Sunday 2 September 2007

Old age is a bitch

I’ve happily returned to New York after my business jaunt to Fort Lauderdale. It was a worthwhile trip, but bloody hard work. I like my clients, but working with them in their offices for 3days straight is like being on a 72hour job interview. I am thrilled to bits to have a long weekend to recover before having to go back to work again. Although can you believe that some of my co-workers tried to coerce me into working on something for them this weekend? Ha, I should cocoa. Usually I would be amenable to helping them out, but this time I put my foot down and said no.

Fabulous as it is to get away and see other places the best thing about leaving New York for me is the tingle of excitement I get when I come back. I got goose bumps while sat in the back of the cab from Penn Station, heading back to my apartment through the streets of Manhattan. I’m just so completely smitten with this fabulous city. The only blot on my otherwise perfect long weekend in New York – you should see the weather here, it’s heavenly; it’s sunny, low humidity, a light breeze, it’s a dream – is the fact that I’ve done something horrible to my back. I suspect it is a suitcase carrying related injury, although it’s not as if my bags were particularly heavy. I pride myself on being a light packer – roll, don’t fold – and my ability to fit a week’s worth of clothes into the smallest of suitcases is renowned across the tri-state area. Well…okay…it’s not renowned. I lied about the last bit, but when it comes to packing I am a bloody marvel, if I do say so myself.

Back-wise I am not sure what happened, but it came on suddenly on Saturday morning. One moment I was feeling fine and the next I wasn’t. Unfortunately the timing of realising I wasn’t feeling so good wasn’t so great. It happened about 15minutes after I had stepped out of the shower. I was still wrapped in a towel after drying my hair and it was not a good moment to discover that it hurt like hell to bend down. Have you ever tried to put your knickers on when you can’t bend so well? It took me about 3minutes just to put on my undies. Fortunately I am relatively limber of hamstring and was able to stand upright while dangling my knickers in one hand and then raising each leg in turn to stick my feet through the leg holes and pull them on. I’d intended to wear trousers that day, but after the knicker experience I decided I wasn’t going to make further attempts to put clothing on my lower half and threw a dress over my head instead. How happy was I to have been born a girl in that moment!! If I’d been a man I don’t think I’d have left the house at all yesterday. I'm not sure I'd have been able to get dressed without assistance and although I like my neighbours I am not quite THAT friendly with them.

I didn’t let my back pain hamper my day too much though and headed out to meet Francesca and Jacqui for the last of the Warm Up parties at PS1, a converted school in Long Island City, Queens, which is now part of the Museum of Modern Art. They hold outdoor dance parties there from 3-9pm during the summer months in what used to be the playground. They have amazing DJs and musicians and it’s a great place to sit around and soak up the atmosphere. They also decorate the playground in some sort of theme. I’m not sure what this year’s theme was called, but they’d erected these big pink tree type things with hammock style seating underneath. You can sort of see them in the picture…sort of!!


Photo credit: Verseguru @ Flickr

My favourite theme was the year they had these giant igloo inspired canopies stretching across the playground and a cool room with huge blocks of ice you could stand on to cool down. It can get very hot in the playground at PS1. Yesterday we got lucky and managed to snag a hammock seat for the three of us and lolled around for a few hours listening to the music, chatting and people watching. It was a lovely afternoon.

I’m feeling a bit better this morning; I can almost touch my toes without screaming in pain, so a good sign, although I was very stiff when I woke up and initially thought my back was worse. Still, I was undeterred from hobbling over to Starbucks for my Sunday morning Grande Skim Latte, perhaps not my wisest move as on the way back, while balancing a latte in one hand and a New York Times in the other, I sneezed and a shooting pain went through my whole body. Thankfully there weren’t any small children close enough to hear the stream of profanities I uttered through gritted teeth as my body went into spasm.

I have to say I am already finding aging quite tiresome and I’m only 36 for chrissakes, I’m fit, I’m healthy, I eat the right foods and go to the gym regularly. This sort of thing should not be happening to me yet!! Harumph!!

9 comments:

Amel said...

Hi, Fish!!!

Glad you had a wonderful weekend though you had the back pain. Maybe you're not feeling that well? Since you sneezed and all that. A friend of mine once had the same experience. She thought she'd yanked a muscle or something at the airport. Turned out she was "under the weather" the next few days. Hope you won't get sick, though!!!

I WINCED when I read the part about the sneeze. I KNOW how painful it can be when there's some painful body parts. OUCH!!!

HURRAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY to being womeeeennnnn and being able to wear dresses!!! ;-D

Hope your back pain subsides ASAP!!! ;-D Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!!!

Agnes Mildew said...

It happens to the best of us, chuck!

Plenty of anaesthetic cocktails, plenty of rest and throw a sickie from work (don't forget, I've given you a few get out clauses, already!)

Glad your trip went well, and good to have you back.

alcoment said...

Pleased to have you back F.

Agnes beat me to it with the alcohol as a painkiller advice, so I'll second it - always works for me...

Glad you were able to get a decent seat for your afternoon out. There's nothing like being able to nab a great spot to settle down in for the duration. It looked really pretty in the photo.

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Thanks ladies, it's good to be back :-) Thanks for the well wishes. I just went out for a walk to keep the blood flowing to my back and hopefully heal it sooner rather than later. Amel, the sneeze seemed to have been a one off, so I am hoping I am not sick. I suspect I pulled a muscle from lugging a small suitcase, laptop around for 3days last week. I think I might order in sushi with a side of sake tonight - or should that be sake with a side of sushi :-) - to test the alcohol as painkiller option, although to be honest I am REALLY wishing I still had some Vicodin left over from when I had my wisdom teeth out. Now THERE'S a painkiller ;-)

Amel said...

Sushi and sake? YUMMMMYYYY!!! Well, yummy for the sushi. I haven't tried sake, so I don't know about it he he he...Well, as long as you're happy, F!!! ;-D Alcohol is a pain killer? Gee, I didn't know that!!!!!!!!

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Sake is lovely Amel. I just got into it this last year. At first I wasn't so keen, but you just have to practise ;-)

Amel said...

Practise, eh? I practise by drinking CIDER. First with only 0.7% alcohol in it, then with 1.2% alcohol in it, then with 4.7% alcohol in it. Still not used to the 4.7% one, though he he he...

Anonymous said...

Poor you, Fish! Back pain is the worst...4 Advils and a heating pad usually do the trick for me. The only reason I know that is because I am NOT as good of a packer as you are and I travel with steamer trunks "a la 1912" for a mere weekend. Sad, really!

fishwithoutbicycle said...

Hi Britt, thanks for stopping by. FOUR Advils though? In one go? Aren't you only supposed to take 2 at a time? I am such a goodie two shoes when it comes to dosing. I do have some Nurofen Plus in my cupboard that I bought in England, but unfortunately they make me nauseous, so I am avoiding those :-(

This back pain is just my luck as the boy I have been having dates with just called me to see if I wanted to hang out. I was starting to think my luck was in and that I'd finally be having some rampant totty, but there'll be no noocky until I recover. Back pain = best contraceptive ever!!