bits of frog and shoulder

Woke up more than an hour before my first alarm, let the cat in, chased a frog out, decided I would just stay up and take a shower, make coffee, make lunch etc... going to be very tired on the back end of the day but didn't think I was going to get much more sleep anyway. It was a big brown frog, much chasing around the kitchen. He tried to hide behind a big box so I had to pull everything out from under a table and get a flashlight and a cup, and eventually convinced him out.  I know he came in with the cat.  I've seen her chasing them right there by the light outside the door.  There are some reasons the little Manx cat's name means Frog, even though the main one was that she had that shape in the stripes on her back.

 

I did something to my shoulder on Sunday - couldn't even begin to remember what, but it hurt from early on until late into the night.  I wasn't sure how I was even going to sleep on it - sleep on the other side it has more chance to slip, sleep on that side, it hurts from the compression.  It was like someone had rammed a hubcap under my shoulder blade, and it just wouldn't stretch out by any normal means.  Mark saw me trying to stretch / crack it out, and said he had just the thing for that.  He went into the closet and found Esme's old chin-up hanging swingset bar, and put it up on a rafter for me so I could hang by my arms on it.  I did some pull ups and twists and stretches with it, hoping it would help and not make anything worse.  On Monday I held judgement past the 'twelve hours later' mark, waiting to be clobbered by the results of the exercise while I was sitting in my chair at work.  But, to my surprise, it half-popped somewhere there in the morning and the muscles felt used but much much better.  Even after work I was amazed at how much better it had felt from the night before.   It still feels 'used' today but it does feel a lot better.

 

Now if I could get everyone to stop getting the change-of-season sniffles / sinus infection that this time of year brings.  I've had a back-of-the sinuses thing for a few days.  Esme has had it as more of a stuffed-up nose for a few days, and I'm giving her soup and tea.  This morning, Mark said he was feeling it.  I went ahead and did all the dishes since I was up so early.

 

Lots of Japanese.  Not a lot of new words, but the actual drawing of kanji thing they are having me practice is a challenge.