Speed Still Kills

Santana Row changed a lot. It opened the door when I was still in Santa Clara in 2003 and I used to frequent the bookstore at the end of the Row. It is gone now and I can't remember if it was a Borders or a Barns and Noble. The yellow granite sand parking lot behind it is gone too and it is now paved with asphalt. All around it, condos sprouted up. The Row itself is still lined with the same upscale shops and restaurants.

On the way back home from my nephew's wedding, I stopped there to plug the car in. While waiting, I figure I'd walk around the Row and soak up the nostalgia. It's been 15 years since I've been there, after all. But I was wearing a pair of dress shoes and pacing at 90 steps/min in them was rather clumsy uncomfortable. It wasn't going to be a long walk anyway, so I walked at a natural speed.

 How nice it was to walk at a regular pace. I keep remembering the paraplegic that I saw on TV once, all teared up when he was able to stand up, with the aid of a robotic chair for the first time in years. Walking at a normal speed is like that: it's as if you are liberated from the prison that you are locked up in for decades. It feels that good to walk free like a normal person.

That was on 11/21. For 5 days  afterwards I struggled. It was similar to the struggle after the flu shot in October. The speed limit is still in effect apparently and the price for infraction is as severe as ever.

Car Wash

I bought a water hose from Amazon last December when I was feeling recovered. My car was all dirtied up from the winter driving in the mountains and I figured I'd wash it myself rather than taking to the carwash every time. Then I suffered the longest PEM ever after skiing too much, and washing the car became a distant dream. The car remained unwashed for over a year and it was all filthy.

Now I needed to have it cleaned before driving to San Jose for my nephew's wedding. On que, it rained last Tuesday, so I left the car out for a free carwash overnight.  In the morning it was all wet and I realized it would get covered with watermarks and dust spots all over if I didn't wipe it dry. I took a rag and wiped it down the best I could. It took a good 30 minutes and completely wiped me out. I spent the rest of the day in horizontal position, tired but happy and satisfied. The PEM sickness I was expecting the next day didn't materialize however. I'll have to chalk it up to the Novelty Effect.

How I used to enjoy washing cars. There is nothing quite like the sense of accomplishment you get from the shiny car after all the hard work. The last time I washed car was in the underground garage of the condo in Santa Clara, probably around 2006, I think. That was about a year after I brought home the BMW from Germany. I got ambitious and gave it a full monty treatment of shampoo, clay bar, polish and wax. It was an all day process and a hard work even back then, and I was in my best shape then. This time, the 30 minute work of just wiping down the car required about the same amount of time for the recovery.

I'll have to do this more often. Carwash is so fun, the novelty effect may persist. 

Blacking Out After Walk

After simmering October, the weather decisively turned wintry last week. The temperature, in the 50s daytime, plunges to low 30s at night. We didn't have heat so we we've been bundling up in coats. I couldn't let the utility service to come out and light up the furnace for us because we are self quarantining for my nephews wedding in 2 weeks. I managed to light it up myself today, so we'll have heat this evening. I hope it doesn't blow up. It's an old furnace that I'm not familiar with.

I was busy doing errands for a few days last week to gear up for the quarantine.  I wasn't able to take walk for 5 days as result. I finally managed 2 km yesterday afternoon. In the evening, I was dizzy and sluggish. It was as if I was blacking out just like after the 12 mile bike ride.

I already wrote about shrinking exercise tolerance after staying indoor for a month in August. Now it seems the walk tolerance shrink faster than I thought: it only took 5 days of hiatus this time. So, I can say more definitely now that my walk tolerance shrinks if you don't walk.

To be precise, it is the walk tolerance, not necessarily the general exercise tolerance, that shrinks after not walking for a while. I don't know if the tolerance to all exercise shrinks. I don't have problem doing household chores, so it may well be just the tolerance to walk that shrinks. 

Notice that I'm now careful to speak of "tolerance" and not "ability". CFS patients, at least the ones at the moderate/mild end of the spectrum, are capable of exercise; it's just that they get sick afterward. In other words, their bodies don't tolerate exercise too well even if they are able to exercise.  It's like you can eat, but you'd puke if you do when your stomach does not tolerate food.

Clean Stove Top, Finally

 

Isn't that sparkly? I finally got around cleaning the grimy stove top. I gathered the supplies long time ago, but I haven't been able to gather the courage to tackle the task itself. Switching from 2 day cycle of activities to 3day cycle finally left me with enough energy to get it done. I had to split the work into two parts though, and I'm yet to clean the back splash panel and the front of the stove. Still, it was hard enough a work and I slept like a baby last night. And I was fatigued all over when I woke up. The scrubbing motion not only works your arms, but your legs also have to do quite a bit of work to counter-balance the upper body motion. And it's the use of large leg muscles that is more likely to cause problem for CFS patients.

Here is how I did it:

1. Prep the surface: spray the vinegar and Dawn solution, and then wipe away
2. Clean the greasy film with Soft Scrub
3. Make paste with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Plaster it on the burnt and baked-in surface
4. Wait 15 minutes and scrub the surface with the paste