I'm currently enjoying it on my ass, inside. Not the ideal. Having the forced time off has been interesting. There have been plenty of days where I'd rather be outside, running around and climbing, but with my foot the way it is, I can't hike to any crag, let alone climb. The gym is starting to look more and more appealing, and that's more and more depressing. I'm in the middle of summer, and am supposed to be able to avoid the old Boulder Rock Club.
I went into the doctor for a follow up last week, and he quoted an additional five weeks as a good lay off time. Obviously, Dr. Morris, you're not quite up to speed with my mania. I was thinking five days. He does have a point, though. If I can't walk without pain yet, it's probably a bad idea to be climbing. Each day is getting better and better, though, so I can say with a straight face that my goal for getting back onto routes is sometime next week.
The last time I took two weeks off from climbing was about a year ago. The fateful trip to Greece was the impetus, and the fallout from that was about as painful as my real life fall of the top of The Kind. Maybe I was due. Since that trip last year, a ton of things in my life have gotten shaken up. I've had a really strained time with my dad and stepmom, have completely lost contact with my sister Megan, and broken up with Kate. With that amount of interpersonal damage, I feel like the last 365 days could qualify for some sort of UN nation building relief. Christ! Especially when you factor in the horrid decline of the American economy.
Too much sitting on my ass has obviously got me thinking in hyperbolic, apocalyptic terms. I know that my foot isn't the end of the world, and I'll be back at things in no time. And I know that it's a rough spot in terms of several relationships in my life, but that will change, too.
As I've had my feet kicked up, resting over the past little bit, I've had a chance to try to spend my time in novel ways. I don't know if I've ever spent so many consecutive days in Boulder, or if I've thrown a big dinner party in all my time here in town.
Over July 4th, I threw a party at the house where I've been crashing. My friends who own the place were out of town, and were more than generous with the suggestion that I make myself at home. This house is by far the nicest place I've occupied while I've been in Boulder, as it's actually a single family home with room to entertain, as opposed to a studio apartment with minimal light and David Gray quietly crooning from an iPod dock. I cranked up some livelier tunes, fired up the grill and had a posse to the domicile.
My buddy Dan, a total foodie when not obsessing over rocks, met me at the farmer's market and helped me gather some supplies. At the time, I was still on crutches, so his help was appreciated. First, he was coming up with great menu ideas, and picking up appropriate ingredients for the bruschetta, beet green salad, and snap pea risotto. Equally important, he was schlepping the foodstuffs through the street market and letting me crutch around unhindered. After we got all we needed, we headed back home to prep.
We'd stuffed the fridge with two cases of beer and had a half a case of wine ready for consumption. In addition, I asked most the guests to bring a bottle or six pack to add to the arsenal. Knowing we'd have such a vast quantity of BTU's of alcohol, we needed to have some serious food to offset the inebriation, or we'd be facing WWIII in my borrowed casa.
We marinated chicken and shrimp, made three pounds of sweet pea, onion, and celery risotto, grilled corn, baked yam fries, and stirred up two different salads. And yet, by the end of the night, I was dancing to hip hop with my oxford shirt unbuttoned. It's not really gangstah when you're holding a bottle of riesling. At least I didn't pull the fire alarm like my buddy Dave did back at his apartment complex.
Having a ton of friends over proved to be a really nice way to spend the weekend. It was tough, though, because many of the guests were climbers. I overheard plenty of plans made for bouldering in Rocky Mountain National Park or trips to Rifle, and simmered with jealousy. I'd just have to sit back with a little coconut gelatto and bide my time until I could reenter the game.
Side notes:
My cousin is in flight training for the US Air Force. He'll be blogging about his experiences, and he did go to Harvard, so I assume he can write. Check out Michael Arth's blog here if you're interested.
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