High Point Kudos

I worked hard for this in 2019, and now I know my capabilities. Thank you to BlueSeventy for sponsoring this series of open water competitions. You made me work for it!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The family curse

Image
We have a family curse not unfamiliar to millions of Americans: alcoholism. Especially for the males on both sides of my family, the drink has really challenged the men. My maternal uncles came through it using the 12-step program. My father quit at age 76, cold turkey, after a cascade of serious health problems delivered the final ultimatum: quit or die soon. One aunt by marriage somewhat recently had and survived a liver transplant—which is fantastic. But my brother, Brion, is on a different and heartbreaking journey.  As I write this, I’m at home in the PNW while my mom is at Brion’s bedside in a San Diego hospital based (inpatient) hospice. Things are so fragile. Time is short. I’m still processing what I’ve witnessed in the last few months and the progression to this present-day byproduct of alcoholism: hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) at end-stage liver disease from alcohol-related cirrhosis. Our family members got a crash course in all the processes, medications, terminology, trea...
Read more

The Lesson of Cat "Cleaning"

Image
 I hope Gracie-cat forgives me. I hope that I forgive me!  Last week our kitty cozied up a little too close to the wood pile for too long (next to our warm woodstove), and ended up with an impossible amount of tree sap stuck in unfortunate areas: the base of her tail near her poop zone and up top, caked into the paw pad and up her back right leg, and her belly fur.  When we saw her in the mornng she was hopping about like a peg leg pirate, and trying to shake it off her back leg. I looked up how to clean this off and found many ideas suggested, from peanut butter, to Dawn, to coconut oil, olive oil and so on. Opting for olive oil, I locked her in the bathroom with me, all tools in hand, and prepared to clean her up. Pitch gone, but...new problem: the oil was still on. Oily cat. It looked and felt much worse IRL. She behaved so well, and of course hated every second of it. After towel drying her the best I could, she spent hours cleaning herself nonstop. As she dried, sh...
Read more

Swimming right along

Image
There's that expression "the only things certain in life are death and taxes." I'd like to add AGING. The only things certain in life are death, taxes and aging. Now, into my 55th year, I have met the medical threshold for menopause. Friggin finally! Groveling to my doctor for HRT has been a two year beg fest, and after the latest round of labs there is no argument that I'm fresh outta estrogen. So bring it! Adding to my fine lineup of care experts we now have pulmonologist in addition to endocrinologist and neurologist.  All last year (2023) I kept getting knocked down with respiratory illnesses--for weeks at a time basically every other month. I spent a lot of time in the guest basement bedroom hacking goobers and coughing to exhaustion. I lost work. I lost weight. I lost a lot of confidence in my swimming despite a Catalina relay in Aug 2023 and marathon swim plan for Oct 2023.  The Oct Pt. Loma to Ocean Beach tandem swim (The PLOB!) with Becky proved successfu...
Read more