A few hours later, I noticed that walking down the stairs to the basement was painless, for the first time in months. This morning it is still almost pain-free. My left knee (the one I’ve had surgery on, twice), as it is wont to do when the weather is about to change, is somewhat achy–but my right knee… pretty much fine. And yesterday I took the girls for a 5 1/2 mile walk, too.

I am truly tired today. But my knee is way better, and I am feeling way less pain than I was before the surgery. This is wonderful.

Dancer got three Qs this weekend. Her only run in Tunnelers was spectacular and earned her a third place, a Q, a time that was good enough for Elite—and her Superior Novice Tunnelers title (S-TN-N). 128 yards in 26.86 seconds. Her second run in Jumpers (more on the first one below) was also spectacular. She flew through the course, following the flow of the course smoothly and gracefully while I directed her from quite a distance away, since there was no way I could keep up with her She did the 99 yards in 18.60 seconds (5.32 yards per second) and took first in her class. She was the fastest 20″ dog. That run got her the Superior Novice Jumpers title (S-NJC).

So we get to move to Open in Tunnelers and Jumpers, at long last.

Her third Q was in regular, for the first time in months. She did a gorgeous A-frame contact and a less-gorgeous dog walk contact. She took first, but…. it took two tries to persuade her to do the weaves.

She had weave issues all weekend. She didn’t enter the weaves without encouragement ever. Not ever. They were 24-inch weaves… maybe that was an issue? I don’t know.

Training issues arose. I need to work on:

*independent weaves
*contact behavior
*distractions

(Dancer’s first run in Jumpers was not a success. She came into the ring already nervous and upset, as we were following an extremely badly behaved Belgian who had barked a lot and nipped his owner (among other things I saw) and managed to get it together to take the first jump, which is when she looked up and saw the photographer sitting on the top rail of the arena (it was a horse arena), with the light behind him, creating a HUGE black silhouetted figure at the end of the arena. You could tell she was upset and scared, but she ran toward him, barking and yelling at him to get away from her mom. I love it that she’ll defend me even when she’s scared. As soon as I whistled and went the other way, she came to me, but of course our run was over at that point. Oh, and did I mention that the idiot gate steward told us we were next up by saying: “Dancer, be nervous!” which I thought was terrible. I told her that later–after I’d calmed Dancer down and we’d gone to meet the photographer, who morphed from a terrible scary 15-foot giant into a normal human being, right before Dancer’s eyes–and she (the gate steward) told me she was “just trying to be funny.” Ha… Ha… NOT.)

He also reminded me that if I overdid it, fell and broke my leg, he’d have to put the plate back in. That’ll make sure I behave for another month.

The surgery went smoothly. One very interesting experience.

They used a femoral nerve block and a spinal block for anesthesia (and an amnesiac for during). When they were putting in the spinal, they had some difficulty penetrating the back–they were being very gentle, and backing off every time I said it hurt, and I finally had to say “oh get it over with”–and then they penetrated a group of nerves, and I felt an entire nerve network fire, from top to tip, in a spreading pulse. Looking it up, I assume they stimulated the saphenous nerve, judging by the path I felt.

(They hit it twice.)

Of course it was wildly painful, but so quickly that it was over before I could react, except for the sort-of-tingly feeling that remained afterwards that let me analyze the path.

It was quite fascinating, as weird as that sounds, because it made me completely aware of how the nerve works. There was a distinct time interval from top to bottom, although it was very fast, I’d say microseconds. Definitely not instantaneous. I think they were startled by the fact that I found it more interesting than painful after it was over (since it made me shriek when it happened).

Sometimes it’s helpful to be a gnurd.

I will walk without a limp. Now, this may seem like a simple resolution, but it really isn’t. First, I’m having the surgery to get the plate out. Some recovery there. Then, I have to get strong afterwards. Lots of work involved in that. I’ll even admit I’d like to lose some weight to make it easier.

My plan for agility this year: Run gracefully [see: no limp, above], give early and clear cues, and make sure my dogs are having as much fun as I am.

But he did say recovery would be a lot easier this time.

We went diving and my knee did very well. Sometime in the next few days I’ll post some of Jay’s pretty underwater pictures.

But much more importantly, I feel quite optimistic, surprisingly. In May, Jay’s brother decided he no longer wanted to live in the owner-occupancy-only condo we owned and rented to him; a week of my life vanished as I spent it in Tulsa (Oklahoma) cleaning and staging the condo; we sold it in late July for not too much less than we’d paid nine years before.

In mid-June, Stacia was hit by a car while riding her bicycle; her collarbone was broken and her knee badly bruised, but she has healed well and appears to be on the road to a full recovery. Insurance settlement talks are proceeding.

In early August, the bike biz was ravaged by a warehouse fire that destroyed all the inventory in that warehouse. The insurance has paid, so far, about half the value–but we’re back in business and things are looking up. We should get the rest of the insurance money over the next few months.

And last week, twice, I swam with spinner dolphins. TWICE. Spinner dolphins are possibly the coolest mammals out there, and I say this with all due deference to poodles. For one thing, they can have sex while they swim. For another thing, they often leap out of the water and spin around, clearly just for the fun of it.

And finally, spinner dolphin babies are the cutest babies ever. Possibly cuter than my own children were at that age. Seriously. The second day, there were two tiny babies with the pod I swam with. The babies were curious about me and approached me. Imagine a miniature dolphin, about a foot long, swimming over to see what and who you are!

Clearly, my luck has turned.

The first time, I could feel all kinds of scar tissue in my knee. It hurt. And the next morning my knee felt distinctly better than it had the day before. I thought that was interesting, so I was curious to go back again a few days later. Once again, the hike itself was on the painful side–and the next day, here I am feeling distinctly better.

I suppose that means I now need to go hike up and down trails until I finish my recovery.

Life is pretty good.

Yesterday at the ZAP NADAC trial, I got to run Riley in Elite Regular. It was like driving a Ferrari: fast, a joy to drive, and absolutely amazing. We got third in the class–and it wasn’t a small class, either. I Q’d with Dancer in jumpers and hoopers, too.

Today I Q’d in jumpers with Dancer too.

Elly stayed home with Jay; she’s injured her left shoulder somehow and is resting for a few weeks or more. She just doesn’t have the muscle balance for a lot of trialing, it appears; this is her second shoulder injury.

And today in the New York Times, I find this article: Sprints and Heart Health

It says that sprints are just as good as lots of long distance. I guess that makes my combination of long walks and twice-weekly sprints (not counting agility trials, which are a combination of both) pretty good for me.

(Patting self on back.)