Mini Diary; Lack-of-Progress Report

It's been a while and I must make apology to my Followers; all four of them.  I have been both lazy and a bit busy. My younger daughter, Megan, got married at Kealakaua Bay on the Big Island on the day of the Winter Solstice.  It was a gorgeous partly native, partly Jewish, mostly Pagan ceremony overlooking the bay.  It was also the first time in five years that the family (including Marge, my ex-wife) was all together.  Both Libby and Megan are smart, beautiful women and I am very proud of them.  Meg lives on the Big Island, by the way, and from the wedding attendance, it's apparent that everyone on the island loves either her or her husband or both.  We ate the whole pig and finished two kegs!  Erin also took advantage of the the resort hotel where we stayed: massage, pedicure, facial, yoga.  And of course, we ate like royalty but without the treasury; Eurasian food is a real joy.

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 Prior to that time I did a choral festival at Biola University in LA in November that was a lot of fun, and where I had fine Korean food (ain't none of that around here, despite the strong LG presence) with two former students, Christian Campos and Joe Paguio. It was also great to see and hear the work of former students Shawna Stewart, Michelle Jensen and Shannon Mack.  And a perfect stranger sitting next to me at my judge's table asked me to sign his copy of my first book.  Blew me away.  Speaking of books, my second (and last), A Matter of Choice: Interpreting Choral Music, was published in early December and is available in both paper and e-format.  The profit for me is better at createspace.com, but if you insist, you can also find it on Amazon, of course, as well as what's left of Barnes and Noble.  Mazeltov to me.

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We flew RT from Chicago to Kona and back, arriving home on the 23 December and drove from Chicago to Green Bay, where we spent Christmas and New Years with Erin's wonderful family (well, mostly wonderful; some of the Rabid Republicans can be hard to take, but mostly they have learned to either ignore us or stay away from politics.  We ain't always easy to get along with either).  Her parents and siblings are utterly delightful and her bro has become a better cook than I, which is saying something but I'm not sure what.

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Now Erin is back to work and I am back to my domestic and Recovery Routine, which now consists of bi-weekly physical therapy, trucking around the house with only one crutch, thrice/week work at the YMCA that includes four lower-body and six upper-body machines, for a daily total of 12.5k pounds of lifting, plus a few minutes on the recumbent bicycle.  Also, of course, visits to at least two specialists now and then, one of whom had predicted that he was 90% sure that I would be walking unassisted by now.  He was wrong: I am obviously a 10% kind of guy (hence the Macintosh).  My progress has leveled off and I still use two crutches when out of the house.  My physical therapist, whom I haven't seen since August, was really impressed with me this week, however, and she is an expert on spinal cord injuries, so she oughtta know, I guess.  My stretching/exercise routine four days/week is now up to almost 45 minutes per session and is really boring but necessary.  I sure wish I had the balance to resume yoga, but I would endanger not only myself but anyone within four feet of me.  I see the neurologist-who-failed-to-diagnose-my-condition next week to see if his current prognosis might again include walking unassisted.  I was told by my physiatrist (yeah, believe it or not) and PT person that my improvement would reach a plateau in a year and then slow down.  It has done both.  The anniversary of the corrective surgery is 2 Feb, but things are surely better: I am a long way from those first two months in a wheel chair, for which I am grateful, and will continue to do my utmost to improve further.  Fortunately, I have a very supportive wife and a delightful caregiver who is with me most of the time when Erin is at work.

Things could sure be worse.

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Hey!  If you read this, could you please leave a comment so I can take roll?  I'd love to know if I should abandon this and rely completely on Facebook, or keep this up.  Dunno what might be best: they are both ego-centric exercises after all.  I mean who REALLY cares about what I do or what I think?  Huh?  I mean, really . . .