Nalley Fresh Party

Wow, last night's party at Nalley Fresh in Columbia was happening! There were a ton of people. Political people, entrepreneurs and bloggers (which overlap!) gathered to dine on yummy food, listen to good music and chat. If you wanted to be be seen, that was the place to be.

Thank you to Jessie Newburn and Greg Nalley for hosting us. Of course, I broke one of my rules - having caffeine after 5 PM. That was not good for sleeping last night. But it gave me a chance to reflect on how much my life has changed since my first blog party at Second Chance long, long ago in 2012.

I'll always remember being slightly nervous when I walked in - that I didn't know anybody. But I did, right off the bat - a fellow Running Brook parent, Bill Santos. He introduced me to everyone & I had a blast. Without the blogging community, I would not have met Julia McCready, who is so supportive of me. I would not have met Tom Coale and worked on his campaign. Without it, I would not have met Claire McGill and my British friends that will provide lodging (hint, hint) in a couple of years on my next trip to Blighty. (Speaking of which, I now have a friend that knows Sharon Kay Penman and is also a Brit history buff.) I would never have met Dennis and I am glad that I met him before he was taken from us.

My life is so much richer and I have learned so much and made so many friends. If last night was your first HoCo Blogs party, make sure it's not your last! I look forward to seeing you again.

More Growl than Purr?

At last night's blog party, I was discussing what to write next with a woman who's trying to gear up her blogging. I said I didn't know what to write and said that last week's post was kind of depressing. She suggested writing about something happy.

But I spoke too quickly about my previous post being sad. Yes, it discussed the sadness of loss but I hoped it focused on the positivity of the community response to loss. And it made me feel happy to share that community.

Now I'm watching the coverage of the Louisiana shooting. The anchor just mentioned being sick of having these conversations but the bright spot is learning about the heroes that emerge. It's the only bright spot.

Sometimes I think we should bet on the next spot a mass shooting will happen. Because it will. Anti-gun control nuts will say "Guns don't kill people" or "Knives kill people too, should we ban those?"

So I'm feeling grumpy and distressed.

But remembering the good time I had with fellow bloggers last night - I'm still a newbie to the community, I think I started in 2010 or 2011? - having wide-ranging discussions from Mickey's dogs to ruminations on the 2018 elections and being sad about Claire returning to Blighty.

Because I really only have control over my participation in my community. And that participation has been really meaningful and uplifting over the past few years.

I'm childless tonight, which means you can probably find me where you usually find me most days of the week that end in "day."

And hug your kids and tell them you love them as often as you can.

Reflections on the Year

This morning, I thought I would take the 9:30 studio cycling class at the gym, but that I might tell the instructor that I might leave early. I would give myself an out. My foot is really hurting so I thought maybe I'd only do a half hour. I didn't work out yesterday, which is pretty rare for a Monday. My mom had asked me to go to Havre de Grace with her as she's quite busy over the next few weeks at work. Since I want to maintain my "Favorite Daughter" status, you know what I chose. The approximately three hour roundtrip ride had made my legs hurt a bit and I said to myself, even 30 minutes would be fine.

A year ago, I was slowly but surely recovering from sinus surgery. The sinuses themselves did not take so long to recover, it was the body. My doctor had told me nothing strenuous for 2 weeks post-op. My optimistic perspective was Oh well, Luke'll have to vacuum. (Which he often does anyway!)

Once those two weeks passed, my sinuses felt better and clearer and I went weeks without a cold setting in. Usually I had a sinus infection every month. Surgery was successful!

However, lethargy still sat heavy on my shoulders. The doctor had said the trauma to the body as well as the anesthesia required for such a long surgery would take a while to dissipate. And it did. Apparently redheads (although my hair is browner now) require more anesthesia...when I woke up in recovery, the nurse was laughing at me because of my desire to fight. He joked around with Luke about how they'd had to give me more anesthesia before starting the surgery.

So I ended up being at my heaviest, some of which I noted here. I still have a ton to lose, but I'm feeling better.

This weekend, I walked a couple of miles up and down and all around hilly Elkridge for my friend....you guessed it...Tom Coale. I stood for an hour at an awesome Hocoblogs party hosted by Secolari, albeit in comfy shoes, and realized my feet didn't hurt. Even our trip to Europe went better than I expected. Jet lag didn't bother me and we made the most of our time.

Luke said to me that a year has made a huge difference in me. I've been more confident, been more persistent, bypassed my pain and have gained stamina. Other friends have noticed that too - that there's been something different. It hasn't just been one thing like exercise, nutrition or a sense of purpose. Rather, it's been all of that.

So I stayed for the whole spin class. I even matched my personal best of a couple weeks ago. My best probably pales in comparison to other class members. For 6 months in, though, with a head injury to boot (I feel I should say to hat, instead), I know I'm improving. My flat road resistance is usually set at 6; I started out at 1 or 2. Spinning is a useful addition to my usual Body Pump and Body Vive classes. I know I'm still pretty pathetic, but I'm less pathetic and more resilient than I have ever been.

And when I am lazy, hanging out on my couch, I'm blaming Baby Disney! He's almost five pounds now...I don't want to hyperextend my wrist, right??

Hard-to-handle truthiness

Last week, I spent many hours at the polls. Given the low turnout, those of us hanging out relieved our boredom by making friends (mostly) with our fellow campaign volunteers.

One volunteer, an admittedly conservative Republican, engaged me in discussion about immigration and the crisis of migrant children coming in droves during the recent months. He believes that the Obama administration has conspired to accomplish this. Really? The hard right believes this is the way for Democrats to pad their voter rolls by bringing in illegal aliens & not requiring ID to vote.

Sorry - this doesn't pass the smell test. But this is just like the anti-vaccination movement - just because it's not been proven doesn't mean that it couldn't be true.

Which leads me to the Inner Arbor conspiracy theories. Those who are against it & favor the boring blah Cy Paumier plan (which some are on record as not favoring it at the time) believe there MUST have been detailed discussions about it from October 2012 to January 2013. Rather than believing that staff was working with Michael McCall on the plan, they seem to believe that the CA board was acting illegally & unethically.

Because the CA Board can't prove a negative, they are able to create suspicion.
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Luckily, some of us know the truth, which I will give due homage to A Few Good Men with this: