coraline73

Sixty nine years ago on this day, the Polish forces under Lieutenant General Władysław Anders captured Monte Cassino, Italy, after four bloody assaults led by the allied forces, massive bombing of the grand hill top abbey founded in 529 by Santo Benedetto di Norcia, and general slaughter of both military (about 55,000 for the allied forces, 20,000 for the German troupes who had held the hills) and civilians (number undocumented).

The slaughter and victory was then followed by 50 hours of atrocities committed by the French troupes on the civilians. As a result of the soldiers being generously (!) offered the spoils of the land by their commander, over 6,000 women (and even old men and priests who had tried to protect them, in which case the number of victims goes up to 7,000) ranging in age from eleven to 86, were raped. In addition, civilian men who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered without mercy. The number of men killed in that occasion has been estimated at roughly 800.

So, with my ears red in retrospective shame, I am not celebrating the day, but sharing this bit of information, so you can join in mourning the general nefariousness of the world.

This image is from the Polish Cemetery at Monte Cassino, which I've visited last weekend.

 

 

The abbey has been reconstructed and will be the object of the next post.

 

 

 

 

A poet cannot lie. Must tell the fact
that people go, in pain, and cannot stay.
Last month, last week, last hour of last day.
He took my hand. And my voice might have cracked

but his did not. A sort of madcap grace
he had. We used to think it was the drink.
He'd laugh, be serious, dance on the brink
of parapets. No mask behind his face.

He wrote, once, of a gentle alien spy
observing, liking. Someday going back.
That wasn't him. He has no chance to pack
some souvenirs. He won't leave, he will die.

Cheeks slightly gaunt, his shy sardonic smile
haunts, like his rich sad sweet roccoco style.

I had my bag stolen tonight. Of course I lost my phone and this is a bitch, but what I am really, really annoyed about is the loss of my hearing aids, my British Library card, and the final four books I needed to read before I can start writing my chapter.

Whew! I hit my big rewrite deadline this Wednesday, exactly on time...and it feels good. Guess what else happened? We found a new house! We're still waiting to hear final confirmation that all the credit checks, etc., have gone through, but with luck, we should be able to move in exactly a month.

...Which will mean that we're moving when I'm 8 months pregnant. Eep! Plus we're moving into a smaller house, so we need to do a massive purge of stuff beforehand (not just books anymore!), not to mention getting the whole house clean and organized for the movers to work with...

But whatever! Sometimes we just need to stop and be happy about what we've got. Right now, I am happy that my pre-submission rewrites for Low Road are finally done, and we have a good house to move into before the new baby comes. Those are both really big sources of satisfaction and relief! (And please wish the book luck as it flies out into the publishing world!)

Also, about an hour after sending off my rewrite, as a reward for myself, I started reading an e-ARC of Jo Knowles's new book, Living With Jackie Chan - and oh, I fell in love. It is wonderful. You can read my full review on Goodreads, but here's the short version: if you're a fan of Sarah Dessen or just a fan of great characters, heartfelt stories, and a strong narrative voice, you will love this book. It's my favorite of all of Jo's novels so far, which is saying a lot.

I gave myself yesterday as a day off, because I needed it after the last, manic two and a half weeks of super-revision. I met a friend for cake at my favorite new cake café in town - tea and apple sponge cake, mmm! Afterwards, I helped MrD make a fun craft project. Then I spent the evening hanging out with more friends at a fun clothes-swap event, laughing and gossiping, eating more cake, drinking (nonalcoholic) apple ginger beer and taking home a sparkly new scarf, a knee-length waterfall cardigan (that luckily falls around my massive pregnancy belly!), and a sparkly beaded bag.

This morning, it was time to get serious again. I wrote 3,043 words of my next freelance project, which is due in just two and a half weeks. This weekend, I need to sort and clean the house like a madwoman - and, if I can, write another 2,000 freelance words as well, even though I won't have any long writing sessions to do it in. I am Back to Work, in every possible way...

But it's good to take the time to celebrate. It really is.

On Facebook last week, I mentioned that I seem to be collecting D-themed diseases. First diabetes, then depression. Now I have a third one to add to the mix.

During Penguicon, my wife noticed what looked like an elongated callus on my right hand, below the ring finger. (Spoiler: It’s not a tumor.) When it was still there two weeks later, I hopped online to do a little research, then went in to talk to the doctor. His diagnosis confirmed my guess, and the winner is…

Dupuytren’s Contracture

That link goes to the Wikipedia page, which includes a post-surgical picture with incision and stitches, so don’t click if that kind of stuff gets to you.

Basically, some connective tissue in my hand is misbehaving, which starts to restrict the extension of the tendon. Right now, it’s just a little vertical speed bump on my palm. Eventually, it will restrict the movement of my ring finger, and I won’t be able to extend it beyond a curved, clawlike position.

I think of this soon-to-be claw as the first step in my very, very slow transformation into a werewolf.

The good news is that it’s not painful, and it’s fairly straightforward to correct. Basically, the doctor said to let him know when it starts to become a problem, at which point he’ll hook me up with a hand surgeon to go in and clean out the affected tissue. Six weeks of recovery and physical therapy, and I’m good to go.

Note: I’m not looking for medical advice.

Dupuytren is less common in people my age. I guess I’m just precocious. There seems to be a correlation to diabetes as well. And it sounds like there’s a decent chance of recurrence in the long run.

Compared to some of the medical complications I’ve seen friends and family deal with, this is little more than an annoyance right now. I am a little anxious about the eventual surgery, though. I’m a writer, which is a much easier job for me to do with functional hands.

Fortunately, I should have a little while–maybe a few years?–before that becomes necessary.

The silver lining: It looks like the surgery leaves a zig-zag scar on your palm, which means after I heal, I’ll be able to tell people I stopped a Killing Curse WITH MY BARE HAND!

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

This is not a fitness blog, I promise

I just need to do a race recap.


The Broad Street run is a ten mile race through Philadelphia in a straight line from Einstein hospital to the Philadelphia Navy Yard. About 40,000 people do it every year. It was The Thing I'd set my sights on late last year when I realized that I was getting less fat and more capable. Ten miles seems like a ridiculous distance and I wanted to do it mostly because it had seemed absolutely impossible at one time and then possible, however unlikely....

When I arrived at the starting line though I began to worry. City hall marks the half way point, and despite it being gigantic and looming, it was so far away that I couldn't see it. I'd never run in a straight line like that before. I'd run in loops and I'd always been able to see the next place in the loop, realizing not only that I'd have to keep running until I got to that point that I couldn't see, but also that when I got there, I'D ONLY BE HALF WAY was freaking me out. My training had been Not Good, since I'd fractured my tibia I had only very slowly come back to running, the longest I'd run in the last two months was five miles the week before, five difficult miles. I wasn't sure if I'd have the stamina and I wasn't sure that I wouldn't re-injure myself -- in fact, I wasn't sure if my fracture had healed (spoiler: I make it and nothing breaks).




clickenzee to try and find city hall


I was right at the very back of the pack, in fact, out of 40,000 people, only about 100 were behind me. The big lesson for next year was "bring a disposable sweat shirt and sweat pants" -- it was freaking COLD and they tell you to be there long, long before you actually need to be there. They suggested I get there by 6:45 or so which was a good two hours before the race starts. Next time, I'll pull into town around 8:00.

Finally the starters gun goes off, but it's so far away that we can't hear it from the back of the line. It takes 20 minutes, maybe more for the back of the line to actually get to the starting line but finally I was off. All along the way through North Philly people line the streets, waving and cheering, it was great. After about half a mile I started passing the first people who'd stopped running and started walking but I was cautious about going too fast. I wasn't sure if my leg would hold up -- I hadn't done a long run since the fracture -- which made my training a nightmare, and I didn't want to turn into one of the people who had to stop, so I loped along with 10 minute 45 second miles.




Clickenzee to Embiggen!


There are people all along the route, and every sleepy-eyed garage band in Philly is set up on a corner playing Counting Crows covers and eventually you pass the Temple University marching band (not marching) with baton twirlers performing amazing feats of dexterity, playing "Eye of the Tiger" (possibly over and over and over again) and the whole thing is like some grand party. It's somewhere after mile three that people start to space themselves out and you're not really passing people or getting passed too much, you're just trotting along. It was around here we passed two injured people, one had fallen in a pothole and was being carried off by friends -- the other had twisted his ankle and was limping defeatedly towards the El stop. I asked if he needed a train token, he waved me off and said his father was coming to pick him up and went back to looking sad and injured. To me, being so worried about the same thing myself, it seemed like a catastrophe.

Finally, at mile 5, city hall looms up and you realize that you're half way. I got much more enthusiastic at this point. I'd been promising myself to hold back judgement until I got to seven miles, but at five I felt pretty good which was encouraging.




Clickenzee to Embiggen!


At mile six my running partner said "I just hi-fived (former Philly Mayor and Pennsylvania governor) Ed Rendell!" "Where?!" I said. "About a block back? Do you want to turn around?" -- of course I wanted to turn around. So I ran back a block, and spotted Big Ed on the side of the street hi-fiving people & wearing a Boston uniform.

Palms were slapped and I continued to mile seven with a celebrity charge. Also, trillian_stars was waiting to cheer me on somewhere between mile six and mile seven which was a great thing. It's kind of hard to express just how happy it makes you when perfect strangers shout "you're crushing it! go go go!"




Clickenzee to see Big Ed even bigger





Big psychological charge by being on the other side of City Hall,
plus having Trillian Stars cheering.





At mile 7 I saw someone holding up a sign that said "only three more miles to go!" I was tired but that sign made me realize that now it was ony a 5k, and I can run 5k while clipping my nails now, it's no longer a big deal. That amped me up, and my running companion who decided that now was the time to put the burn on and he shot off in front of me. I would have been perfectly content to keep going at the same speed, but he saw this as our opportunity to pass a lot of people so I gasped and tried to keep up.




Clickenzee to see me surge through mile 8 or something.
Also note my weird messed up walrus flipper of a right foot.


The last three miles weren't all that fun. My hands got a little numb, I felt really tired, but all around me were people walking, they'd just stopped and I wasn't going to stop, even though it felt pretty bad the last mile. Eventually I saw the finish line about half a mile ahead. We surged through the chute with what I felt was the last bit of anything I had and there was someone standing with an armful of medals handing them out to people. I took mine and felt incredibly, indescribably happy. Everything started to go white, like the world was powerfully over-exposed. Someone handed me a plastic bag filled with food and a bottle of water. I walked out onto the grass and things kept getting brighter and finally went purple and my legs were wobbly. I realized I was going to fall over if I didn't sit down, so I sat in the grass and started eating the junk food out of the bag. It tasted pretty good. There was a 270 calorie "breakfast bar" from local vendors TastyKake which was ... freaking incredible. And I ate a banana and a bag of potato chips. There was no cell signal so I couldn't text Trillian to let her know I was finished.

Later I discovered that I was suffering from something called "Orthostatic Hypotension" paired with or causing another thing called "Exercise Associated Collapse" (conveniently called EAC) which happens a lot at endurance events and is mostly temporary. It's caused by blood pooling in the lower extremities -- when running the action of running helps circulate the blood, when you stop, it doesn't return as quickly and not enough gets to your brain. There are several recommended solutions to this, one is to keep walking, briskly, at the end of your run, the other is to lay down and elevate your legs. This is sort of what I did, but I substituted "eating candy" for elevating my legs.

As the crowd started to thin out I found Trillian and we watched the very end of the race come through the finish line -- the very end of the race is made up of all of the routes bicycle cops and golf carts they use (presumably) to pick up injured runners. When the bike cops and golf carts pass you, you're not a racer anymore, you become a pedestrian. I wonder if they shut down the finish line and stop handing out medals as the last golf cart crosses the line or if some kind soul stays there to see if anybody crawls up.

Anyway. When I got home I printed out a photo of myself at the finish line and mailed it to my sports medicine doctor.

I started the race with about 100 people behind me, and I came in 26,262th. At 1:50:19, my time was about double that of most of the people in my running club, but I realized that somewhere in there, I still managed to pass about twelve thousand people. Go little walrus flipper. Go me. My only goal was to finish, and I finished.

So there you have it. Last October I was fat and out of shape and today I ran ten miles. In the interrum I survived a fractured leg and various aches and weirdos at the gym and I feel pretty good about myself. Plus I have a medal. My final thought is this: Pin your goal in a place that seems possible, though very difficult, and work towards it relentlessly. The view from the top of the mountain is worth it.

I will now shut up about exercise for a while. Have a swell day.




Have I shown you my medal? Clickenzee to see it LARGER!

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