It was just confirmed to me last night that I will be doing a solo at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis in the first few weeks of November. I have still yet to choreograph it, but I am very excited as it may be the first time my choreography will be officially reviewed!

Generally I am pretty good at holding my tongue. Once in a while an explative might slip out when a wrench slips or I put my finger in the wrong place when opening a tin can and I cut myself or leave a largish bruise. Well, my cussing last Thursday was more thoughtful than simple explative. What made it complex explative is that when I sprained my ankle in the last minute of my workout, on the home stretch, I was thinking about the couch that I have to jump over when I go on tour this Friday.

My workout consists of a quick warm-up jog to the park, just to get a little sweaty and get my breathing regular. When I get to the park I run to the baseball fences (You know, the tall ones that sometimes have an overhang?) and climb over a series of fences until I get to some trees. I scale the trees and come down the other side. There are about 4-5 of them. Then I run to an elementary school, climb a bigger tree, then weave through several columns to a wall. I scale the wall and run across it to jump down and continue to a few more tall trees. After climbing those I run down the street, turn a corner and dive-roll through people’s yards and jump over fire hydrants. When I come to a jack pine I climb it and leave it to find a few more trees in a another nearby park. After those I climb another basebal fence, climb a hockey ring fence twice, head to my last tree and start my run home. I keep a good pace until the last minute, where I take off with all I have so that when I finish I’m finished.

It was in that last minute, with my eyes on the prize (my mailbox), that I hit some crappy sidewalk and rolled my right ankle. %$@$&*#@*$&*#@*!!!!! I’ve been looking forward to this tour for a year and a half and this happens now!

I thought I heard a “POP!”, but I could still walk on it. But that doesn’t always mean much being that my body was warm. I’d feel it when the ankle cooled down. I could feel the weakness of it, though, as I approached my stairway. I let my breath out a little when I felt the ankle and didn’t find too much pain to the touch at the tendons and ligaments. I iced it immediately and elevated it, sweating all over my living room floor. I talked to my cat and asked her why this had to happen a week before tour. She didn’t know. I came to my senses and became motivated. I knew how to take care of a sprain, and I have had worse. I cancelled my sub job for the next day and stayed up until 2:30 icing and elevating. By the time I showered there was a swell on the outside joint about the size of a medium-sized marble; I’ve had much worse. The trick would be staying consistent with the physical therapy, which includes icing, massage, ankle exercises with a theraband, and wrapping it with an Ace bandage to keep the swelling down when I was on my feet.

I have been doing so, although I’ve been more active than I would have like to have been, and the swelling has gone down quite a bit. It bruised up nicely, but that is pretty much gone now too. I can feel the scar tissue settling, tight little pills forming around my ligaments that impede movement and make it easier to re-sprain , and so I dig into it a few time a day to loosen it up so that healthy tissue can take its place.

It’s healing nicely and with the exercise my ankel feels stronger. I have symphathy and prayer and people are being gentle with me. I still am nervous about having to jump over a couch. The danger of a worse sprain is still very present.

There’s something about Puma’s shoe, the Clyde, that puts my heart at ease. If you are unfamiliar with The Clyde, it’s a shoe that came out at first in the 70’s and was discontinued several years ago…

… and I am particularly fond of the classic green suede ones. I’ve gone through three pairs in the last six years and they’ve been through A LOT. I bought a blue suede pair and a dark mustard green suede pair, but I keep coming back to that classic green. It’s like my genetic make-up is engineered toward these shoes! I don’t get it!

It’s odd to me. I like change, even crave it, but this shoe keeps reeling me back in. I try to look at other shoes and seriously consider them, but they just don’t match up to those green Clydes. Simple and reliable, and Goshdarn aesthetically pleasing! Like the Rainbow Sandal (I just ordered a few classic Rainbow ones and some dark brown hemp ones!), there’s something about them that brings little head nods after a long exhale. Like cuddling with an orange tabby under a quilt or a low-angled sun on a Montana river. Little bits of perfection. Not it, but hints of it.

For a while I thought I might need to find a new shoe, but apparently they are reissuing it (they’ve already reissued 1000 limited edition pair in July, probably to see how the market will be) to larger retail stores in October and Decemeber this year!

Yes, I am starting to see how old people can get set in their ways.

Yeah, so I got back from an awresome trip to the American Northwest six days ago. I don’t feel like writing all about it now, but one discovery I made was that God is, indeed, in Cananda. Even though some Canadians may not always be very hospitable (can’t expect too much from frozen frogs, right, Ha…oh yeah, hoo boy….), God hasn’t abandoned our neighbors to the Nort!

Where did I find Him? In the Canadian Rockies! Yeah, He must own some land up there, or a timeshare or something, because, man, it was nice.

There’s even a river up there called the “Bow River.” So the you can tell God is there when nature knows to genuflect. It’s so pristine up there it makes you want to use the outhouses and put your apple cores in the bear-proof trash cans, like Mario here.

Anyhow, it was so majestic I might make the conversion to Canadian someday. So, say “hi” to God for me if you go up there, eh?