Coming Home, going jogging/wheeling, running out of WATER? And some light reviews.

The BEST part about coming home is knowing where stuff is. Also all the things we looked for in our luggage for two weeks suddenly appear now that it is far too late to use them. Also I get to spread the giant piles of postcards in front of me (I should take pictures – postcards bought in national parks, postcards from small towns and museums, etc).

I hope this weekend to start sending out packages and postcards which I will continue for the long future. Well, as long as I can get funds on Amazon, selling off some of my books and CD's from 'pre-disability' life. I also might raise some funds with ebay: then I can send out more packages. If you are interested in Tea, you might want to let me know! And the type of tea. This is BIG hint to all the overseas readers as an ounce or two of tea is NOT EXPENSIVE to post (or not AS expensive as say, BOOKS), so if you are in OZ, or South America, or other places and you know someone (ME!) who just came from a speciality tea room where they spend WAY too much, you might want to let them know what kind of teas you drink....HINT! HINT!

I came back exhausted from our road trip but also, in my muscles in great shape (heart, lungs, blood pressure not so great, but arm muscles great - I even lost weight). The up side is that because of the wheeling around Comi-con, Redwoods, Yosemite, and several other locations, I am FIT, or able to wheel myself around. The bad(ish) news is that I still pass out, stop breathing every day. I have had a nose bleed for over a week and yesterday I passed out and fell down on the floor twice, once in the bathroom. Oh, and our Air conditioner is going. Plus the water filter we use for water needs filters which Linda put on the wishlist. Without those filters, the water makes me spend WAY too long in the bathroom (explosive!), and I have to drink 2-3 liters of it a day. It is the mundane like running out of ‘fish pills’ (I now have to take cod liver oil pills with every meal), and the amount of stuff I have to eat with my food rivals my grandparents who took just about every supplement imaginable – one plate for the food, one for the supplement pills.)

I highly recommend the mangaTwin Spica for 15 and up, which will be releasing volume 3 in a few weeks. The next six volumes are already printed of this tale of a tiny girl who is determined to go into space, but whose family is closely connected to the tragedy of ‘The Lion’, Japan’s last manned rocket which crashed into a populated area. She must keep her spirits up and her love of going into space in this tale told of her future as well as the story of the past which is both uplifting and heartbreaking. I was gifted the first two books thankfully. So now I and Linda and Cheryl have read and recommend them as well. We talked to the Editor of Vertical and they are determined to print the entire run in advance. This is one series they are releasing the next book every 8 weeks because they have them advance translated and printed. Also they have a very cute manga about a kitten call Chi, which is from the kitten's point of view. It sold out in hours both times they got more copies in at Comi-con. As did Black Jack, I have up to book 6, very good.

I am looking forward (no pun) to Fast Forward, a DVD set on the wishlist which has over 80 ratings, all five stars. I haven’t seen it but it is about everyone seeing six months into the future, and after that, I am a bit fuzzy on the plot. I kind of don't want to know because I want to get that buzz of watching something really good, without having read the entire plot first. The DVD sets will start being sent out in just over 2 weeks. Also Criminal Minds coming out soon, that will be cool. That is three weeks, finally after a long wait, the DVD’s have returned to nest!

Today, I was feeling better and not passing out so I decided my ‘cunning plan’. The idea is: I was in agony on the trip from all the wheeling, so I built up some muscles and am fit, likely. Also I turn red a lot when 'power wheeling', which indicates higher blood flow to my arms and chest. So I decided to go for a 90 minute wheel, where I ‘jogged’ wheeling, with Linda jogging to keep me company. We went out to the waterfront and did the 5K trail there, plus the add on, which goes down the BIG hill and back up again (you can see me doing my, ‘push 1, 2, 3, 4…” count up the hill to never stop the arms going). This MIGHT produce some agony later, which is where the watching riviting DVD's come in, along with the recovery days.

There is a section atop the bluffs with the water beside and often along blackberry bushes. The trail is seen as flat but as a wheelie knows, what SEEMS flat is often slanted and this was no exception, so one arm got a BIG workout. Then there is a section that dips and the trees close in all around,a trail which leads to ‘Mile 0’ the start of the Trans Canada Highway (I know, we are on an island so how can the Trans Canada Highway start HERE? Well, welcome to Canada, where paradox exists without irony). There is a statue of Terry Fox there, often with Japanese Tourists taking a picture of it. Then we double back, and then down the long mile to back home (after I go up the big hill to the apartment).

I sweated! – not entirely atop the head or the feet, which is a bummer as I will keep losing hair but the rest of my body got some sweating going on. This is a good thing. I am also still bleeding out of my nose, probably due to the high, high heart rates for long periods of time going up hills and such. The cunning plan realizes that I am in not as good a shape as I was in Hawaii. BUT, I can lose weight, and improve circulation….on the days when I am not taking a bed day. So like 2 bed days, then out and doing 5K. I need to rest, I also need to be as fit as I can be. If the seizures increase a lot, then I will cut back, and if I start bleeding out of more than four places I will cut back (of out of my eyes, because that would freak out the other runners).

Home is late nights where I look around the room I am likely to die in. That sucks. Linda is unemployed and still searching. That sucks. But home is also where I am going to keep writing, keep doing, keep reaching out to people, keep trying to make the best life for me, Linda, and all of my friends that I can. I will keep doing manga reviews, pictures of us getting out and reports from the front line of kicking life. I am still alive, or most of me is (EFM: Now 1/3 Zombie!) Sure, I went blind yesterday for a while, but the trick of living on the edge is doing the stuff and not always waiting to fall off.