: I was drugged out of my mind and in excruciating pain for about a week. Hubbyfink, on the other hand, took his pain Rx once and has been taking Advil for soreness since. He even went to work on Monday and was speaking normally again last night. He's still eating soft foods and is being gentle with his jaw, but he's back to normal otherwise. He's even going to fight practice tonight; although, he has promised that he won't actually fight this week.

I'm in a good place right now. I'm the smallest I've been in ten years. The Retin-A is doing its magic on my complexion. Yes, my skin is peeling like crazy, but the moisturizer greta_k recommended is working as advertised. I feel like the beautiful, powerful woman I am. It feels good.

Hubbyfink and I are in a good place together. We're a month away from our seventh wedding anniversary. Good heavens! How'd that happen? Seven years, holy cow. It feels like the blink of an eye. We adore each other and both want to ensure each other's happiness.

Work is good, too. I have plenty of projects to keep me busy but not so many that I feel frantic. I'm happy with where I am.

I wish I could bottle up this feeling and apply it liberally when I'm in the dumps. For now, I'll simply be grateful for the many blessings in my life.

Friday night was a romantic date night with Hubbyfink. We went to The Cheesecake Factory for our yearly not-quite-Valentine's dinner. I don't think we'll go back on a Friday again. I mean, the food was good and my dinner date was fantastic, but between the family arm-wrestling (really? at a restaurant) each other and turning over dirty plates when they slammed each others' arms onto the table on one side of us and the family with the whiny kids who didn't want to eat their dinner on the other side of us, we had a less-than-romantic environment. Ah well. We still enjoyed ourselves and date night was grand.

On Saturday, Hubbyfink cleaned detritus in the basement den and made a run to the dump while I took a walk/jog through the neighborhood across the boulevard and onto the W&OD up to Crestview. According to mapmyrun.com and my ipod stopwatch, I did 3.98 miles in just over an hour. After a good stretch and a long, hot shower, I helped Hubbyfink reorganize and clean the laundry/storage room. We finally have a decent storage place for the bikes, hooray! We capped off the day with a trip to Hubbyfink's gym for a soak in the hot tub -- I needed to cool off and jogged some laps in the MUCH cooler lap pool -- and then watched a series on the history of blues on Smithsonian Channel.

Today was another trip through the neighborhood and into Herndon. I made it up to Ferndale this time. I even wound up jogging a few times without realizing it. I was listening to my dance music, looking at the scenery, and then looked down and realized I was unconsciously jogging along to the beat. That was new and exciting. My time was a little better today: 4.78 miles in seventy-five minutes. More stretching and another long, hot shower to work out the kinks in my legs. I celebrated my two days of fitness with a relaxing pedicure. I was happy to discover that I fit in the massage chair well enough now that the lower body massage stuff actually feels good rather than annoying. We shall see if I'm able to move my freshly polished toes and soft feet when I get out of bed tomorrow.

All last week Hubbyfink and I were puzzling over what to do for our anniversary. Inspiration finally struck early Saturday afternoon as I prepped and primped for my pedicure and he prepped and primped for his excursion for more frog feet shoes in Frederick.

"Let's go to Old Town," I suggested and he said that sounded like a fine idea.

After foot-focused errands, late lunches, and a bit of napping, he donned snazzy summer clothes and I donned a sundress and new sandals. We zipped down to the Alexandria waterfront and noticed a tall ship moored on the Potomac. That looked interesting. We ambled over to The Chart House and put our name on the 2.5 hour wait list. We had no issue with waiting (see: late lunches) and wandered back over to the tall ship.

She turned out to be the Peacemaker and she was open for free dockside tours. We boarded and wandered up, down, and through her beautiful decks. I'm sad that we didn't think to bring a camera with us, but oh well. I wanted to know if you'd be able to pull a skier behind her, but I couldn't find a crew member to ask. Hubbyfink said that if I asked that question, he was going to pretend he didn't know me.

We left the ship and wandered back to King Street where throngs of people jammed the sidewalks. We explored a couple of funky little art stores and then ambled through the residential areas peeping in unshuttered windows and barely maintaining our balance on cobblestone and brick sidewalks. After an hour or so of walking, I suggested we go by the restaurant again and see how they were progressing with the dinner crowd. It turned out to be a fantastic idea because we were next on the list. We'd just ordered drinks at the bar when the hostess was ready to seat us.

We sat on the patio and watched boats go by and listened to a jazz quartet on the boardwalk below. We stuffed ourselves on lobster spring rolls, crab-stuffed shrimp, crab cake, seasonal veggies, and ginger rice. My two amaretto sours were the sneakiest amaretto sours I've ever enjoyed (I was in a [thankfully non-headachey] stupor until nearly noon on Sunday). Such a good dinner and wonderful company to boot.

We enjoyed a leisurely drive back down the GW parkway and then a significantly less leisurely drive west down 66. All in all, a beautiful evening with honey bunches of domesticated oats.