Tag walk

Mother’s Day morning & a pretty perfect Saturday

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

This morning I found something truly beautiful on my desk.

Eva had picked roses from our rose bush and left them with a sweet card. And she used a novelty chicken watering can as a vase.

This week, and the weekend, has been a mix of refreshing and infuriating. The car battery died on Friday which threw that day off-kilter. And Saturday was very busy– Phillipsburg comic con with the Echo City duo, where I also picked up a copy of Hustler that features Ralph Greco’s article on female porn stars that host successful podcasts.

On the way home, Eva and I stopped at Pie + Tart to grab some refreshment and said hello to Parisian Phoenix author Hugo Yelagin and grabbed this delicious lamb & chickpea stew. I didn’t mean to eat the whole quart and burn my mouth, but I did. No regrets.

Then, I attended an event launching Poetry Rocks! at Northampton Community College— where artist-in-residence Anne Sipos debuted her installation along the college’s poetry walk. You can learn more about that here: Poetry walk.

Then, I had a three-hour shift at my part-time job. We were very busy and my body was not very able to keep up, so that was not a fun three hours, but it also was not the worst. Unexpectedly, my supervisors gave me an early birthday card and a $10 gift certificate that I could apply to just about any entity. So that was nice. And four of my supervisors even took the time to write personalized messages on the card.

College Hill Capers, or “A walk with Gayle in the cold, cold air”

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I started my day with some blogging before starting the morning round of doctors and my final day with the Zio heart monitor. I left at 8:30 for my chiropractor appointment, which also involves some physical therapy stretching and some balance assessment. With Nicole’s background, she serves an important cog in the wheel to know what she’s seeing and feeling as my body goes through it’s day to day.

But I’ve been feeling physically great, even if the beta blockers leave me prone to crashing and sometimes my blood pressure falling too low, but hey– that’s part of what the heart monitor is all about.

I went to the chiropractor and tried to demonstrate my impressive “trying to walk like a normal person” skills. And Nicole was encouraging. It’s exhausting and requires ridiculous amounts of focus, so I’m hoping it makes a difference to my hip issues and my femoral anteversion.

My chiropractor is just-about next door to the Lafayette College Store, where I needed to pick up some copies of our Not an Able-Bodied White Man with Money anthology that we provided for last night’s Jean Corrie Poetry Reading and Ice Cream Social. You can read about that on the Parisian Phoenix Publishing web site here.

They were having a store meeting when I arrived, so I excused myself to a couch by the store manager’s office to wait for Gayle who wanted one of Maryann Riker’s unique handmade journals. I’m in the middle of Suzanne Mattaboni’s Pencraft award winning novel, Once in a Lifetime so I can safely amuse myself.

They also have some fascinating tile in the bathroom.

When she arrived, we went for a walk around College Hill, which Gayle had not visited since she left her job at Lafayette College circa 2015.

We walked about 4,000 steps and I stumbled three times and caught myself every one. It’s the longest walk I’ve taken since my hospitalization.

And I asked The Teen to evaluate my walking and she immediately said, “Nope. Your left foot is still messed up.”

And I was trying so hard.

Gayle and I then met up with Joan and the guys from Echo City Capers, where we discussed our upcoming events and book launches.

Then I came home and ripped off the Zio monitor, only to realize quite quickly why it itched so badly.

Our long-term foster Minerva is off to a habitat at the Phillipsburg Petco tonight.

Adventure in Rock Creek Park

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Today we took a winter’s walk in Rock Creek park.

Many people were jogging. And walking dogs off-leash. One spry pup dig holes relentlessly. See him here:

https://youtu.be/HKYyoNTuMSI

And upon leaving the park, we discovered a lovely neighborhood of 1950s modern homes, amazing in their architecture and how they aged seamlessly.

And then we discovered deer in someone’s yard trying to return to the park.

Monday brings Crying Clouds to Moscow

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Upon waking, thankfully after a good night’s sleep as the second night is usually when jet lag holds M and I hostage. My daughter slept through the night even though she’s never experiences the rigors of international travel before.

The breakfast at the restaurant was full so the maitre d’ sent us to the VIP lounge on the sixth floor. It gave us a wonderful view of the neighborhood below us. I hadn’t brought my phone so no photos. Sad face.

I had a taste of the pancakes and cheese cake pancake things, a couple broiled sausages, porridge, an aloe vera mango drink, two cappucinos and a bottle of water. For dessert, I had a chocolate muffin with these chocolate crispy balls on top.

Daughter says breakfast had a few quirks. She ate her weight in sausages and bacon, had a couple potato wedges and a little danish. I gave her a watermelon yogurt drink and suggested she try the caviar, but she did not. She didn’t like any of the pancakes or similar items.

We headed into the streets, a downpour out there. We walked down to Red Square but St. Basil’s doesn’t open until one.

We ended up taking a walk and visiting the RYM (I’m not taking the time to use the cyrillic alphabet) shopping mall. That basically became a voyage of escalators and stairs. That’s what the child wanted to do. I gave her 500 rubles spending money.

Throughout the mall, the displays featured a tribute to Russian athletes, of the current and Soviet Union days.

Stopped in the hotel room to dry out. Off to more adventures soon.