The basset hound

There is almost no place you can hit a human that physiologically stops them from shooting back. Shot to the heart? You’ve got roughly ten seconds to shoot back. Nothing below the first or second vertebrae prevents you from pulling a trigger. Headshots are not even reliable. A local man when I was a rookie took a .45 caliber slug between the eyes from three feet away and it bounced off his skull. In the 1977 murder of Baton Rouge officer Linda Lawrence, the threat took ten shots from a large caliber revolver including a contact shot to the solar plex area, a contact shot through the rib cage from side to side (The threat grunted and said, “You got me a good one that time,”  and threw Officer Lawrence’s partner across the room) and a contact shot through the top of the head. Even after the headshot, the threat got up one more time to fight. –Rory Miller



Monday: spent a couple of hours climbing rocks by the River with my new camera. Although jumping, sliding, and even STEPPING down is slow and careful these days due to the chronic pain in my knees, I was happy to find that I can still get anywhere that I want to get... anywhere that I would have expected to be able to get at 12 (which was ANYWHERE). No slips, no falls, even in marginal footwear and with the rocks and logs wet and frosty. I have the agility of a jungle cat.

Wednesday: Day 12 of the 30--Day Plank challenge. Up to 1.5 min.  The increments go up by 30 seconds from here, every couple of days. This is obviously not gradual enough to sanely get to 5 min for someone who has never planked.  But I will be interested to see how far I get.

Anica has thown out a 30-day "no junk food" challenge. This one is a gauntlet I will not be picking up! My response: "I would die." It has occurred to me, though, that it might be feasable to introduce a "no junk food" weekday (probably Wednesdays, since that's the final day of my rotation, and I usually have a sleep binge so there would be fewer conscious hours in which to exercise willpower). The "no soda" thing would be the real killer. Another idea: a "no junk food" hour. Hours to be added gradually. VERY gradually. Ha ha. I'd start with the middle of the day, because- again- I'd only be conscious for half of them. I really would like to do something about my terrible diet.

Thursday: More rock scrambling, not as much as on Monday, but enough to call exercise. I am trying to put  together a posse to pick up trash at Eagle Falls, which would also count as exercise.

The more I think about the junk food blackout hours, the better I like the idea. First blackout hour: 22:00 to 23:00. No Dr Pepper allowed during blackout hours, either.

I wanted to do some BJJ so bad today, but everything is closed. So I climbed the Index Wall with Cindy and Maddie. Cindy is not interested in pausing to admire plants, rocks, and views. It's all SPRINT up the mountain and then SPRINT back down... while I scurried in her wake, huffing like a basset hound and trying to not fall too far behind. Embarrassingly, I had to ask for a few short breaks. I didn't remember until we were halfway up the Wall that I have CK coming over for the next 2 days, and tai chi (along with anything else we might do) is going to be even more painful than usual on post-mountain-climbing swollen knees. Oh well. Suck it up, Buttercup!  Climbing the Index Wall is such great exercise.

Fri: CK told me an interesting story equating spoons to physical and mental resources, and told me that I seem to have too few spoons. She also likened my grim effort to do what I need to do each day with the resources I have on hand to a "death march".  Although a rich combo of facts is surely at work, these MOTHERFUCKING ALLERGIES are a the top of the list. Followed up by sleep issues. She wants me to try acupuncture. She also gave me a new supplement idea to try. I wish I could shake (or at least cut down) my caffeine addiction. I know it is not helping my sleep issues.

Sun: 30 Day Plank Challenge, day sixeen. Okay, the two minute plank SUCKS. 2.5 might be my breaking point. We'll see.

Blackout hour added: 10am to 11am. It is 10:04 right now, and I can't have a Dr Pepper.

CK made vegetables. A LOT of vegetables. My freezer is now holding more vegetables than I have eaten in the last eight years combined. I am going to eat them all.

I wonder if I am ever going to get back to BJJ class.  :(   :(   :(  Heavy withdrawl.

Thurs lunchtime: I made it back to BJJ class!!!!    All spars.  Came back home and was so exhausted that I went right to bed.

Fri evening: Annnnnnnnnnd all spars again.

Tomorrow I am supposed to do a 3 min plank. The 2.5 did not succeed in breaking me, but this one might.