Quirky things

I’ve been following a blog about a cat lovin’ woman in Alabama for about 3-4 years now. She lives on a small farm with pigs & chickens & dogs & a shit-ton of cats. OK, to be fair, she is a foster kitty mama and has perfectly set up rooms in her farm house to keep fosters or pregnant mama’s and babies segregated from her Permanent Residents. Of which, right at this moment, there are 14 I believe. Given that she currently has one cat who literally blew in after a tornado, a mama cat who birthed 6 kittens and yet another litter of 3 kittens that she is fostering – that is now 25 cats in the house! 25!! Yes, I did coin the phrase on her current blog header “My gawd, there are cats everywhere!” I’ve followed closely enough to have shed tears when Mr Boogie died and to cheer when fosters are eventually adopted, and yes, even when they end up becoming Permanent. I’ve had Andersen Kitty calendars hanging next to my desk the last two years. Over the years I’ve noticed in the comments that people write about the Crooked Acres clan appearing in their dreams. Robyn gets a huge kick out of that. This week, it happened to me and I woke up just cracking up (my cats everywhere phrase came from the dream). I even specifically talked about the current family of kittens (McMaos). Seriously damn funny to dream about people and animals you have never once met in real life! To be fair though – Robyn has posted videos of herself and the cats and just tons upon tons of pictures so in my subconscious mind it would seem like we regularly hang out 🙂

What may be odder still than dreaming about an online only blog friend, is to dream about someone from twitter. Who has never posted a picture of themselves and who you have NEVER heard speak. There are a handful of folks there who I know 100% in 140 character increments only and I engage in conversations with them nearly daily. It hasn’t happened yet, but I assume it is inevitable as many of them have reported twitter friends appearing in dreams. I often wonder if I will picture them as their avatars (some use cartoons, some use generic animal photos etc). Will Socratic show up as a badger in my dreams someday? It would be weird, but I probably shouldn’t be surprised!

Also, how does it happen that in a very large city, and all the hours available in a day, that I would end up running into my supervisor and his wife at Macy’s two weekends in a row?

Then there is my quirky, cranky hip. Honestly if I think about it, this annoying pain has been there since my youth. I must have hurt something dancing or doing PE in high school or both or who knows….but as long as I could remember if I do any intense distance walking/hiking or make even a half assed attempt at running it would hurt. In fact, I used the chronic hip as an excuse NOT to run for all these years because it was a guaranteed trigger. And when it hurts – it HURTS. Getting up from a chair, putting on pants & socks & shoes or anything that requires putting weight on only one leg at a time becomes a challenge. I think I mentioned earlier that I thought the circuit workouts which had some good hip flexor exercises must have helped because the whole months of April & May I ran pain free. And then…..I sort of thought I felt it late last week. I noticed that I could touch my hip bone on the outside and that the muscle over it was tender. But it was very mild and went away quickly. Then I noticed it again running yesterday towards the end of my run specifically when I turned to look over my shoulder for cars so I could cross the street. Bad move. TWINGE. But, I got home, cooled down, stretched and it faded. It didn’t hurt this morning though might have felt tender to the touch sort of? So when I went out for my planned longer trail run this morning with The Boy & Renee and Eve, I wasn’t too concerned. Yeah, there was some awkward trail terrain, but it was fine. A little twinge here and there, but nothing too bad. Then….a damn freaking bumble bee or june bug flew up and I had to stop suddenly and dart to one side and TWINGE TWINGE TWINGE. Both times it was towards the end of the runs too so I was plenty stretched & warm. But…this time it is officially flared up Big Time. Now 7 hours after the run and it has hurt like hell all day. So I finally looked it up online and voila:

Trochanteric Bursitis. Caused when the IT band is too tight and so rubs against the bursa jamming it against the bone and causing it to become inflamed. The symptoms match mine exactly. Nice to finally know what it is. And to find some stretches to help with it once it heals again. So, my feet will be up for a couple of days. Targeted ice massage & stretching. Also, perhaps I shall be more careful about shifting my weight while I run. The bug thing? Well, that was a quirky event. But I can try to remember to stop before crossing the street from now on. No need to do it on the fly & risk this again.

Bursitis. Great. Totally sounds like an old person’s injury right?

Oh. Yeah. Shut up.