OCTOBER

/ janpriddyoregon

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.

Baby stacks on the shore.

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

28 thoughts on “OCTOBER”

  1. Godspeed recovery from the fall. The bane of all of us Septuagenarians. Here in Arch Cape on mid-Pacific Road at Asbury Creek to get to the beach across from our home I have to traverse 75 feet of various size rock, boulder, gravel, flotsam and jetsam washup etc which is often slick etc. I have said F it and now take a single walking stick. I am in cane denial. Did I mention I make that trek with a beach-anxious 95 pound Belgian Shepherd on a leash.? At trails end where the drought-struck stream pitifully enters the ocean with headlands in view and far off Asian countries to wonder about it is always profound. Reminding me of my neighbor Mark says, “John, aren’t we lucky”.

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  2. Good on Gary! I glad you were able to get up and we’re okay! Takes time to recover. You could take Aleve with your sorbet. Last time I fell xc skiing I had to have people take off my skis so I could get up!
    Not been a good October Israel, Hamas, Gaza. Speaker of the House. I don’t think it will be better next month!

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  3. BP is more complicated than we think. I am so sorry you fell, rethink why you fell. Going too fast, too hot, got distracted, need new running shoes? It is easy for me to do that when I get too hot and in a hurry.

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    • The truth is that I fell about a quarter mile into my second mile. I walked for five or ten minutes and then finished running that mile once I felt steady and strong again. What hurts this next morning is my right hand, so no weaving this month I think. No knitting for a while either. My right wrist is puffy.

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      • As a little girl I fell on the brick steps at my grandparents’ Portland home. I freaked out about a dislocated finger joint! Seeing my finger tip (middle finger left hand) bent the wrong way was horrifying. In the mean time my cut right knee bled all the way down to my sock. I honestly didn’t feel pain from either injury and popped the finger joint back into place without trying, why made me scream all over again. Should have had stitches in my knee, but made do with a home-made butterfly bandage. It was a couple years before that finger lost all stiffness, but I still have the scar on my knee.

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  6. Oh, that fall is not good. As for the doc’s explanation for higher blood pressure, I hear it every time I bring up something I’m not happy about–“well, you are getting older and these things happen…”

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  7. if October is the tenth month of the year then why does it only have eight letters in it ? I know what your thinking it only has 7 but actually the b is silent at the end which makes it 8 and even twice as funny as septemberp–anywave, i guess we will never really know much less than we already do–glad your feeling better –sorry about the pain–it gets worse when you get older and here we are–whos glass is empty and needs a refill collins wait I think I hear two hearts playing –time to go cause 3 s company is on in a few and in the distant I can hear a night zombie with a leaf blower blowing kelp in the windmills of the sorrowful face knight on broadway that we all no and love–love to you all–gary

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  8. YAY Gary ! Hoping that as the days progress the effects of your fall will lessen and you will be able to return to doing all the things you love comfortably. Even though October brought so many disquieting things, both locally and worldwide, the fact that there were those who cared enough to come, check on you and stay with you until they thought you were all right is both reassuring and a spot of hope in the darkness. Sending lots of positive vibes your way.

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