Chicken with Squirrels

This is the week that the orthopedic dr said I could resume jogging again. I've jogged a 5k 4 times this week. I was bummed at first because I thought my time had slowed a lot, but then I realized I was timing my stretching too and hadn't slowed by more than a minute or two. During one of the trips to the trail, a squirrel ran from the top of a tall oak tree out into the street just to look at me turn around and run back up the tree. This happens a lot this time of the year because it's cooling off and the squirrels get frisky. When I was a young inexperienced driver, I would stop every time this happened. Then, as I got older, I realized that this is just their way of playing chicken and I would no longer stop. If I ran over one, we tie. (Although, being dead makes the squirrel a loser in some ways.) Stupid squirrels! I've been driving for 28 years and have never run over a squirrel even though I don't stop for their game of chicken. (I ran over a box turtle once, but that's a different story.) I got to the baby trail and started my 3.2 mi (5k) jog. Everything was fine. I am surprised by how well my knee feels jogging when it still sometimes bothers me just sitting, standing, or walking. I was happily jogging along when I see a squirrel at the top of a tree, eyeing me with that "I've got to play chicken with her" look in his eye. He took off down the tree just like they do when you're driving along. He got to the middle of the trail and stopped just to look at me. I had enough time to think, "I'm going to keep jogging just like I keep driving in this situation" and then think "No, wait. Squirrels are just rats with fluffy tails. If that thing runs up my leg, I will have a heart attack and die all alone out on this stupid trail." So I stopped. But I had waited so long to stop I almost fell on to him. I am sure that the silly squirrel was laughing his silly squirrel laugh as he was running back up the tree. I lost at chicken to a squirrel! Yeesh! The squirrels weren't done with me yet though. In fact, I'm not sure that this wasn't the same squirrel all three times. I am not a professional nature watcher like Suzie. About 75 yds later, it happened again. I saw him coming. He was charging down the tree to play chicken with me. This time I determined to use my driving approach with the added incentive of trying to stomp on him if he didn't move. That way he couldn't run up my leg. Guess what. He ran back up the tree, just like he would have done if I was driving. I don't know if he could see in my eyes that I wasn't going to stop or if they just time me and know just exactly how close to let me get before high tailing it back up the tree. I won two out of the three games of chicken that I played with squirrels that morning. Yeah me!

By the way...
Friday, I had an appt with Marcela the trainer. However, earlier in the day I had an allergy shot and by the time I got off from work I had a knot on the back of my arm bigger than a golf ball, but smaller than a baseball. So on the way to the gym I dropped by the dr's office so they could measure and record it. They told me, "DO NOT GO TO THE GYM. GO HOME AND REST AT LEAST UNTIL TOMORROW. YOU DON"T WANT TO SET OFF A WORSE REACTION." Of course I went straight from the dr's office to the gym. I thought, what's the worse that could happen? I made this appt two weeks ago and was looking forward to it. I warmed up (got sweaty) and realized that Marcela was late. When I called her, she said that she was sorry but she forgot to put the appt in the new book for October. Any other person would have taken this as a sign from God that I should go home and rest like the people at the dr's office told me to do. But no, I am the stupidest smart person you know. I decided that since I was already sweaty and needed a shower, I was going to work out. I lowered the weights and did more repetitions, but you have to think....a. This was the first real work out since the cortisone shot in the knee so I was supposed to take it easy on my legs and b. my allergy shots were in my arms. By the time I left the gym, my left upper arm had swelled almost to the size of my thigh. I woke up the next day feeling like someone had hit me with a bat in both my triceps, my ribs and back. Now, if the people at the dr's office had of explained that I would feel like that, I would have listened. They just said that if the allergen spread through out my system I could have an emergency situation. I knew that I was breathing fine and I had an epipen, so I figured I had any emergency situation that could arrise under control. I guess I lost the game of chicken by disobeying the dr's and feeling that bad for half a day. One of these days I'll learn, unless it really is true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. :)