I am ready for October to end. It is my favorite month, most years. My birthday and the shift into wearing sweaters. All good. But this year, October has been too much. Good and bad. Writing, knitting, weaving. An ouch. Overlapping Zoom meetings, three times this month. Busy is great, but I’m getting out of breath.

The light in the recycling room of our condo has been out for three weeks. The management company’s cleaning staff reported the light out, then a neighbor checked and found four other outages. Someone was sent to replace the recycling room light, but it still didn’t turn on. They concluded it was an issue with the ballast. This was discussed ad nauseam during the Zoom HOA meeting last night. In the middle of this, Gary went down and looked. The fluorescent tube was installed incorrectly. He had to come back up to get our ladder to fix it, and they were still talking about it when it was fixed. One Board member sent him a thumbs up in the Chat. You would think…

I recently began another push to improve my health. I ran the Bridge Crossing, which was fun but slower than I expected. I took my blood pressure this week: 140/84. That’s bad, sure, but a month ago it was 151/91. Twenty years ago my BP was 90/60 and had been throughout my younger adult life. My resting heart rate is generally 58-60, and that hasn’t changed. When I’ve asked medical people about why my blood pressure has changed, they only say: Well, BP changes as we age. Bullocks to that.

I’ve been vegetarian with occasional pescatarian lapses for 33 years. I eat organic. I do not eat fast food or ingest sodas or other unhealthy stuff. I’ve kept to the recommended coffee and alcohol servings for a woman.

For the past couple of years my weight has been good with a BMI of about 22.5. I could stand to lose another ten pounds, sure. I have recently cut alcohol consumption to 4 glasses of wine/month and shifted from my one and half cups of Gary’s industrial strength morning coffee to peppermint tea or chai. I run every other day. All good, right? We’ll see about my BP with these most recent changes.

I’ve sold five shawls this month at the local gallery, which is how many I sold in two hours last year at the Night Market (which was cancelled this summer). Not bad, but not great. I did finally find a better way of knotting my fringes that I am particularly pleased about. And another warp is working itself out in my head. I will put it on the loom next week after my loom is home. More purples and blues, I think.

This morning—okay, this is bad—I fell during my run this morning. I landed hard on concrete. Over the years, this is my fourth fall. I generally pop right back up and run on. Not this time. On my left cheekbone. Bashed knees. Slammed fingers. My first thought, before I tried to move and sit up: where am I injured? Hip is not broken—good. Face hurts. Knees hurt. Fingers hurt. I sit up. Swirl, so mild concussion? Two men immediately rush over. Are you okay? Are you okay? I’m okay. White kid on bike and Black construction worker. Do you need a bandaide? I’m fine. I can’t see where I am bleeding (later: little finger, left hand). Another construction worker, in hard hat. Are you okay? As soon as I can, I stand. Not in great shape, face hurts, hand, elbows. Knees stop hurting as soon as I begin to move. Then my shoulder hurts.

I give them credit, they hung on till I was moving.

So. Hands, especially the right one, hurts. I have a lump on my left cheekbone that suggests some color by tomorrow. Gary says I look like someone hit me. No one hit me. It was concrete. That pavement jumped right up and smacked me! Scraped hands and knees without touching my new running tights.

Knitting is painful, but so is typing, yet here I go.

I am now going to eat an entire little carton of raspberry sorbet. Okay, half.