the new york times has such a great series of elevated butter noodles, if you ever want a super fast easy dinner that still feels grown up and you can emulsify pasta water + butter together basically the sky is your limit
any one of these + a bag of salad or whatever vegetable side you find easiest/cheapest, and you’ve got yourself a full meal that tastes far above the effort you put in.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks, and I’m not exactly why it’s feeling so rough.
I’m trying to get an old friend to move in with child and i, which is causing some uncertainty, some extra physical work, and some people-managing to keep child content with the inclusion of a new adult in their environment. (edited before I even post this–friend is not moving in, which is good for the social-stress facet but bad for the financial stress)
I’m working on moving/expanding part of my plant growing operation into a new greenhouse that I’m leasing, but this is a lot of logistical work, getting supplies in the right places, minimizing double-work. It’s also a lot of physical work, climbing ladders to hang shade cloth, etc. I feel like once it gets set up it won’t be all that much work, but for now it’s kicking my ass.
I’m getting the yard ready for a dog-sitting guest, which is annoying because I had the yard all messed up starting plants for a big client that’s pre-purchasing plants for a sale in November.
I’ve been trying to attend the local universalist church near us, but finding it frustrating that they’re all super-liberal and doing good work, but at the same time so fucking set in their ways and inflexible with any type of person they haven’t interacted with before. I’m gonna have to sit at least one well-meaning but uninformed person down and have the “this is what trans means. this is what non-binary means” talk. Going to church was meant to increase my connections to other people, not piss me off for the rest of the week. I spoke to the leader of the PFLAG group and she encouraged me to come to the meeting on thursday.
I just put “Call to schedule psych” on my calendar for Monday because I’m finding all this overwhelming when it doesn’t seem like it should be.
I remember being a little surprised when I learned that domestic cats have some of the widest vocal range of any small carnivore, WAY more so than dogs. But the thing is that most cat owners are only ever going to hear the relatively small range/vocal repertoire that their specific cat has developed to specifically communicate with them. The more you observe other cats – especially, when those cats don’t think they’re being observed or are not trying to communicate with humans at all – you realize that yeah, they really are the voiceboxes of the small mammalian world.
question 2 my followers: what’s the most obscure piece of media you’ve ever developed a fixation with? not obscure as in “at one point had a reasonably thriving fandom that eventually faded” but something you feel you were almost entirely alone in your appreciation for
Space: Above and Beyond. It ran for one 23-episode season in 1995.
I was 12 when it aired, and it captured my soul. I’m absolutely feral about this group of head cases
I am sharing this with all you good people on the dash because I am so fucking mad it took so long for me to learn it and if I can spare one (1) person the agony it will be worth it.
So for like…oh, 8 or 9 months, I’ve been struggling with pain/inflammation/tendinitis in my left Achilles tendon. I don’t know what caused it. It just started up (welcome to middle age, this shit happens). It wasn’t severe enough to be debilitating, but it was annoying and limiting. It was also intermittent, in that some days it would be very painful and other days hardly at all. The kind of shoe I was wearing affected it a lot.
Now, I have bone spurs on both heels (it’s just a thing that happens as you get older sometimes). I’m also aware that heel pain is usually the result of tight calf muscles that pull and irritate the tendon. I tried stretching that calf muscle. You know the stretch, this bitch right here:
I did it all the time. I also iced the ankle after walking for awhile, hoping to avoid inflammation. Results were…unsatisfying.
I went to:
A chiropractor
A podiatrist
A physical therapist
A bodywork coach
They all gave me some variation on the “strengthen your calf muscle, stretch your calf muscle” advice. I continued doing this without results.
I was getting frustrated, and a little afraid that this was just my life now. Finally, I thought…maybe some targeted massage might help. I asked for rec on a local FB site and was pointed to a woman who specializes in therapeutic massage including cupping, etc.
I went to her a week ago.
She spent over half our first session working on my left lower leg. Within about 10 minutes of making my eyes water, she uttered the sentence I did not know I had been waiting to hear:
“Oh, it’s your soleus.”
Excuse me, what?
“It’s your soleus that’s the culprit. It’s all tied up and stiff.” She started digging into it and I felt literal sparks run up my leg as she released adhesions and got the muscle moving a little. When she finally put the leg down, it felt like it was on fire with all the blood rushing into it.
She said, “You’ll need to stretch your soleus. It’ll clear up, but it’ll take a bit of time - tendons take ages to heal.”
But I HAVE been stretching.
“No, you haven’t. The usual straight-leg calf stretch only stretches the gastrocnemius, that’s the big belly muscle in your calf. That’s not your problem. That stretch doesn’t stretch the soleus. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to stretch it.”
My mind is spinning.
So here are the muscles in question:
The gastroc (as the pros call it) just attaches down the back but the soleus runs underneath it from the knee around the side to the heel. The lower part above the ankle is where it typically gets tight and forms adhesions.
To stretch it, you do the same calf thing where you put your foot back and press your heel to the ground, but you have to do it with your KNEE BENT:
The bent knee keeps the gastroc from engaging. It’s one of those selfish muscles (like traps) - if you give it an inch, it’ll just take over and prevent other muscles from working or stretching. There are other ways to stretch the soleus but this is the easiest and you can literally do it anywhere. I’ve been doing it while standing and waiting for things (the elevator to come, the toast to toast). You just put the heel back and bend the knee. It’s kind of like curtseying.
The minute I did this stretch, I could FEEL where it was pulling on my tendon. I knew that THIS had been the problem.
The massage therapist also told me to stop icing my heel. She said icing is for an acute injury, but a more chronic aggravation needs heat, to increase blood flow for healing. She recommended elevation with heat every day (I’ve been doing it in bed during “phone before bed” time).
I have been doing the soleus stretch at least half a dozen times a day for almost a week, and the ankle is at least 70% better. It is still a little tight and tender, but the improvement is significant. I think a few more weeks will have it feeling normal.
I am…blown away by this. This massage therapist was able to pinpoint an issue in only a few minutes that eluded all the other professionals I saw. I can’t wait to go back to her and have her solve all my other problems, tbh.
Rebloobing this just because whenever it goes around it seems to help a lot of people.
Incidentally I did this stretch for a few months, my ankle pain went away entirely. I really don’t do the stretch regularly anymore - on occasion, when I think of it - and the Achilles pain has never returned.
I think I have reblogged this before, but, this time I also tried it for that heel thing I have been dealing with and guess what?
Bending the knee while stretching does hit an entirely different thing and that’s what I needed. Huh.
Another stretch I’ve learned that helps is bending at the hip with straight legs. I usually flop over onto my (high) bed or put my hands on the seat of a chair. Ideally, I feel the stretch all the way up to my butt. Helps so much.
Ayoo just to preempt the inevitable dumb takes we’re about to start seeing;
I am PRO-WOOL
I am PRO-LEATHER
I am PRO-BEES
Fuck the idea of replacing durable, sustainable animal products with cheap, flimsy plastic that doesn’t bio-degrade. Agave nectar and other artificial sweeteners are expensive, labor-intensive, and destroy the environment to be farmed.
Do not buy into pernicious marketing campaigns pushed by dickhead organizations trying to stay relevant, like PETA.
