Just About Finished With The Name-Transitioning Thing

Although,  with the record-breaking heat/humidity we've had this first half of September, it's been very tempting to write yet another "foundation post" about how all those super hot and humid days (not all just in September, of course) have posed their own challenges with the walking/carrying weight thing, I decided that just mentioning the heat would be a good way to end the "foundation" posts on this particular page.

The "Writing by ME Whelan" blog is the one I'll be using at this point (at least for any "whatever-blah-blah-blah"-I-feel-like-writing" type of posting).  There's still a little changing-around of the other two links that has to be done.  I figure, though, on this particular blog I don't have to be a stickler for professionalism.   :/



I

Pretty Much The Same Kind Of Approach Applies To This Blog As To The Pen-Name One

Although there are some differences, the post I just copied from the pen-name blog pretty much applies to this one:  For now I'm leaving it up.  I need to double-check to make sure I took it out of "the search-engine thing" AND the directory.  (I think those settings have been in place for ages now, but I'll double-check.)

In the meantime, while I'm not yet certain I won't have reason to make some new post here, I'm certain that it will most likely relate to the HubPages account associated with my real name IF I see reason to even link the profile with this blog at all.

A Copy Of A Post From My Pen-Name Blog

 As the title of this post suggests, the following is a copy of a post I just made on my pen-name blog.  I decided to copy it, rather than link to it, because one of these days I may delete any number of blogs.  I don't want a big, "all-connected chain" of SOME of the things I have online.

While I continue to move farther away from pages associated with the pen name, my HubPages account associated with it remains up and running.   I have my reasons for not closing that account.  The main ones are 1) that HubPages remains the only site for writing anywhere near the type of writing that I want to do on someone else's site; and 2) I'm approaching eight years of using that site, and I think - if all goes well for them - the site remains a good one for writers.  In the case of the pen-name account, while I have plans to "phase away" from it for the most part there's still some thinking about what I want to do with what's left on there before I figure out what to fix up, what to remove, etc.

There's also some waiting to see if the site takes a clearer direction than appears as of this writing.

In any case, between still having that account up and running and having some other pen-name associated stuff out there here-or-there, my plan is to leave up this blog (again, at least for the time-being) - not because I plan to do more with it than I already have (to the contrary), but because it makes sense to have a place for posting the occasional thing about some pen-name-related matter.

There will probably come a time when I have no reason to want to post any pen-name-stuff-related thoughts.  This just is not that time yet.  I've got the "WordCrafter09" blog that's been acting as "the intersection" of the pen-name stuff and real-name stuff.  With my five-year-old "WordCrafter09" account on HubPages (associated with my real name), I figure I'll do the same thing with that blog as I'm doing with this one - wait and see what happens on/with HubPages before deciding any next steps.  (The difference between the two different accounts/names, however, is that the "WordCrafter09" is associated with my real name.  So, once (in the midst of making some major changes with different blogs in different stages of development) I decide what, if anything, I'm doing with future material on that account on HubPages; I'll "phase out" the  "WordCrafter" blog and use one that's in my own name.

My "project" these days is to figure out how to leave any number of blogs/sites/accounts in some version of "reasonable state", which ones to close, which ones to keep in/return to being "searchable", and build one "monster" of a blog on which I can post whatever I feel like writing without regard for whether there appears to be any "system", rhyme or reason, or specific purpose to it.

What I do with with whatever I have already put together that does have some rhyme/reason will be a case-by-case-basis thing. 

For now, this is my update to this particular blog.

Also "Closing Out" The Subject Of Last Winter

Twenty days into August, and in spite of the heat/humidity "wave" of recent days, I finally feel like I've gotten back to where I was before the record snow and cold of Winter meant I wouldn't be able to get out and get what I needed in order to feel like I could function for more than a day or day-and-a-half at a time.  What I needed wasn't "regular" food.  I had plenty of that.  And, between sharing the house with another adult (but single) family member who has plenty of his own kind of food AND making sure I have plenty of "regular" (healthy) food not only for myself but in case any of my other family members come by to visit AND the fact that I have other family members who wouldn't have me being without food in the house even if I were living alone; the Winter to which I refer was never about lack of food at all.

I won't go more into the food/other-stuff thing right now.  I've already included the subject on my "notes to self"/ideas for writing post.  The real point here, in this post, is that I finally feel well beyond where I was with the "exhaustion thing" at the end of the Winter and during Spring.  What I discovered however, is that when one is facing such a mix of complicated issues, it can be particularly difficult to sort them all out and improve the overall picture "in a straight and orderly line".  My own tendency to need things in life to be "all neat", and my own tendency to aim for getting things "as perfect as possible", didn't particularly slow me down.  They did, however, make me feel a little more frazzled at what appeared to be almost "willy-nilly" progress.  Ity wasn't, of course, "willy-nilly".   It's just that I'm an impatient person "in the body of a patient-appearing/seeming one"; and while I have no problem acting patient when it comes to other people not being as quick or "whatever else" I wish they would/could be, I have more trouble being at peace with my own impatience toward myself.  (This particular thing is something I've heard very elderly people say long before I was anywhere even near the "edge" of being considered "elderly".  This is a subject I'll probably add to the next "things to write about" list.)

As far as the exhaustion thing goes, I feel much better as well.  I'm fairly certain that, at least for now, it's still there.  Also, however, I know, at t his point, I need to look into things like whether I have a vitamin deficiency or that type of thing.  (I'm pretty much certain I probably do after the Winter of poor eating, no exercise, and no sun exposure; but I've been working on some of those issues since Spring.)  For now, I'm seeing/feeling a major improvement since Winter.  In fact (and I think I mentioned this in one of the other posts), having overcome "the legs thing" has made a giant dent in some of what was contributing to "the exhaustion thing" earlier in the year.  I'm noticing, too, a gradual but natural move toward my "real" eating habits which have always been reasonably healthy.

I've been writing all night, mainly because the heat and humidity have been uncomfortable; and things get very cool and comfortable (at least in the house) overnight.  It was a particularly busy and hot weekend that involved being out "in the weather" most of Saturday and then having a little get-together for a family member's birthday.  That was all very nice, but hot for all involved.  I discovered that my being out and around and/or doing different things than are part of my day-to-day routine meant that, once again, I used leg muscles that aren't used to being used.  So, as usual, I spent Monday and Tuesday getting over being "crippled" with "stupid" muscle stuff that happened just from doing things I don't do every day.  Then, too, because I got some of the leg muscles "going" that meant I started to "walk funny" around the house and get yet other muscles going for a day or two.

In any case, it's now Thursday morning.  By yesterday whatever "funny stuff" I did to leg muscles was cleared up.  It was particularly hot, and I did absolutely nothing for the whole day.  Finally, once things cooled down and the late-night air kicked in (such as it was), I felt like myself (or at least as much like myself as I can expect right at this time.

Somewhere between starting to walk in Spring and now, I've started to at least feel as if improving "the exhaustion thing" dramatically is, at least to a large degree, something I may be able to do myself. I see and feel a dramatic improvement.

I'm not fooling myself into thinking that "dramatic improvement" in the exhaustion thing does, or will soon, mean that everything in my life that has contributed to it will magically no longer be factors.  It's just that the whole "straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back" thing of being trapped in the house in Winter and unable to get that "completed Rubik's Cube mix" of what I needed is something I've been able to start to overcome as Spring came around.  Of course, with factors brought on with Spring there has also been less and less need for as much of some of those things that I needed more and more of as the Winter ran on.  What I did figure out (at least for me) was that having at least x number of days (even if only one or two) of having that "completed Rubik's Cube" was/is better than having none.  Getting to "OK" at least for a day or two meant being able to replenish "mental energy" enough to be better able to deal with doing without on those other days.  I plan to write more about this (but from a less personal angle) at some other time.

For now, I've needed to "close out" not only the leg-injury thing as a subject, but also the whole Winter thing, and getting-used-to-walking thing, as well.  As I said with regard to the leg-injuries thing, I may in the future refer, in some limited way, to that subject; or else I may write something that's better organized and less personal.  For now, I've just had to get the whole big mix of the whole Winter/Walking/Exhaustion Thing down in writing before being able to "close out" that whole "era" and clear my head for other writing.

"Notes To Self" (A)

NOTES TO SELF - Things To Write About Later



The Shoulder Bag - Evolution Away From A Regular Handbag (From pre-Smart-phone days to post-last-Winter walking).  It would seem like there shouldn't be much to write about on the subject of "the challenges of the shoulder bag" (or handbag"); but I have a whole, big, thing that I want to get down in writing - if, for now other reason, just to get it out of my head.    There are any number of spin-off subjects I want to write about as well, though.  The one thing I've kept thinking as my "shoulder-bag needs" have changed after the leg injuries (but, to some extent even before) has been how not having a license (and still trying to live a normal life, particularly as a mother/family-person and/or someone with some version of an online business) has involved a whole, complicated thing about what I have to keep with me (but also, how to keep it all organized).  I've often thought about the disadvantage that some elderly people are at, particularly if the rest of their life is generally the same as always - but without having their own car. 

Much of last Winter had me thinking about some of the things that very elderly and mostly home-bound people must have to live with. 

This won't make much sense to anyone else, but I'm adding in my "note to self" the matter of the refrigerator (particularly for someone who is a mother of even grown kids).



Last Winter - plenty of food but not being able to eat any of it

Last Winter - Working my way up from lack of appetite first with seemingly "pure-salt" junk food, then a small, bland, starch like bread or crackers, then with a high-sugar item like basic candy bar, "eventually" something "normal" llike toast and peanut-butter or canned soup or higher-fat food (like a grilled cheese sandwich) and
 then - finally - starting to crave healthy foods like, for example, a tomato sandwich on rye bread, orange juice, and/or apple slices.


"Of tobacco (No, I'm NOT promoting it), light cream, salty junk food, sugary food, and the concept of the Rubik's Cube

Eating - Girls/Boys, Women, Frames, and Six-Yeare-Olds.

Eating - Small Frames, Increasing Age, and A Tendency Not To Eat Much in The First Place

Eating - Not Being Someone Who Snacks (Or Who Can Eat When Not Suffi
ciently Hungry)

Eating -  Being a Vegetarian and/or "Borderline" or "Part-Time" Vegetarian

The "sugar shakes" - forgetting to eat?  Or, increased need for sugar?

Room-temperature water or no water at all

Very Elderly People Under Extreme Stress And/Or On Medication - My Personal Concerns On Their Behalf With Regard To The Downward Spiral Toward Complete Inability To Eat Or Drink

Adrenal Fatigue - A Subject For Another Time

A Sampling Of How it Must Be For Very Elderly/In firmed Individuals - Why Keeping To Oneself And Not Bothering To Even Try To Communicate Can Be So Appealing

"Don't Worry.  i'm Every Bit As Sharp, Naturally Efficient, And Generally On Top Of Things As Ever.  It's Just That A) I Don't Have A Car And/Or B) Have A 'Mobility Issue' And/Or C) Am At A Place In A Stage Of Motherhood Where You Will/Can Never Be; Or Else Have Not Yet Reached; And/Or D) Living In A Situation That You Have Not Had To."  (If it's THAT bad when one is, say, a fifty-eight/fifty-nine-year-old person without a license and with a couple of leg injuries, how bad must it be for the person who doesn't get to "close out the subject" of his/her mobility problem?


That's about it for my "notes to self" for now.  I'm just trying to remind myself about some subjects to write about before i move on to a whole other set of them.  Also, however, I'm hoping that just writing a few words related to each subject that maybe anyone who actually reads here will pretty much get the idea.

More On "The Post-Winter Walking Thing"

Having "closed out" the subject of the leg injuries (as far as writing about them goes), I want to just comment on the aspect of having to get generally get used to walking long distances again.  Really, it was last Autumn/early Winter when I had gotten a) mostly over the leg injuries, and b) pretty used to walking good distances (as long as the only weight involved was my own and whatever reasonable weight I may have had in a shoulder bag.  Winter through everything (me) all off, however, because of how bad the Winter was.

The "exhaustion thing" is something I'll write about separately.  For now, I'll just say that I don't exhaust easily.  Also, while the different contributing factors to the "exhaustion thing" have changed, or at least changed in degrees/extent; the fact is that I went into "the leg injury thing" already dealing with/managing "the exhaustion thing"  that I'd been living with for quite some time.   In some ways, maybe the first leg injury was a weird kind of blessing in disguise; but, believe me, those first several months sure didn't feel like any form of blessing at all. Before then I had gotten to where I felt like I'd reached a saturation point with "the walking thing" (combined with whatever else had gone on, was going on, or I was worried about) in my life.  So, while the saturation point with regard to walking long distances was traded in for the long sage of the the leg injury thing; many of the other contributing factors to "the exhaustion thing" were still there (and in some instances, were getting worse for one reason or another).

In any case, I went into "the leg injury thing" with "the exhaustion thing" but came out of last Winter with a whole new level/type of "exhaustion thing".  So, once I got "the injuries thing" i ironed out (after mainly having been ironed out at the end of Fall/early Winter); I had to not only once again get the injury-related/associated muscles back used to walking long distances but all the unrelated ones back in shape, and used to longer distance walking again  (I know I've said this before on this blog, but since trying (if only for just myself) to get my head around the whole picture of what I was dealing with, and what I need to sort out in order to be able to "close out" the variety of subjects involved in the whole "Winter saga" requires a certain amount of repeating some things - there you have it.)

I've covered the thing about having to get used to different shoes because of the cooler temperatures of Spring, as well as any number of other things, in other posts.  The problem was that I came out last Winter with the exhaustion thing having reached a whole new level of "challenging", which meant that anything that at all resembled a large-muscle work-out was more demanding on my system than it otherwise would have been.  Then, too, once the heat of June and July kicked in they turned my efforts into more of a "thing" than they would have been under cooler and less demanding circumstances.  As it was, even when it was only fifty degree out (as in April or May) there were times when I would start out kind of chilly, walk down the street, and find myself working up a sweat.  That "phase" passed, but then the temperatures turned to hot and/or humid ones.  (We've been in a humid/ninety kind of range in recent days, but seventies and humid isn't all that comfortable for walking either.)

Long story made a little less long, before the leg injuries I could carry huge loads of groceries (and things like umbrellas) in my shoulder bag) without any issues that weren't related directly to the what I was carrying (rather than which muscles were used to carrying which types of weight for how long, etc. - even with "the exhaustion thing" as it was at the time.  As of about the third week in July, and even with the injury-related muscles (and whatever) all ironed out; the combination of still not being used to carrying pre-injury loads in the heat (with regard to the leg/back muscles required) wasn't ironed out.

The increased heat/humidity, combined with that fact, made me realize that what I needed was to forget about even trying to get used to walking "pre-injuries" and "pre-Winter" for a few days.  instead, I figured what I needed to do was to take some time (particularly since I knew the progress I'd made) to just try to stay home, make sure I had what I needed to deal with "the exhaustion thing", and - for once and for all (after the Winter) just rest.

What I'd noticed was that the combination of increased heat and humidity with the fact that the demands being made on things like back and leg muscles WITH, as well, whatever weight I had to carry in my bag; just felt like I was putting too many demands on my system.   Of course, there was only so much staying in and resting that I wanted to do.  I didn't need to get "whatever" not used to walking long distances again.  I just thought that as long as I was satisfied to have reached the point I had, it might be time to stay in for x number of consecutive days in order to just rest.  I did that, and I did get to where I felt as if I'd made a big improvement over the exhaustion thing.  It was (and remains) clear to me, however, that it was/is still a factor.

Once I'd done my little "rest thing" (around the end of July)  I decided to try walking again.  Not only did I not want to stay in on nice days, but there were days when I needed things from the store.  By then, however, the temperatures were pretty hot and humid.  Today is August 20.  There has only been one day when I felt "safe" enough not to carry one of my umbrellas in my bag.  I figured out that if I was going to walk I should take out my standard "ladies' wallet, which meant carrying money and any debit cards somewhere "loose-ish" in my bag (first in a little palstic bag in one of the lighter weight cases I have; more recently, in a nylon eyeglass case that bought just for carrying money/cards when I walk).  I also took out most make-up from my make-up case.  Then, too, I took out of my bag all kinds of things that I really do need when I go walking, but I decided they weigh too much.

What removing so much stuff has meant, however, has been that when I'm out and on foot and hot and/or otherwise frazzled by the walk, it doesn't help that I do without things I need and have my otherwise well organized bag turned into something that has no system.

Changing my bag from "walking mode" to "going in someone else's car mode" is, in itself, frazzling to someone like me, for whom "a system" is important.

I'm going to take a break from the whole subject of post-Winter walking here.   As I've said, I'm not only trying to lay foundations and sort things out for myself and for any future writing; but I'm trying to work my way toward writing posts that are better organized.

This Blog Continues (Apparently) To Be An "Ideas-for-Writing" Blog

For now, I'm (apparently) continuing to use this blog as a place for "raw material" for future writing.  It's  horrible - mainly because of the long, tedious, rambling-type, posts.  Since, however, I have much of my online writing on "hold" (for a number of reasons), it makes enough sense (to me, anyway) to just load in whatever material (ramblings, whatever) I have (as with the "foundation posts"), and then gradually post better organized (and/or more readable/less tedious) material. 

It's not that plan to put a lot of time and effort into this blog once I get it looking a little more like a blog should look.   In fact, I haven't ruled out getting rid of it completely (and figuring out where and whether to post whatever ends up here by that time).  It's just that some future points can't easily be made, and/or that some future writing ideas can't (at least for me) be easily and neatly refined without getting some rough material down (and available, or eventually available somewhere).

So, for now, I have at least a handful of posts that I want to post here.   Since it's been a couple/few weeks since I wrote the most recent of the "foundation-type" posts, I've kind of broken my train-of-thought on some of the points I had in mind.  Maybe I'll skip them.  Maybe I'll return to them at some point.  For now, I figure I'll just start posting again and not worry if I got absolutely every, little, last, detail in the "foundation" stuff down.

Anyone who might possibly be at all interested could probably get pretty much as much "foundation" as needed.

Just Some Wheel-Spinning/Details About Food, Not Caring About Food, and Junk Food (Oh.. And Stress/Exhaustion)

Since I'm not in the mood to write a whole, big, thing about why the Winter made "the exhaustion thing" worse than ever, I'll save that for another time.  Ridiculous as it seems to say this in the middle of July, I can now finally say that knowing that I got to where I don't need to worry about getting the legs and back used to walking a few miles again (as long as I don't have to carry a bunch of extra stuff/weight in my bag), I've decided that I need to address the matter of "the exhaustion thing" (separate from whether or not I go out walking or do any workout DVD's).

I'll probably get more into "the exhaustion thing" some other time. It has been something I've been kind of managing for quite awhile now.  In most recent times, I've been "managing" it the way many other people do (or at least as I've read in a book about adrenal fatigue) - with nicotine and mild coffee with lots of light cream in it and, in recent times, with sugar at least in the first tall mug full. There was a time when I mostly drank only tea but would get coffee out.  Then there was a time when I started to drink instant coffee with half-and-half and no sugar.  At some point, tea started to give me heartburn, so I switched to my own mild coffee and eventually started using light cream instead of half-and-half.  My own coffee (again, mild) with cream in it keep me from getting jittery (the way I do with stronger coffee).

I've often joked (although it's not a joke at all, really) that the nicotine gives me "mental energy" to be able to keep managing all the "mental files" well, without letting some of what needs to stay safely within some of those "files" start "leaking out" as a result of mental exhaustion; while the cream in the coffee (fat in cream) is calming, and the sugar in it gives me physical energy.  It also keeps away any tendency to get heartburn (which has never been a big problem for me at all, but which has been more of one in recent times).

Oddly, I'm otherwise someone who doesn't do all that badly when it comes to eating healthy foods.  In more recent times (but even in less recent times) I could probably use more of certain vegetables.  Generally, however, whether it was my own eating or my kids', my policy was pretty much not to eat anything that didn't provide nutrition. 

I've also often joked that I eat like a six-year-old.  Actually, I've always kind of figured that six-year-old children kind of have the right eating attitude (except for some of preferences they tend to have), which is to eat when one is hungry (and otherwise don't spend a lot of time thinking about food, eating food, or otherwise spinning one's wheels over food).  While I know there are families, or cultures, where people make a big deal about food and eating tons of stuff; I come from a family in which that wasn't the case.  We had plenty to eat, but sweets were either a small treat here or there, or else something for holidays and birthdays.

In any case, it's always seemed to me that six-year-olds who don't come from food-focused cultures/families tend to care little about food unless the child is one with a big frame, in which case it seems to me like bigger-framed kids tend to need to eat more.

Since my own children were all small-framed kids (the kind with the narrow backs and shoulders), it just seemed to me once girls got past six their interest in food may slightly "improve".  Boys (of all frames) seemed to start caring about food more, mainly because they generally seemed to need to eat more.

Anyway, I'm a picky eater.  Based on so much of what I've seen on the Internet, as well as things I've heard in "real life"; it does seem as if nobody likes a "picky eater".  It can seem as if a whole society has been raised to think someone gets "more points" if he's someone who "will eat anything".  I, on the other hand, see that as "not being very discriminating" at best, and at worst, being more interest in food than one should be.

In fairness to people who "can eat anything", I've always just kind of assumed that some people (like small-framed women, for example) aren't particularly designed to accommodate (digest) big, heavy, loads of foods (particularly harsh or "strong") foods.

None of this is to say that I have any particular problem with foods. I like the occasional holiday binge as much as the next person does.  (Well, I suppose, maybe, not QUITE as much as some "next persons" do.)  For the most part, my binges tend to be a little less "binge-y" than some other people's.  They also tend, I know, to be a little more picky when it comes to whether something is way-too-sweet "for the sake of being sweet"; or whether it meets my pickier standard of not being all that sweet at all.

Just last evening, I had a new kind of snap peas in the freezer and thought I'd have those for dinner.  They were so sweet I couldn't eat them.  Somehow, to me, if I want "sweet" I'll eat candy.  If I want peas I want "sweet" but not THAT sweet.  When it comes down to it, I pretty much can't tolerate much "sweet" at all - which is why the sugar in the coffee seems like a good delivery system for getting sugar into me if I'm feeling that "borderline nauseous" that one can feel when blood sugar gets low.

Anyway, in recent times (but particularly last Winter), I've got my whole system messed up.  I know that.  Not being able to get out in the sun and fresh air probably has meant the usual Vitamin D deficiency that so many people who live in Northern regions so often have.  I do have the "advantage" of fair skin; but that doesn't help the person who doesn't get out in the sun from one end of a week to the next (and it's not as if there's ever a guarantee that the sun will even be out when one does get out).

Another side to the whole food thing, though, is that a small-framed woman of my age really doesn't need as much food as someone much younger does.  Then a gain, of course, there is "food" and there's "nutrition"; so I'm not going to get more into that other than to say that I know that by the middle to late Winter, I wasn't just eating nothing but junk, but I was ONLY able to eat junk if I ran into those days when I couldn't get what I needed, ended up on a downward spiral to complete lack of appetitie AND inability to even be able to imagine drinking anything but mild coffee with a "ton" of light cream in it.

In my "real" life (my "pre-bizarre situation life" and particularly, my "pre-last-Winter" life) I'm not someone who snacks or who can even eat if I'm not hungry.  I'm also someone who doesn't need to eat much in one sitting.  In fact, there's where I feel most like a six-year-old:  If I go to a restaurant and the meal is the usual kind of big load of food that is served in restaurants, right off the bat my appetite kind of goes away.  It's not that I don't know from the start that I'll be bringing home a couple of meals' worth of the dish later.  It's just that I don't want to look at a mountain of food in the first place.  The other thing is, if I'm out eating with someone else I'm more interested in talking to them than eating - which is why I like coffee out with someone better than I like a whole meal out.

Not long ago I watched the PBS program on gender identity and related issues.  They had people (experts) addressing the subject from a number of a different "angles" (areas of expertise).  It was mentioned that brains associated with "female-ness" did tend to be more prone to anorexia.  ("Anorexia", without the "nervosa" attached to it, means lack of appetite.  My mother, who was on a mix of medications in the last years of her life, went through times when she absolutely could not eat.)

I know that no anorexia and/or particularly Anorexia Nervosa or other eating disorders are not joking matter.  But, over the course of my adult life I've occasionally (and without forgetting the sobering and disastrous reality of eating disorders and problems) joked that it would be so easy for me to "be anorexic"  because I didn't have a big appetite in the first place and cared so little about food/eating,

For the most part, I was content with my reasonable eating habits.  I've always been someone who easily forgets to eat (until the "sugar shakes" set in, as they sometimes do).  Under extreme "life crisis" the appetite does seem to be the first thing to go, but I mean "crisis", not just "extreme stress".  I'm someone with good coping skills, and I tend to manage most stress (even the complicated and/or extreme kind) reasonably well).

When I started to think more about complete loss of appetite has been a couple of situations over the last year when I was in circumstances that were particularly frazzling (and for "legitimate" reasons).  But, more noticeably and dramatically, last Winter when I had more and more days on which I either didn't have that light cream for coffee and/or couldn't smoke as often or as much as I needed in order to "feel like me" (clear-headed, reasonably energetic much of the time, even if I wasn't up for tackling any big, physical-labor, projects and hadn't been for a long time).

Even before Winter, I'd already developed some bad eating habits because I was running out of steam and started to notice getting those "sugar shakes" more often.  While I once made sure I kept one candy bar in the refrigerator and left it there until I really needed it, I'd started getting that low-sugar weakness more and more.  Before Winter, I was generally getting to the grocery store at least one day/evening during the week and one day on the weekend.  Once in awhile (toward the end of "before-Winter" I did get to a store by walking, and once in awhile someone would give me a quick ride to one store or another).

Without all the details about what I'd buy and when I'd buy it, or whether I used up something (like light cream) more quickly than I'd planned; the main point about before the Winter is that even if I ran out of light cream, it wouldn't be too long before I'd get out and buy some.  It was the same with nicotine.  Since my general aim has been to cut down, and ultimately quit, for a long time now (although since what has happened has been, instead, an increased need for nicotine); I had been picking up a few e.cigarettes for in-between times.  Depending on the circumstances, sometimes I'd cut back some.  Other times, I'd load up on nicotine "as needed" in order to "feel like me"; and then I'd do without, sometimes, for a day or so.

Because I'd been trying to kind of slow down and get more rest than those previous nineteen-hour days I'd been having; but also because one leg or another needed me off it long enough to really get some rest, I'd started trying to sleep more.  For the most part, and in spite of any number of other things that were contributing to "the exhaustion thing" (at least some of the time), I was doing what I could do to try to kind of rest more

With Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in the "pre-horrible-weather" months and weeks, there was pretty much always some candy for the sugar shakes if they happened (even after I gave quite a bit of it away).  Most of the time I was able to make sure I had light cream, or else someone else made sure I had some if it was going to snow, or had snowed.  I tried to keep some boxed milk in case I ran out of cream, and coffee with that in it was better than nothing.  Like tea, coffee with milk in it tended to cause heartburn, or just kind of a borderline-nausea thing.  I can't really drink other hot drinks for the purposes I drink coffee.

For a long time I've joked that I have "a drinking problem" because, like an addict, I start worrying about running out of light cream if it seems like I'm anywhere near doing so.  I'm OK with instant coffee, coffee bags, or whatever other version of coffee there is.  And, if I at least have half-and-half that's better than nothing.  Other than that, if I don't have some version of coffee that works for me I'm in trouble because I just can't always drink something cold (again, however, this depends on when it is and what the circumstances are).

So what happens with me is that if I can't get the coffee that isn't sickening I'll go with tea.  Honey is less likely to cause heartburn than sugar or substitute are.  Tea with no sweetener just makes me sick.  Sometimes I prefer tea - but that's not when it's coffee with light cream that I need.

Just A Kind-Of "Journal Entry Type Of Thing"

This post isn't as much one of the "foundation" posts as it is a kind of journal-entry type of thing.

It's now the first Sunday in August, and it was only five days ago that I was able to say to someone how I finally felt as if I was over "the whole Winter saga".  Why I had finally arrived at feeling that much closer to being my "real self" was that once I was satisfied in knowing that I had gotten whatever wasn't in shape from not walking outside the house most of the Winter back in sort-of-shape (ish), I decided to then take a few days not to go out walking at all - and just kind of rest.

What had helped was having been able to get out to the store to get what I needed and have at least a couple/few days when I not having what I needed to feel like myself would start me on a whole three-day cycle of making "the exhaustion thing" worse by not having what I needed to feel like myself.  By being able to get myself to a "starting point" where I had what I needed in order to feel more like my pre-Winter/low-point burned-out self; I was able to get enough of foot-hold on feeling OK enough that any attempts to "rest" weren't a matter of not really being able to rest at all.  As I mentioned in an earlier post (that may or may not yet actually be posted - but I'm writing to get things down, not to make any of this any more than that), the difference between any exhaustion level I had in late Autumn (when I was just starting to really be able to get both leg injuries up and running "walking-wise") and the level at which I approached Spring was the major interruption in those efforts to finally get both leg injuries back to "regular".

Having whatever other non-injury-related muscles get so un-used to walking a substantial distance (and carrying more weight than just my own body weight) had just made a bigger and more challenging problem.  Being (as far as I know) an otherwise healthy-seeming enough individual; but also, ordinarily being a fairly high-energy person, I found just being confined to the house and unable to get out was incredibly draining.  So was having to look out at overwhelming loads of snow.  (I find all but the lightest of snow big, heavy, suffocating, and depressing anyway.)

There was also the thing that besides the snow there were issues of ice dams and whatever threats of damage, and actual damage they caused.  It could have been worse for a lot of people, but even when it wasn't worst-case scenario it wasn't unusual for melting and re-freezing ice to mean water making its way into walls (etc.) and causing its own kind of damage and inconvenience (in in many cases, BIG inconvenience that affected some of the most mundane matters of day-to-day life.  I'd say it was the "icing on the cake" with regard to the "exhaustion thing" I'd already been living with for a long time; but even though I, personally, hate the taste of all icing/frosting on any cakes, many people think of "icing on the cake" as a nice thing on another nice thing.  Then again, calling the whole ice-damage/record-cold thing "adding to insult to injury" doesn't nearly describe that whole "Winter thing" either.  in fact, when it came down to it, even all that "disaster" was kind of the least of my own, individual, problems in the scheme of my own, overall, life.  No, the best way, I suppose, to describe it is to say that none of it helped when it came to the "exhaustion thing".

In any case, the posts I've written here that are dated into July cover most of having to figure out (and get through) the whole process of getting back on my "program" of being able to walk (and carry at least enough weight to allow for an umbrella, some "purse basics", and a lightweight, folding, cane; as well as anything I planned to buy at the store) before I could even think about the next step of making sure I had what I needed to feel like myself for at least a couple of days in a row.

The trouble has been that with "the exhaustion thing" meaning that anything that amounted to a large-muscle "work-out type of thing" brought its own demands/complications that (for lack of a better term) mucked up the whole process.

So, it was, I think, around the second week of July when I was just kind of reasonably comfrotable getting myself to the convenience store (about a mile and a half away, I think) when the store closed and meant I had to prematurely (in my estimation) up my walk to the next closest convenience store).  Once that little surprise was something I got used to and was able to kind of plan for, I was finally kind of into a "system" again.

SO, that brings me to five days ago when I had been noticing for about two days  that I was feeling more and more like myself.  If, after my couple/few days of resting (and in, I think, one instance, only going out to enjoy being out for the sake of being out, rather than for the sake of needing something from the store), I hadn't had enough time to really feel safe in saying so, I wouldn't have made that statement to a family member.  Another reason I said it to her was that in the last x number of weeks I'd become so aware of how important it was for me to have those uninterrupted days of having what I needed, I just decided to disregard the fact that I hated to bother someone else and ask them to bring what I needed.   I just knew that if I couldn't get myself back to myself enough to be able to get out and get what I needed without involving anyone else; the result would amount to a) my not getting my usual energy level back, and b) my essentially remaining "buried alive"  in the house.

So, I pretty much made far more a  pest of myself than I ever would have if I weren't essentially trapped where I am.  But, to me, this whole situation that has happened as a result of my leaving my marriage has been so bizarre that I've just gotten to the point where I think, "Hey, whatever....    You people figure it all out and do what you have to do if you don't like what's going on.  I don't plan to remain buried alive and/or otherwise have my energy level diminished more than it already has been."

I'm going to address the thing about not being able to get what I needed in the Winter separately.  It probably isn't what you think.

Almost Finished With All "Foundation" Posts

Having indulged first in writing "foundation posts" and then "next level up" foundation posts, I'm almost through with any walking-focused/no-license-in-the-suburbs-focused posts.  I have in mind a few (and truly, relatively brief) "top-of-the-foundation" posts that will be far less tedious (boring) than any of the previous ones.

The one additional "next-level-up foundation" post I do want to include before moving yet farther up to the "top of the foundation" is the post I'm about to make next; and the one that will provide in detail why it was, exactly, that not being able to get what I needed through most of the Winter meant that I'd have to get over just that much (separate from walking and separate from leg injuries, and whatever else has been part of the picture) once I was finally able to get out and walk again.  I won't go more into that right now.

The main point in this post is that the subject of not being able to get what I needed to stay OK-enough is a subject worth elaborating on.

As I mentioned somewhere at the beginning of these "foundation posts", I just selected this blog as one location for them because it's the "intersection" of the two names under which I'd done writing online.   I'll probably move the posts and/or de-emphasize this blog somewhere along the way.  For now, this is where I'm making these posts.   My aim/hope with any of this particular bunch of posts has never been to think I'm writing something that will make "a good read" or "entertaining read" for any readers.  I'm not writing for readers with these posts.  I'm writing for a number of my own purposes/reasons.

First of all, as I'm closing out this whole "Winter/Spring/Summer" part of my no-license/walking experience, I want to get down in writing all the details so that I won't, at some point, forget some of them.  As I said earlier in these posts, one reason I wanted to get this "rough-draft" information down is that I have a number of ideas for future writing.  I'll figure out where to keep this "rough-draft"/raw information some time later.

Also, I have a number of other reasons of my own for wanting to get this account down in writing.  I won't go into those here.

Yet one additional reason is that while I'm not ordinarily one who writes as a way of "clearing my head",  with this one particular "saga" involving "the walking thing", I have felt like I wanted to put it in writing, if for no other reason, to clear my head of it all.  Having reached a point where so many elements of the whole thing have been "running" alongside whatever else I've had to think about in life; no longer need to be doing that (at least to the extent that they have been); I do just feel like I need to clear out what is not necessary.  (I've got plenty of room in my "mental files" for stuff that's been processed and is ready to be filed away from future reference.  This whole "saga"/"scenario" - whatever it should be called - has been a whole other kind of thing.)  The ever-changing nature of all the elements/variables has made a seemingly infinite mix of issues; and by virtue of the temporary/fleeting nature of it all there's really no practical reason to fill my "mental storage files" with anything but the basics, or main picture.

So, head-clearing has, without a doubt, been one of my many motives with these posts.

Another motive is that while I'm working my way up from exhaustion, I'm still not all that in the mood to do too much writing that requires too much of whatever it takes to produce something that IS, in fact, for any readers.

These posts are easy for me.  All this stuff is what's been on my mind for such a long time.  It turns out (and I've always kind of operated this way anyway), that if one really isn't "running on all of her usual eight cylinders" and is instead running on six, or four, or two...   The most productive (in any number of ways) thing to do is figure out what one CAN do, based on those "limited cylinders".  That, in itself, can help get through some of the times when one feels awfully close to either having the engine seize up, or at least to running out of gas.  I know that's kind of a mixed metaphor within a metaphor - or something like that, or maybe it isn't really.  I suppose I could throw in a dirty air filter or any number of other things that keep a car from running well.   Sometimes, I suppose (no, I know), there are times when a number of complicating issues  do, in fact, contribute to a larger picture.

In any case, writing stuff that's so readily on hand (in mind) may be, or feel, kind of lazy.  It is, however, in its own way, fairly productive (even if only indirectly).

Almost Finished With All "Foundation" Posts

Having indulged first in writing "foundation posts" and then "next level up" foundation posts, I'm almost through with any walking-focused/no-license-in-the-suburbs-focused posts.  I have in mind a few (and truly, relatively brief) "top-of-the-foundation" posts that will be far less tedious (boring) than any of the previous ones.

The one additional "next-level-up foundation" post I do want to include before moving yet farther up to the "top of the foundation" is the post I'm about to make next; and the one that will provide in detail why it was, exactly, that not being able to get what I needed through most of the Winter meant that I'd have to get over just that much (separate from walking and separate from leg injuries, and whatever else has been part of the picture) once I was finally able to get out and walk again.  I won't go more into that right now.

The main point in this post is that the subject of not being able to get what I needed to stay OK-enough is a subject worth elaborating on.

As I mentioned somewhere at the beginning of these "foundation posts", I just selected this blog as one location for them because it's the "intersection" of the two names under which I'd done writing online.   I'll probably move the posts and/or de-emphasize this blog somewhere along the way.  For now, this is where I'm making these posts.   My aim/hope with any of this particular bunch of posts has never been to think I'm writing something that will make "a good read" or "entertaining read" for any readers.  I'm not writing for readers with these posts.  I'm writing for a number of my own purposes/reasons.

First of all, as I'm closing out this whole "Winter/Spring/Summer" part of my no-license/walking experience, I want to get down in writing all the details so that I won't, at some point, forget some of them.  As I said earlier in these posts, one reason I wanted to get this "rough-draft" information down is that I have a number of ideas for future writing.  I'll figure out where to keep this "rough-draft"/raw information some time later.

Also, I have a number of other reasons of my own for wanting to get this account down in writing.  I won't go into those here.

Yet one additional reason is that while I'm not ordinarily one who writes as a way of "clearing my head",  with this one particular "saga" involving "the walking thing", I have felt like I wanted to put it in writing, if for no other reason, to clear my head of it all.  Having reached a point where so many elements of the whole thing have been "running" alongside whatever else I've had to think about in life; no longer need to be doing that (at least to the extent that they have been); I do just feel like I need to clear out what is not necessary.  (I've got plenty of room in my "mental files" for stuff that's been processed and is ready to be filed away from future reference.  This whole "saga"/"scenario" - whatever it should be called - has been a whole other kind of thing.)  The ever-changing nature of all the elements/variables has made a seemingly infinite mix of issues; and by virtue of the temporary/fleeting nature of it all there's really no practical reason to fill my "mental storage files" with anything but the basics, or main picture.

So, head-clearing has, without a doubt, been one of my many motives with these posts.

Another motive is that while I'm working my way up from exhaustion, I'm still not all that in the mood to do too much writing that requires too much of whatever it takes to produce something that IS, in fact, for any readers.

These posts are easy for me.  All this stuff is what's been on my mind for such a long time.  It turns out (and I've always kind of operated this way anyway), that if one really isn't "running on all of her usual eight cylinders" and is instead running on six, or four, or two...   The most productive (in any number of ways) thing to do is figure out what one CAN do, based on those "limited cylinders".  That, in itself, can help get through some of the times when one feels awfully close to either having the engine seize up, or at least to running out of gas.  I know that's kind of a mixed metaphor within a metaphor - or something like that, or maybe it isn't really.  I suppose I could throw in a dirty air filter or any number of other things that keep a car from running well.   Sometimes, I suppose (no, I know), there are times when a number of complicating issues  do, in fact, contribute to a larger picture.

In any case, writing stuff that's so readily on hand (in mind) may be, or feel, kind of lazy.  It is, however, in its own way, fairly productive (even if only indirectly).

Just Some More On The "Foundation Posts Thing"

It's now the middle of July.  While it took me until about the third/fourth week in June to finally get to where I didn't feel like I was getting too much of a large-muscle work-out - not from the injuries, but from being out of shape after not walking outside at all for most of the Winter (or at least once the blizzard/snow and record cold started coming - which was "most of the Winter").  The problem at that point in (in June) was, however, that when I go out walking to the store it involves the long walk.  That means having to take with me an umbrella and the folding cane that I bring just in case I need it for some reason.  I've actually never used a cane for walking because by the time I got started walking again a cane just slowed me down.    BUT, I sometimes to use one to climb or use the handle as an arm rest if I find a place to sit and have a coffee.


Just this week I decided that if I wasn't going to walk the long walk to the grocery store, and was  instead only going to one of the closer convenience stores, I would no longer bring a cane with me.  As it happened, the day I decided I would no longer bring a cane with me was a day after I'd done something awkward when carrying groceries upstairs, so even though I didn't really do anything much, I had a "funny little thing" go on that made me think it may be wise to bring the cane just this one more time.


Feeling "regular" when walking, though, means not having to bring unnecessary weight with me (like the umbrella and cane).  Well, I'm not going out walking without those, which then means whatever else I'm carrying or will be buying will add to the weight of what I'm carrying.


Anyway, the day I went out it was July and - without a doubt - a hot Summer day.  (We actually had some 40's/50's  in June this year).  So, while it hasn't been the leg injuries that have been the issue since I've started walking again after Winter, the "large-muscle" work-out aggravated by carrying extra weight with me remained, to some extent, into July.  Then the heat turned things particularly uncomfortable.  Even without too much heat, however, I've found that pretty much work up a sweat even when it isn't hot out.


I doesn't help that because I may start out feeling really good and as a result tend to walk to quickly.  That means starting to feel it far too soon along the walk on the way out.   I have this whole "routine" where I then kind of try to do a "slow-down" time if I've started out walking too quickly.


The real point here is mainly that the heat is now factored in right at this time when I've a) finally got the injuries pretty much "there", and b) I've finally gotten my "general self" (back, general leg muscles) used to doing long walks again.


There are two other factors that I want to address in separate posts.  One is the matter of trying to make the bag I carry as light as possible (and yet needing so much of what I carry in it BECAUSE I'm a) on a long walk, and b) going to some store).


The other, and more serious matter, is that over the course of the Winter (but particularly after a few weeks of not being able to get out more than once a week most weeks),  I got to where I was in some "real burn-out/exhaustion" thing.


I've been working on getting out of that, or at least getting to where I feel mainly like myself, even if not running on "all my cylinders".


The exhaustion thing is something I'll address in its own post.  Where it has been a problem as I've been working on getting out of it (at least to some reasonable degree) has been that |at least from what I've heard/read) if a person lives under too much stress for too long and runs into "adrenal gland issues" some types of work-outs actually put too much of a strain on the person's system.


I've seen one PBS "thing" which featured an author and fitness person who offered some simple-but-not-too-draining exercises that can help encourage some better balance (of the system) without putting too much drain on it.  These are "small" exercises/movements that people can do all through any day.  They aren't a big, work-up-a-sweat, kind of work-out.  (I've kept thinking that I may order that program at some point; but I've built up quite the library of fitness DVDs over the years, and because I've had to so dramatically modify so many of the moves in any of them, I've already pretty much got any number of fitness DVD's don't involve working up a sweat - at least haven't involved it while the two leg injuries were such that I couldn't do much of anything that involved either of them.  Well, let me put it this way:  There was a time when I kept a couple of hand-weights at my computer desk and kind of considered that "about as much working out" as was going to  happen.

Once the injuries got to where I could at all, and reasonably, expect to at least do some modified version of a regular fitness routine;  it kind of seemed as if that was all I needed.

The trouble was that as the post-blizzard, snow-an deep-freeze weeks of Winter wore on, my "exhaustion thing" got worse and worse.  So, by the time I was finally able to get out and start walking again (AND getting some Vitamin D from the sun, by the way); I wasn't just dealing with being out of shape from not having walked all Winter, or with whatever remnants of issues there were associated with the injuries, or with anything related to how much weight I carried in my bag.  I was dealing with what seemed clear to me that "exhaustion thing" that made anything that at all seemed like a large-muscle work-out feel like it was too much to deal with.

Over the three or so weeks since I'd finally gotten to where I felt reasonably normal (provided the circumstances were at all normal and reasonable), the weight and awkwardness of lugging extra weight haven't helped much.

After some trial and error in my efforts to get used to doing the long walks again, I eventually reallized that once I reached a certain point it was actually better not to go out and walk at all.    I'd walked enough (since May/June) to assure myself that I'd reached enough of "used to walking again" point that I had to be careful not to do something that threw off whatever progress I'd made.

Most often because of some awkward combination of weight-carrying/movements, it has taken about three days to get past any "little muscle stuff" I've done on the walks (between, say, May and now).  Ironically, when conditions have been good (and I've been feeling good), it's been kind of natural to walk faster or decide to walk farther).  I wasn't planning on this one, but a couple of weeks ago (and just as I thought I was "all back" with the walk), the store closed.  That meant adding x number of yards to the walk.  It also meant carrying anything heavy-ish in my bag on the turn trip that much farther.  Since there's pretty much no place for a person to sit and cool off and/or rest before doing the return walk; on that one or two days when I wasn't used to longer walk I did the longer walk with only limited opportunity to break it up.

As a result, an extra "thing" of increasing the distance got thrown into the mix.  Fine.  I worked with it.  A few times, though, doing that extra meant getting thrown off with regard to whatever muscles were used to doing whatever walk there was.

I'd already noticed this on my own, but I've since read that any time someone "gets a muscle thing" after increasing exercise, it generally takes three days for it to get back to feeling normal again.   Boy, can I vouch for that (not that anyone needs me to vouch for it).  Just as fitness people/resources have said (and I've noticed) on the day when I "did the thing" I hardly noticed it too much  I'd be enough of a mess for other reasons that any twinges I knew there were because a day's walk were barely noticeable, or at least, the least of my problems.   

It's been on the second day when i've essentially felt "crippled".  The third day has generally been much more reasonable.  A couple of aspirin late into the third day has most often meant speeding up feeling "good as new"  (at least with regard to whatever I'd done that "crippled me" yet again, for a day or so).

The trouble, for me, has been the combination of things I was left with after Winter, because not walking would mean not getting used to walking again; while walking made "the exhaustion thing" worse.  Then in the mix were those times when I couldn't go out and walk because I was in a "rest the muscles" mode.  There have been days when I've done the walk on "the last day" of muscle recuperation.  I've either taken aspirin before leaving or else waited until I was out and took a couple of aspirin while out.  Depending on the rest of "all the circumstances and issues", sometimes that hasn't been too bad.

There have been (still are) a number of different types of "Catch-22's" involved with the whole "project" of getting all the Winter and "rusty" issues ironed out.  So many of those issues have been a matter of having to be dealt with simultaneously and on each walk (and depending on any of the variables mentioned in an earlier post).

Based only on how I feel, I have no doubt that being able to get out and walk (and get some sun and fresh air, as well) as helped, to some degree, the "exhaustion thing".  One important factor is just being able to get out to some store and get what I need to get myself to where I feel like I'm "the regular me" enough to have the "mental energy" (and it isn't all just "mental") to function reasonably well within some generally challenging circumstances that are related to any number of things in my "overall life".



What I have noticed has been that just as with trying to improve on any number number of "issues" simultaneously, so, too, has the gradual improvement of those things been simultaneous.


The "exhaustion thing" is something I'll write some separate posts on.  As it is at this point, I can see how I could be very close to at least getting that "exhaustion thing" to better than where it was, say, at the beginning of the Winter - mainly because, while I've been dealing with some degree of feeling burned out for quite awhile now, it has (at least to some degree, and in a lot of ways, sometimes depending on the variables) been manageable (or at least mostly manageable)  ).

One problem was that just as I'd gotten so close to getting the both leg injuries back to normal and to the point where it was almost as if there had been no injuries (first or otherwise)...   That was when Fall Winter kicked in and threw off a lot of progess I'd made. That, by itself, was mentally draining.  Christmas was in the mix, so there was that (and Christmas is a nice thing).  I won't even get into any number of less-than-nice things there were (and in some cases, had been for a long time). 

It was just, I suppose, that I've had some degree of "burn-out" or "exhaustion thing" since before the first leg injury (and therefore completely unrelated to it).  So, once Winter and everything that went with it kicked in, it was only a matter of time before not being able to get out (most weeks) at all other than one day on the weekend would really start to get to me.  From the time of the first blizzard (and beginning of ridiculous cold), I could feel the exhaustion thing getting worse and worse.  Even with that, though, it wasn't really until, say, late February/early March when I really saw things (me) getting out of control.

What I didn't know was whether I'd ever be able to turn the exhaustion thing back into something sort of manageable or not.  Of course, at the end of Winter and through the Spring, I was looking at the exhaustion thing from my pre-Winter, "tail-end-of-the-injuries" viewpoint.  Now, I've had May and June to be working on making up for the time lost as a result of Winter (and after the second injury had its second anniversary).  So, now that I've had that time to make the progress (of one kind or another) that I've made up to now, I have the "mental energy points" of looking at the whole picture from truly a "post-injury" (and also "post-Winter") viewpoint.

I don't have visions of the "exhaustion thing" completely disappearing at this point.  I do, however, feel as if I've emerged from the deepest depths of that particular thing to the point where I can see "manageable" (or "mostly manageable") again (and in fact, feel it again under the right set of circumstances).

In any case, I'll post later about what contributed to the exhaustion thing in Winter.  It was mainly a matter of not being able to get the right foods/substances I needed (and I'm assuming as a result of "where I was" exhaustion-wise) AND it had nothing to do with not having plenty of decent food in the house.

Foundation B Post - 1

Leg injuries aside, the walking route to the stores isn't one that doesn't require a person to be paying attention, and even to be careful about where one steps.  Although there are parts of the route that are pleasant enough for walking, there are enough parts of it that aren't all that pleasant - or at least not pleasant without accompanying "paying attention".  There's just that kind of tenseness added in enough parts of the route to make it a "generally not-all-the-pleasant" a walk.  Being able to do the walk without also having to buy groceries (and shop by weight and/or length of time out of refrigeration concerns) is (probably needless to say) more pleasant and enjoyable.

One thing that I used to do before I did the leg injury was to go walking super-early in nice weather and do little more than have breakfast out.  Sometimes I'd pick up a thing or two while I was near the stores, but my main reason for walking was being out in the morning air and having that chance to just be myself and have a little breakfast and coffee.

I have no doubt that in a lot of ways walking has been good for my health.  In other ways, and considering the circumstances, I've often joked that it's killing me.  That's not such a joke in all ways.

After the leg injuries the need to pay attention and be careful about where I stepped and how has been a bigger and more important factor.

Before the leg injury the walk TO the store was always far more enjoyable than the walk home with whatever bags I had.   I was accustomed to walking as many as over a hundred miles a week (without feeling it).  The reality was, however, that carrying more weight often meant holding a hand or arm in some awkward way; or just generally feeling more uncomfortable because of the weight and/or awkwardness of any packages/bags.  It was always a balancing act between vowing to shop as little and as light as possible while also not wanting to make an unnecessary trip because I hadn't bought enough on the previous run.

There are/were a couple of small stores not far from the end of "Street B", so more pleasant runs for "a thing or two" to just those closer stores were what I did in-between times.  Much of the time (and mostly a matter of weather), the walk to those closer stores was reasonably pleasant.  I'd get something to eat or some coffee, and kind of enjoy the walk.  There was a time before I began doing any online work  when I was receiving a weekly check.  That wasn't handy because it sometimes involved an extra trip that I didn't necessarily feel like making, but had to make, if I wanted to get the cash.  I've got a whole set of "horror stories" related to that "era", but I won't get into those here.

The entire picture changed once I did the first leg injury and then "added injury to injury" when three years of relying mainly on the "good" leg set it up for its own injury.  It wasn't until the Fall that led up to the third anniversary of the first injury when I was able to start working on making the walk again; but it was just about exactly at three years that I did the second injury.  It was also Winter.  I won't get more into the injuries here, other than to say that it took the "second leg" just about two years to get awfully close to "good as new feeling"   The "first leg" was mostly at "good as new feeling" too, although it needed strength built up.  Also, however, there were "spin-off elements" that made the "getting back" process more complicated and less straightforward than the less serious injury.

In any case, it was right before the string of last Winter's record-breaking snow storms and cold that I was able to make the walk to "Street A" effortlessly and quickly (and even without the knees getting painful from the cold weather).  The Winter didn't just mean slowing my progress in getting the injuries REALLY back to good as new and without having to worry about how much weight I was putting on the "first" one.  It also meant my not walking for so long that I just generally got out of shape in terms of being able to walk a few miles without "the usual" (not necessarily related to the injuries at all) muscles feeling it.  That meant I had to wait until Spring to first get "the usual" muscles used to walking very far at all (and regardless of what shoes I was wearing) AND building up strength in the "first leg" so that every ounce of weight beyond my own didn't seem to make a difference to the leg.

In April I could go out walking, but I had to wear different shoes than I wear at home.  That meant when I was able to go walking I'd "get leg muscles going" by changing shoes.  Then, when I'd be at home and wearing other shoes, I'd have to let the legs have three days before feeling better.  During those three days I'd get the "first leg" thrown off by "walking funny".  The weather in April wasn't all that great, so there weren't all that many days or nights when walking was good anyway.  Then there were weekends when I went out with someone in a car even though the weather would have been great for walking.

It was May when I could finally stop wearing the heavier shoes and just wear the sandals that I wear at home.  That's when I stopped "throwing off" the leg injury every time I went out walking.  So, as of May, where I was was that I needed to put finishing touches on strength-building in both knees/legs; BUT because I was generally out of shape as far as walking long distances went; ;that, combined with the injury-related need to build strength (and as far as I can guess) essentially turned all attempts to walk into a large muscle work-out.

If the walk that has generally always required a certain amount of "paying attention" and thinking and planning was what it was before the injuries, you can probably imagine how much more thought, planning, and paying attention has been required first after the injuries and later, once they were pretty much healed but in need of building strength.

It was in June (yes, JUNE! - last month) when the injuries finally got to where how much weight I was carrying in my bag didn't affect them.  I would say that the injuries were good as new, but they still needed finishing touches on that strength-building thing.  That wasn't however, about how much weight I was carrying in my bag.  It wasn't about "basic walking" either.  It was (and still is) about "the finer point" of stepping down from a curb or step while holding the knee "straight ahead" (rather than turning kind of sideways on stairs).  Another area of strength building I still need to do is with climbing up, for example, extremely steep steps.  As it is I'm fine with regular sets of stairs now.

Frustratingly enough after the Winter, what I've been left with as of June has been that the leg injuries are pretty much all squared away as far as routine walking goes (and with the limited exceptions I mentioned above). 

I'm going to write a separate post about what amounts to a whole new set of "issues" related to being able to make the walk (whether a mile-and-a-half round-trip, three miles round trip, or something in-between) effortlessly that have become evident and/or emerged and/or developed once I got to where the injuries felt "good as new", got used to the walk (provided I haven't been carrying too much weight and a result using an awkward set of muscles to do that).

The Automatic "Share Post" Thing..

With a number of a different blogs set up, and in varying stages of development, I don't always keep up with which ones have settings that get the automatic "share thing" showing up immediately after posting.  This one happens to have the setting that has that happen.  Mainly because I'm busy and/or lazy - or both, I haven't felt like adjusting that setting.  So, after each of these foundation posts I've gotten the the share thing.   Um, I don't think so.    :/  I seriously don't think too many people on Google+ would particularly appreciate seeing all this crap showing up as regularly as I'm been writing it over the last day or so - with more coming.     (lol)

Maybe tomorrow I'll, once and for all, get rid of that automatic "share thing". 

One More "Lowest-Level Foundation Post" Before Getting To "The Next Level Up"

What About The Bus Service?

Where I live is a town, surrounded on three sides by similar towns (although with more business/corporations/industry; shopping (and whatever else) than where I live.  The town, itself, is not geographically small.  It's twenty-six square miles (as compared to say, the small Boston-area city in which I grew up - which was/is three square miles - but which packed into it whatever cities had in those days, including two big public libraries).  I don't know what's there these days.  Where I live these days didn't even have a "normal" public library until some time in the last twenty years (or thereabouts).  It's a "family town", though; so it boasts ten baseball fields and lots of things for elderly people.

The thing is, it's been a long time since I had little boys playing Little League; and I wasn't anywhere near even the borderline age for "senior" when my divorce "buggered up" my driver's license.

Before I did the first leg injury (the more complicated, more serious, one) I used to sometimes take the bus if I wanted to "do something special" and get to the limited but additional shopping areas.  Once I did that first leg injury the idea of using the bus changed.

The town is also bordered by a city.  There's where the bus/train station is, and it's where one would have to get to in order to get to either of the other neighboring towns (or anywhere else other than the town in which I live).

That's fine for the person who just has business in that city, and it's fine for the person who wants to get somewhere near the border between that city and my town.  Other than that, trying to get anywhere else almost isn't even realistic,  unless someone has, say, the whole day to kill and doesn't have to be anywhere at a certain time.   First, whether one wants to hook up with a bus that's going somewhere other than back into my town, there's the usual waiting for whatever "correct bus" there is to wait for.  The train station would get someone somewhere other than that city or my town, but if I need to get to, say, Boston (which is rare these days) my options are to have someone drop me off or else drive and go with me to whatever event it is we're going to.

In any case, the train from the station is in the city is out.  One thing that eliminates it as an option is that if I don't have someone to drive or drop me off (for, say, a weekend event), there's no bus that would get me to and from the station to my own town.

There was a time when I found some temporary work in the next town over.  It was only because my son would drop me off before going to work, himself; and then I'd take the afternoon bus from the place of work into the city, where I'd wait for the bus that would eventually get me back into my town.
Sometimes one bus would be later than usual, and I'd come awfully close to missing either the last bus from there into my own town, or the next-to-last.  Sometimes there would be a long wait between the hourly buses.  Either way, the last bus into my town is around five p.m.  It was Winter when I did that.  At the time, I'd leave that next-town-over workplace, ride around some office parks at the edge of my own town, and be on a bus that was in rush-hour traffic and going through the city in order to get to the station.  It was, shall I say, "a hoot" - particularly since it wasn't exactly my "dream kind of work" that I was doing.

In order for my son to have time to drive me to work and get to his own job in time, we'd both have to be up super early in the morning (5:00 or so for him; 4:00 for me because at that time I was already dealing with "some kind of mental exhaustion thing" that meant I needed to be very organized and have plenty of getting-ready time, breakfast time, etc., rather than set off for a day's work as a frazzled mess).  Besides, without a car there with me, and with "the commute", I needed to make sure I had some things with me, or wore some clothes, that I wouldn't have otherwise needed.

It didn't help that I was probably run down when some of us in the family got some kind of "flu thing", and I was left without a voice for afterward, but also took until Aprl to actually get most of my own voice back.  It also didn't help that I threw out my back picking up something the wrong way (and not related at all to the work there).  Well, there were a lot of things in personal life that "didn't help".  Basically, I was kind of sick the whole time I worked there.  The big worry was mainly a) not missing the bus that got to me to the station (which wasn't a big challenge), and b) (and more importantly) not missing that last five p.m. bus that would get me out of the city and into my own town.

My son worked in another direction entirely, but we had a plan that I'd take the bus to the Burger King in my town - where, if my son were to be late for some reason, particularly traffic, I could go in and comfortable have some coffee and maybe something to eat (or not, depending).  The big thing was that I get that last bus out of the station and get myself more comfortably close to my own house (which, as it was, was three miles away).

If we, or I, needed to get something from the grocery store, we'd sometimes stop there before coming home.  There were times when I'd leave where I was working at 2:30, wait until that bus to the station came, do whatever riding around there was to do, wait at the station for x amount of time; ride the last bus to BK (and take, maybe, twenty-minutes or so, riding the bus in rush hour all the way down into my town - and eventually actually get home around 6:30 or even 7:00)..

In any case, that was the first and only time I ever tried working outside of the town on a non-telecommute basis. 

Back to the bus:  The bus runs, as far as I know, every hour from around 6:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.  It runs up and down "Street A" (the main drag); but because it stops at a hospital and some elderly housing, there's a whole section of Street A that no bus ever travels on. Instead, it takes a turn off the main drag and gets/drops off hospital people and elderly-housing people, and comes out on the main drag not far from that Burger King I mentioned.  The outbound bus goes right to town line and then turns around.  While shopping in that next town over is better and nicer than where I shop, and while a car ride to at least that additional shopping is a few minutes; a walk that far past the town line isn't all that handy.

In any event, in order for me to use either of the nearest bus stops I have to walk quite a way in some direction other than the one I really want to go in (but then factor in when the bus is coming or going or not picking anyone up because it's the last run). 

Before the leg injury the bus at least had a twice-a-day (around lunch time) "indirect route" that meant, if I played my complicated cards right, I could get the bus, or be dropped off, at the corner of 'Streets B and C" (fairly close to my street, but most often not close enough for my purposes).  It was a whole, complicated, deal; but sometimes I'd work it out in Summer or Winter.  Apparently, that indirect route was stopped somewhere after I did the first leg injury.  So now, i have to walk the mile/mile-and-half or so, plus or minus, from my house to the main drag.  From there, I'd have to turn the walk from home-to-bus-stop from whatever distance the walk is to the main drag to, maybe, a mile-and-a-half/two-thirds or so (again, plus-or-minus - maybe even two miles?) to one of the two closest stops.

Leg injuries or no leg injuries, It just doesn't make sense for me to add distance to the walk to the main drag in order to get a bus that will eventually get me to where I could have gotten myself to by adding just a little more distance and getting myself to that shopping, which is just about three miles away.

It really doesn't make sense in view of the fact that I most often go out one weekend day with my sister, which is when I can pick up a heavier load of groceries.  When the weather is good she and I sometimes go out for coffee one evening during the week.  Last Winter pretty much eliminated that practice. 

One problem for me, however, is that I can stock up on a number of groceries of one kind (frozen food, canned goods, etc.).  Produce and breads aren't things a person can stock up on, and one person eating/shopping for only herself, can try to buy some extra (up to a point); but breads that aren't frozen turn green (and I only want to freeze x amount of bread anyway), lettuce goes brown, and tomatoes get soft.

Another problem is that I'm not always paid on a strict schedule.  Depending on who it is that's paying me, I have things like straggling-in paychecks, pays from one or another kind of writing, and pays in irregular amounts.  So, if I get to the store in a car on a weekend, but I'm not going to get a pay until Monday; that means I can't do the kind of shopping I need to do when I'm in a car.  Instead, I may have to plan to get out on, say, that Monday or Tuesday.  Up to a point, I've been able to work with this "rough-draft system" of shopping.  When weather and/or leg injuries and or whatever other factors there are are added to the mix it can throw off any real system.

As far as I know, besides any bus that gets elderly people to shopping; there's some "little bus" that's available for some people who need, say, a ride to the doctor's (or something).  I've never looked into it, because even if the fact that I'm now somewhere around the "border of senior" (or just over it; I still don't really know); I don't think that bus is meant for getting people grocery shopping. 

There's no taxi service in my town.  There have, over the years, been times when someone started a taxi service.  None of them lasted.  Several years ago there was one taxi service.  I planned to get myself to the store to do Easter-dinner shopping for my whole family - only to be told it had gone out of business.  I had a cart full of Easter food, treats, and whatever else and knew that dragging it the three miles home meant no refrigeration soon enough.  My ex-husband was around to call, but he was working.  That meant I had to leave the cart full of stuff with the grocery store (to go into their cold area) until my ex-husband could pick it up.

There are taxi services in the surrounding towns/city.  If I really needed to get somewhere I could call one.  The last I heard they charge for coming into the town.  I don't know if they charge more for people who live farther into the town than, say, along the main drag or near one or another town line.  It doesn't matter for my purposes.  If, for example, I can't, for one reason or another, get my "extras" when I'm with my sister on the weekend, it's hardly worth the price of a taxi to get those extras (or even some not-so-extras) over the work week.  I can either do without, pay top dollar at a convenience store, or walk to the grocery store.

In view of the fact that I work from home (less now than I had been, though), but also that I need to get some exercise, sun, fresh air, and natural light (more now after a Winter of not being able to be out walking at all); I can't see calling a taxi from another town.

And this - I think - concludes my series of "rock-bottom/foundation posts".  They're the "lowest layer/level" of a foundation on which some "higher-level foundation" (and "foundation posts") have been/will be built.  It isn't just a matter of my wanting to post that "foundation" on here for the sake of posting it all in one place somewhere.  And, it isn't just a matter of wanting to post layer upon layer of "foundation" for the purpose of focusing on any of the issues associated with that "foundation" in future posts on here.

As I said somewhere in one of the first "foundation" posts, there are a number of things I plan to write about, or at least a number of points may want to make in places other than this, particular, blog.  In fact, I have any number of reasons for wanting to get these "foundation posts" in writing

From here on (at least within the context of this particular blog and series of posts) I'm going to refer to "the next level of the foundation" as "Foundation B Posts" (and I'm going to stop using the quotation marks around "foundation").  If anyone has read anything at all up to this point I imagine he knows what I mean when I refer to "foundation" in this series of posts.  I guess I started using the quotation marks as my own way of defining, organizing, a big picture/situation that is complex enough to have one limited set of constants that include a wide ride of variables before ever getting to some of the "non-constant variables".  (I'm getting there....)

A Few Remarks About Moving/Not-Moving (As In "Why Not Go To Where Driving/Having A Car Doesn't Matter As Much?"

There are a number of varied, multi-faceted, complicated, and/or complicating factors that have resulted in my not having moved over the last several years.  I'm not going to get into all, of even any, of them.    What I will do is include here, some isolated words/phrases that may help give someone some rough idea of how complicated things can be (particularly in my personal situation).  The only reason I'm even do that much is to, maybe, highlight the point (maybe fact) that anyone else in my exact situation would be very unlikely to "just move" too.

Here's the words/phrases:

Family in General
Children (Children, Teens and/or Grown)
Legal Issues Of One Kind Or Another
Temporary
Permanence
Stability
Assets
Shared Asssets
Babies and Bath-Water
"Know When To Hold 'Em"
Decisions and Inadequate Information to Make Them"
Sensible Security
Frying Pans and Fires of One Kind or Another
Thinking From The Standpoint Of A Mother
Stability Is Sometimes About "Financial" - Sometimes About Non-Money-Related Issues
Lower Crime Rate Than Some Options
More Freedom Than Some Options

I guess those should kind of do it.  I'll just say that my not moving is neither up for debate nor a matter of my having better or other options.

Curbs, No-Curbs, Low, Curbs, High Curbs - Getting From The Sidewsalk Into The Sreet

Just as (as with my blog describe) "one never knows what one may find" on this blog, neither doesn't one know what one may find when walking where I live (or anywhere similar, I'm imagining).

I've already described things like snow, ice and puddles in one of the "foundation" posts.  I think I've mentioned things like lumpy strips of "grass and/or dirt" along, or instead, of sidewalks.  I'm fairly certain I mentioned that what's in the "gutter section" of the street (if one would even call the edge of the street where there really isn't a "standard curb" along the whole thing, "gutter") - which may be include tiny stones, bits of gravel, bits of "miscellaneous natural debris", with or without any puddle and/or snow/ice factor.

The point is that while standing at the edge of the sidewalk and/or side of the road and waiting for the right time to cross isn't a big deal for anyone without something like "knee issues", getting from the sidewalk (or wherever/whatever sort of serves as one) into the street (in order to cross) can be a bigger deal.

It's better in some places than others.  Here's where no, big, "standard" (city-like) curbs can be an advantage in some ways.  If the strip of "grass/dirt" doesn't involve (essentially) climbing down what feels, to the "knee-issue person" like a big incline, it can be great that isn't a big curb to deal with (although big curbs often do come with "little ramps" for people who need them and can use them).  With some types of knee issues (or a combination of them), sometimes walking down even a slight incline can be worse than, say, stepping off even a steep curb or step "sideways" (and in a way that doesn't aggravate the front of the knee - that is if the knee if even capable of bearing "stepping-down" weight on it at all).

Depending on what, and how bad, the knee-issue is (and whether it's in one or both knees); getting from where one is walking (sidewalk or some version of one) down into "the gutter" can take some paying attention - whether that's sizing up the latest "conditions" at any one place, or just having "a system" for dealing with one or another crossing location.

My own knee/knees issue has nothing to do with arthritis or having any other kind of joint/mobility issue before seriously injuring one leg in/around the knee area; taking three years to work on getting it back to "good as new", almost getting there, and then injuring the previously injured other knee, and having to "work on" both of them between two years ago and this recent, past, Fall/Winter; in order to get them both to where they mostly seemed "good as new" (except, essentially, for being out-of-shape when it came to walking long distances and/or supporting weight that was "x amount" over and above my own weight.  This has meant that, depending on "where I was" with regard to either of the knees/legs having any issues with walking surface, curbs, etc.; I've been dealing with a "foot-by-foot" (or "yard- by-yard") ever-changing surface/circumstance with regard to where I needed to walk (or cross), complicated by an ever-changing set of "circumstances" with each knee area, itself.  In other words, it has required a couple/few different kinds of "paying attention", "planning" (sometimes, "step-by-step" planning, sometimes "bigger" planning), and different needs for, and degrees of, concentrating on just getting from one place to the other.

On the roads/times when there is less traffic, crossing the street has just been a matter of taking my time about doing so, and keeping in mind (at times) that I needed to be good and sure there would be no pressure to feel like I had to hurry out the way of any cars. 

Before the leg injuries, but also now that they're both (knock-on-wood) pretty much back to "good-as-new", there was no issue with getting from any sidewalk/walking area into "the gutter" in order to cross.  After, however, there was (again, depending on where and when it was).

In one of the "foundation" posts I mentioned Street D (my own, a quiet one that I don't even count), Street C (a more rural and more challenging one for a combination of reasons, but one that doesn't have curbs at all), and Street B (a bigger, busier, "more main", one than the actual "main drag" (Street A).  Street B has what I think of a "God-knows-what when it comes to where sidewalk, or walking area, meet the road".  It does have some curbs of varying heights.  Street B is at the end of another, fairly busy sometimes, street that empties out onto Street B.  Other than that, the particular stretch of Street B that I walk on has no busy intersections or sets of lights.

Before the first leg injury; and whether or not I was on Street B or Street, I pretty much didn't want any cars to stop to let me cross; mainly because the traffic such that it's either light (and fairly fast-moving), somewhat heavier (particularly on Street A) but still fairly fast-moving, stop-and-go in some areas (n which case, crossing can both be easier and/or require more concentration, depending...), or so light that cars may tend more to go faster than usual.

For any or all of those reasons, I pretty much have never wanted cars stopping to let me cross the street because I can either wait it out (I don't mind), find a better place to cross,  and be better able to concentrate more on doing whatever it is that will keep me safer but also not involve stopping a whole line of cars just to let me cross.  It's not the city.  It's different.

Before the leg injuries I'd just kind of step back from the street, try to make kind of a "big and obvious deal" that I had no wish/plans to cross the street, watch what was going on with the cars/traffic, and quickly get myself from the sidewalk/walking area into the street as I crossed quickly.

(By the way, I take back what i said in the previous post about this one being "relatively brief".)

Anyway....

Both before and after the leg injuries, I haven't wanted or needed any cars to stop and let me cross; and I just described my way of trying to prevent that from happening.  of course, people have been conditioned to think in terms of "pedestrians have the right of way".  So, some people - city or suburbs - try to do what they think is the right thing.  That's been why I have to step back from the "curb"/"gutter" and try to make it obvious that I'm "not crossing".  Even with that, however, there have occasionally been drivers who stop, beep their horns (as if I've been waiting so long that I've become bored, started day-dreaming, and forgotten to watch for any "kind souls" who have stopped to let me cross).  I know they mean well (oh, the old, "meaning well" thing) , but it really drives me nuts when someone does that because I'm not now, and never have been, the kind of person who doesn't stay complete on top of what I'm doing at any given time - particularly when it comes to crossing the street.

Those few well-meaning but incorrectly mind-reading followers of "general rules of the road" aside), most of the time the thing about not making a big deal about crossing has worked well for me.  All I've had to do is stay away from the edge of the road, make it clear that I'm not looking both ways and at the cars (or across the street), and that's been it.  It hasn't been so easy since the leg/knee injuries, however, because it hasn't been so easy to get from sidewalk/walking area down into the "gutter" without some care and planning.  This means that there has pretty much been no staying on the walking area and making that big deal about not crossing; keeping an eye on the traffic situation, and then just hopping/zipping down into the lower-level street/"gutter" and crossing.

With that extra and care, thinking, and planning having become issues (at least for awhile), what it has meant has been introducing the factor of staying in the walking area/sidewalk long enough until there were truly no cars anywhere to be seen/expected and then taking a little extra time to get into the gutter/street before REALLY paying attention to any cars that may have shown up in the meantime.  What it has also meant, however, has been that once I've been "in the gutter"  it's generally pretty hard to pretend that I'm not even thinking about crossing the street.  Also, one one is actually in the street (and particularly n some areas of the route), one is at higher risk of being hit by a car.

On Street A, even where there is "standard curb" (even a "real-life, standard, designated, crossing place) there is sometimes a thin layer of sand in areas.  There may or may not varying amounts of other stuff (bits of gravel, small stones, etc.); but even with all the "polish" and "wonderful-ness" of what is very much like a "real" city-type sidewalk and crossing area; making that move from sidewalk down into the street is more complicated for the person with "knee issues" (particularly when those issues may be related to stability for one reason or another).

That "big and official" curb associated with that "real" sidewalk and crossing area means having that more clearly delineated "line" between sidewalk and actual street; and as I said earlier, sometimes getting down from a curb works better for the knee-/knees-issues person than walking down even a slight incline ever would/could.

Things will be different for me now that a) I've gotten to where the injuries feel "good as new" but also as I've gotten past a Winter when walking just wasn't possible at all and during which I just became un-used to doing a walk that long (and of that type) at all; but since the first leg injury at the beginning of 2010, I've most often had to avoid using that designated crossing area  completely.

What makes it worse is that there's one side that involves a little hill but not as much traffic.  There's another side that involves the most traffic, at the bottom of a hill, and sometimes "coming from all directions" and at varying speeds.  What I've always done is walk to where the cars are only going in the usual two directions, where there's a driveway/parking lot that doesn't involve anything but a "smooth transition" into the street, and where I can do my "pretend-I'm-not-crossing" thing when necessary.  Also,  the street is narrowed away from the intersection and lights, which, of course, means spending less time in the street at all.  There's also "the hope" of so little traffic that traffic is not an issue AND the hope that the stop-and-go traffic at the lights can (if one is careful to watch) mean being able to cross more easily.  How safe this approach is depends on the kind of traffic there is.  In general, that hill I mentioned elsewhere, combined with being able to see quite far down Street A in the other direction, make this "approach" not as hazardous as it might otherwise seem.