Category essay

Socks pose a threat

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Good morning. As you may have seen on the post from the Parisian Phoenix Publishing blog, yesterday got a little crazy with F. Bean Barker needing a quasi-emergency vet appointment for a splintered toenail.

I did some housework, unpacked my Hungryroot box, read some of an old Harlequin and basically hung out with the dog while the teenager worked.

Now, with my cerebral palsy, I have a bit of an aversion to socks and shoes. They are hard to take on and off, and sometimes they make me fall. Just like “Agador Spartacus” in The Birdcage.

The teenager got home from her last dog client of the day around 8:30 p.m. Friday night, so I was happy to head to the shower and get to bed close to my regular work bedtime.

I had on my cute cat socks my neighbor gave me for Christmas which perfectly matched the baby blue sweater which had also been hers.

I had removed all my clothes and only had my socks left, and the shower was running. I slipped my left hand into my sock. It got a little caught around the heel. And oddly, I felt this enormous pop and thought I heard something.

But my sock was still on my foot.

So I swept that off and looked at my finger. Which was a little floppy past the last knuckle.

My finger fully extended

I laughed and hopped in the shower after screaming down the stairs, “I think I dislocated my finger taking off my socks.”

I kept laughing. Stress response. I didn’t even bathe because it became apparent there was something wrong.

Which made me laugh harder because I was removing my socks.

The teenager dragged me to Patient First. I have an official diagnosis of “mallet finger.” And if I chipped the bone I may need surgery.

I emailed my paperwork to my warehouse supervisor— as I can’t go to work until I see a hand specialist. And with the holiday tomorrow, that will need to wait until Monday before I can even find a specialist and make an appointment.

It looks like the prompt splinting of the injury may save me some complications later so here’s hoping.

More on this type of injury.

Survive and conquer

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Growing up, I never felt like I had a disability— maybe when you’re younger your body has more ability to compensate.

But I’m guessing with decades of repetitive stress from walking funny and the normal wear-and-tear from age, it makes sense that the last decade has left me hurting.

The last decade led me to my first official broken bones. The last decade left me with a host of experience with weight training, body building, gaining weight, losing weight, chiropractic care and orthopedic and joint issues.

And like I mentioned, I’m not in my twenties anymore so none of this should be surprising.

But it’s really hard to maintain when troubleshoot these physical issues and it’s frustrating when suddenly you wake up in the morning not only stiff but feeling your bones in a way I can only describe as poking where they shouldn’t be.

Ninety-five percent of the time getting up and doing a normal routine eases some of these sensations, but this week was hard.

Today— after all of my ten-hour warehouse shifts— I woke stiff and feeling like my left leg didn’t want to cooperate.

And so when I got to the gym, Apex Training and met with Andrew, my trainer, I gave him my report. “Nothing hurts,” I said, “but nothing wants to work.”

We did leg day. And for the average person, it probably would have been easy. But even my bodyweight bench squats seemed difficult and clumsy. Warm up stretches I can usually knock out without breaking a sweat were a struggle.

And he critiqued my lunge stance and examined it until I could feel the muscles at least trying to work the way leg muscles are supposed to work— i.e. together.

And the worst exercise was a simple calf raise standing on plates so I could extend my heels. While holding barbell.

I’m no longer stiff. Especially after my shower. But man am I tired and wondering what muscles I will feel tomorrow and how my chiropractor appointment will go.

Fitness lamentations and celebrations

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

It’s been a demanding week with my body in revolt for most of it.

I’ve succumbed to some bad moods but for the most part kept it together— and even enjoyed another pizza outing with the teenager and my blind friend Nan where we have officially determined that Nan and I think Nicolosi’s eggplant parmesan is our new favorite pizza. The teenager is in the chicken-bacon-ranch camp.

The teenager has been housesitting and her own dog F. Bean Barker seems to prefer sleeping in her crate downstairs to being in the teen’s bedroom alone with the two foster cats, Mars and Khloe.

Mars & Khloe

It has taken a few nights of sleep deprivation to discover this.

And it’s cold. And rainy. So the dog and I are both grumpy.

But this week I have started a new routine— getting up at 4:15 am so I can write for 30 minutes before work. In addition to my publishing business (Parisian Phoenix Publishing), I also need to commit to my writing.

Speaking of commitment, I’ve been trying to buy a bookshelf all week.

But I did buy a microphone for the business so that hopefully we can record some authors reading their work and have discussions with and for writers as part of our marketing material.

Nan and I got together today to run errands, see what was going on with Axiom, drink chai and read poetry. The best publication we looked at today was definitely *82 Review which featured Nan’s poem, “Brewing Chai.”

The magazine is very very diverse in its style and I am very excited to read more.

One of the best pieces I’ve read in a long time is “A Child in Need of Services” (a flash submission) where the speaker talks about the origins of their three talents, with such humor and joyful voice that you just don’t see the ending coming. The author is Amanda Skofstad.

We retrieved Nan’s laundry and I parked the car at the high school and walked the half mile in the cold rain (uphill as the teen would remind us) to the gym so the teen could have the car after school to go to work.

But I made it to the gym… for session 73 at Apex Training with my trainer Andrew. I love his current approach— a lot of back and shoulder based weight training for the upper body and creative more-or-less body weight exercises for the lower body so we can develop some muscle memory in those body parts that don’t understand how to play on a team. We also did some hex bar work and other stuff. I always feel good when I leave.

But by far, the hardest exercise for me today was wide stance squats. That had me struggling, concentrating, breathing and thinking I wouldn’t make it through. For squats. Bench squats at that.

Let me explain.

My cerebral palsy makes this the ultimate torture. Remember— my quads, hamstrings and calves never relax. My heel tendons are too short and my ankles don’t have the right mobility. My knees point in because of my femoral anteversion, and that just means the top of my femurs go into my hip sockets at the wrong angle.

So when I do that wide stance bench squat, I need to practice the most muscle control I can. I have to plant my feet and manually rotate my toes to what feels like uncomfortably out. And when I rise, I need to maintain balance, push with my upper region of my legs and force my hips out so they can force my knees out.

It’s damn hard.

But I can feel those body parts trying to cooperate and that’s exciting. If Andrew and I had more money and could work less at traditional full time jobs, I would love to train every day.

I posted this to Facebook:

I came home and stood in the rain for ten minutes holding an umbrella over the dog and she still wouldn’t pee. I took a shower, got dressed and gathered laundry. The washer wouldn’t work. My seven month old washer.

So I made myself an omelet of peppers, two eggs, heaps of Black Bear Mexican turkey, a slice of black pepper Cooper, a half slice of horseradish cheddar and piled it on my last slice of ShopRite bakery seeded rye.

The teenager came home and I googled the error code on the washer and she moved the whole wash tower and ripped the rear access panel off. When the drain pipe wasn’t back there, I had her read me the exact model number so we could Google again. We found this video, by a man with nice hands: Fixing the washer.

The teenager watched about half a minute, grabbed a bucket and ran to the front access panel. Within seconds, she had removed the whole plug apparatus and flooded the bathroom with gallons of wash water.

“How am I supposed to get that into a bucket?” she asked.

I continue watching the video. There’s a tube you empty first.

“There’s a tube!” she yells.

Oh, Pop Pop on the Mountain, wherever he is in the afterlife, is laughing his ass off now.

The apparatus is clogged with poly fill, a metal ring, quarters and other nonsense. That is fixed now. Drain hoses cleaned. Wash loads continue.

So then we Google the dishwasher as the teen also wants to clean that. We find Big Al. Clean the sprayers in a Maytag dishwasher.

I’m still cold and wet but now some of the appliances are clean.

I added a raisin to my shoe (again)

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

So, once again, my body started hurting— of course starting with a burning in my hip.

I had a blog post about this Sunday and Monday I thought I should do something about it.

Logically the appropriate action might be to call the doctor or at least the chiropractor.

But instead I put a raisin smack dab in the middle of the ball of my foot and slapped a band-aid on it.

Because when I had a splinter, and also put a raisin there, all my pain (except for the splinter) dissipated.

That didn’t happen yesterday— instead I ended up in hip and spine and lower back muscle pain.

But I still hit the daily goal at work.

And I felt better this morning thought I was achy and stiff all day.

I worked a full ten-hour shift and made 104% of the daily goal. (168 fixes)

Real friends eat fried chicken for breakfast even in the car

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Thursday is my Saturday for those who don’t know or can’t keep track of my schedule.

Since my schedule change— from second shift to day shift— I have met with my friend Nancy (poet and essayist and blind lady with a wicked sense of humor and simple approach to life’s joys) usually every other Thursday to work on her writing commitments.

Recent changes in her life have made that every Thursday now, as I help her with some errands, and then I changed trainers at the gym and the teenager now works out with us so Nan gets Thursday morning while the teen is at school.

It’s automatic in my brain. As automatic as my standing Friday morning chiropractor appointment.

But what happens when we get together is never ordinary. Or the same two weeks in a row.

Like today we were going to see if our local Family Dollar had the individual creamers she likes. Except they weren’t open. So we opted to go to ShopRite.

And somehow— I got turned about driving there and thought I was on the wrong road but I wasn’t. So we zigzagged all over the place and eventually I had to Google map the grocery store.

We finally made it to ShopRite and the first thing I saw was a single serve bottle of orange juice— which Nancy is always looking for.

Then I saw fried chicken, still warm out of the oven. $9 for eight pieces. I had to get it. And I knew damn well I’d probably end up eating in the car.

Nan and I went through the various salads and deli meats— I picked out some broccoli slaw and ultra sharp cheddar for Nan and some black pepper Cooper for myself.

And next we saw small partial loaves of rye bread in the bakery. And muffins.

And so it went.

We found the items we needed, items we didn’t and a slew of things that we want to buy in the future.

The cashier actually addressed Nancy and understood to speak so Nancy could locate her.

And then we were in my car eating warm fried chicken at 9:15 a.m. Nan hadn’t had fried chicken in ages, and she kept saying she didn’t want any. But I insisted and handed her a drumstick.

She said it was delicious and that she’d forgotten that she likes fried chicken. And I said I’d be good on the fried chicken front for probably at least six months if not a year.

And then she pulled wet naps out of her purse.

After retrieving Nan’s laundry and taking her groceries home, I brought Nan back to my house for chai and well, the plan was poetry. But we got sucked into NASA briefings (crew4 and Axiom) on YouTube.

Nan listened to the briefings and pet the dog while I cooked some random items for her to share with the teenager and I. Nan enjoys my cuisine so when she comes over I try to send her home with a meal.

Sometimes you need to have fried chicken with a friend, in the car, for breakfast.

This Monday is a disability day

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Yesterday was a good day at work. I worked all ten hours and packaged 561 items. I came home achy, but not in a horrible way.

Then, today I woke stiff with my bones burning. The temperature had dropped 20 degrees and I thought maybe that had caused the issues in my joints.

I had that feeling — I’ve mentioned it before in my posts about my life with cerebral palsy— that my right leg was not in the hip socket all the way. It didn’t hurt, not really, but the persistent sensation left me queasy and close to vomiting.

The feeling in my hip changed a lot throughout the morning and as the awkwardness and instability in my right leg changed, my lower back began to burn.

Then one of the process leads came around the warehouse offering an early out for all of us— so I told her… I’d like to call my chiropractor, and take the early out.

So I called Dr. Jensen of Back in Line and she, herself, answered the phone.

“I don’t know if you have the time or the interest to see me today,” I said as I explained everything.

She wanted to see me.

So despite the fact that I did 112% in my job yesterday and I believe 105% in QC today, I went to the chiropractor and had a grueling appointment. Things popped. Body parts screamed.

My body still aches— but now my bones no longer feel like they are grinding or that they are pointing the wrong direction.

Spider-Man and Matcha Pie

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

I have a lot of little things to say that problem don’t belong together but today is the Lehigh Valley Book Festival at Bethlehem Area Public Library and I’m excited, a tad nervous and a bit super-focused and scatter-brained at the same time.

Parisian Phoenix Publishing has participated in events before but we have scaled up with our efforts and this event today.

So this post will cover:

  • Spider-Man: No Way Home
  • Health and Fitness
  • Pie
  • Cats

I think that’s about right.

So the teenager and I finally came to the current end of the Marvel Comics Universe movies with Spider-Man: No Way Home. Watching them sequentially, and for me, many for the first time, actually made a lot more sense than when I saw some of them the first time.

I got a strange déjà vu that I had seen some of these villains before, but at the same time I was confused because the memory was vague and distant.

So let’s just say, trying not to spoil it for others like me that are woefully behind in their pip culture, that this film incorporates some older films that will be familiar to Generation X.

The primary theme of this movie, in my opinion, is time travel. The actual plot is a tad weak and melodramatic but the homage made to the previous generation of Marvel movies, and the humor employed in this movie, make it worth it.

My favorite Spider-Man is Toby Maguire. I got to see him again. And that made my heart happy. (Toby is also the Spider-Man adored and referenced by supermodel Adelaide Pitney in my chick lit/horror fiction novel, Manipulations, the first in the Fashion and Fiends series.

I had a very good visit with my chiropractor Nicole Jensen of Back in Line. She’s impressed with my progress and got things to pop and move (my right ankle that I broke more than five years ago) that haven’t popped and moved in a long time.

My Later, Andrew at Apex Training worked out every muscle he didn’t the day before (okay that’s an exaggeration) and the teenager set a new personal record in deadlifting: 225 lbs.

Finally, I get to the part I’ve been waiting for: PIE! If only I weren’t trying to be so health conscious… Because I have been visiting the amazing pie ladies Anne and Lisa at Pie+Tart for three(?) years now and their pies (and flat white coffees) have nurtured my soul through some difficult times— and a very very toxically difficult boss.

I receive their weekly email and saw their “freezer section” of leftover discounted pies included a steak and Guinness pie and a matcha custard pie. A meal inspired by two of my favorite drinks.

I was so beyond excited to eat these pies I was vibrating at “the pie hole” which is what they call their window/doorway. It has allowed them to stay in business safely during Covid because how would we survive sans pie.

I can improvise plenty of solutions for lack of toilet paper but I can’t make pie like this— not even with my Pennsylvania Dutch family connections.

I couldn’t even wait for the matcha custard to thaw. I sawed at it with a knife, broke it in pieces with my hands and microwaved a slice for 30 seconds. It was delectable.

And the steak and Guinness pie? So rich and full of meaty goodness I didn’t even have a chance to take a photo.

Oh how I love my pie friends.

And finally the updates regarding some of the cats we are fostering through Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab, Mars has taught Khloe to play and Minerva is becoming much more social. As is Louise.

Mars and Khloe
Mars and Khloe
Minerva