Mary, Mary ... --- Day 6/271

Walk: Out Patient Re-Hab
Distance: 15 Blocks, 2 Up/Down, Flexion & Mobility Exercises

CIWT readers, you've seen this garden before.  This is what it looked like this unsettled afternoon on her way home from PT.  It goes with the sandstone house from a few days ago.  It's a half block long spilling out toward the street, lovingly and very skillfully maintained and always beguiling.  Ciwt walks by it nearly daily and always stops to admire, be touched, maybe capture an image.  The house that belongs to it was sold a couple of years ago, and Ciwt (others too probably) was concerned that the new owners would forsake the garden.  But, no, the same talented gardeners are there and the garden is always an enchanting, evocative showpiece. Ciwt thinks its not impossible that maintaining the garden and the gardeners may have been a condition of sale or a big reason the new owners bought the house.

Who knows?; she loves these quiet little San Francisco stories and vignettes that only walkers truly notice.

Rhipsalideae --- Day 6/270

Walk: CPMC/Laurel Village 
Distance: 1.4 miles, Drive a few Blocks, Exercises, Up/Down, Walk around home immobilizer free

Andy the gardener brought this cactus to Ciwt's building around Christmas one year, so Ciwt has always assumed it was a "Christmas Cactus."  But here we are a few weeks from Thanksgiving, and like it does year after year, our little cactus is approaching full bloom. 

Ciwt wouldn't be surprised if the last little bud didn't turn into a full flower on the very day, so she was interested to read that one species of this cactus is actually known as a Thanksgiving Cactus!
And to learn (and promptly forget) this small cactus is known scientifically as "Schlumbergera, "with the 'higher classification "Rhipsalideae."  Whee, don't you love those names?  In its native country the cactus is known as the May Flower because that is when it comes into bloom in Brazil.

Hang It Up --- Day 6/269

Walk: Trader Joe's cab practice, 4 block loop (car driving practice!)
Distance:  4 Blocks,without immobiler! 2 x Up/Down without immobilizer!, 4 exercise/asana/flexion 

See Ciwt's immobilizer off her leg for the first time in two months

It's not quite Goodbye Old Paint to Ciwt's immobilizer but, as of today, she gets to go without it - completely! - at home.  Onward...

Hello Darkness --- Day 6/268

Walk: No (kind of overdid it yesterday)
Distance: 0, a few exercises, basically rest

Day One, 4:00 pm

Even when she knows they are coming, the first short days of "fall back" are always a let down, then somehow Ciwt adjusts.   (kind of) 

Pedaling Along --- Day 6/267

Walk: Dine-in Kabuki Theater (The Departure)
Distance: 2.3 miles, Up/Down x 2, Practice Car Clutch, Exercises, Pedaler 20 minutes

Ciwt's Stationary Bike

As a friend of hers texted "Your biking looks really, really boring."  Well, what can Ciwt say?  Her friend of course goes to a club back east that has televisions on their bikes so she can watch classic movies as she bikes instead of the San Francisco sky.  Maybe Ciwt can rig up something like that.

And when she does, she will not be watching the movie she went to today.  Does a sub-titled documentary about a Japanese monk who devotes himself to keeping people from committing suicide seem like a draw to you?  No, not Ciwt either, but a local reviewer said "Don't miss this one!"  So she chose it as her practice movie to see if she can sit in a regular theater chair yet.  No, luckily in some respects, because she could promptly leave the movie - and scratch the local reviewer off her list - with no guilt.

By Myself --- Day 6/266

Walk: Pad, Hood, Without Immobilizer for a while!!!, Backed car in and out of garage (Huge!)
Distance: 4 x Up/Down/ 6 Blocks, 5 minutes pedaling, 5 minutes pedaling (arms), Exercises, Now                     we're getting somewhere!

Weaning from Ciwt's immobilizer begins!!!!  

Days End . --- Day 6/265

Walk: Mollie Stone's
Distance: 1.5 miles, 6 exercise, 2 Up/Down

 Another home day draws to a close; time now to put things back in place after all the icing, stair climbing,  exercising and stretching every 30 minutes, flexion, pad and street walking.  Rehab is a full time occupation; nice to see the Fall evening appearing.

Twenty Years --- Day 6/264

Walk: Legion of Honor (Klimt/Rodin) (Out again!!!)
Distance: 1 mile, 6 Exercise

Gustav Klimt (Austrian, 1962-1918), Portrait of Bildnis Sonja Knips, 1893, oil on canvas

Gustav Klimt, The Virgin, 1913, oil on canvas

Both these Klimt paintings are square and approximately the same size, but, oh my, what a difference twenty years has made in Gustav Klimt's painting style!  Looser, freer, bolder use of color, more sensuous.  No wonder Klimt felt constrained by the academic style of his artistic training and joined with other Austrian artists of many modalities (music/Mahler, architecture, sculpture) to form the Vienna Secession movement.  And thank goodness, or the world would be without paintings like The Virgin, The Kiss, The Woman in Gold and other visual delights.

It is rare and special to have 30 major works by Gustav Klimt not only in the United States but right here in San Francisco.  Go to the show if you can; you'll really enjoy it, Ciwt promises.