One lucky punk

News from home: Clint Eastwood’s new movie, “The Mule,” is being filmed in Augusta, Georgia, which apparently looks like Detroit in the post WWII era.

Here’s what Variety had to say about the movie:

[“The Mule]” is based on a 2014 New York Times Magazine feature by Sam Dolnick and follows Earl Stone (Eastwood), a man in his 80s who is broke, alone, and facing foreclosure of his business when he is offered a job that simply requires him to drive — easy enough. But unbeknownst to Earl, he’s signed on as a drug courier for a Mexican cartel, and also hit the radar of hard-charging DEA agent Colin Bates (Cooper).

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/bradley-cooper-clint-eastwood-the-mule-1202788236/

Since Clint Eastwood is 88, it’s possible it will be his last movie. It’s also Karen’s first. Yes, my aunt in Augusta is going to be an extra, playing a horticulturist at a meeting that the protagonist attends. She answered a casting call, and, being a gardener herself, is already being typecast.

Karen follows in the footsteps of her Golden retriever, Butter, who has appeared in print ads for Mahindra Retrievers: https://mahindrausa.com/sites/default/files/tractor/pdf/Mahindra_2018RetrieverBrochure_0218_LR_0.pdf (Butter is the blonde.)

I think it’s fantastic. I love Clint Eastwood’s movies (Coincidentally, I watched "Absolute Power" this week) and find it funny that Karen has yet another talent and another thing on her to-do list. Her scene will be in the opening part of the movie. I’ve no idea when it’s due out; she’s filming her part in June.

Here, I am not really counting the days but feel the departure date creeping close. I’ve been really busy over the weekends sightseeing but this particular one went off the rails.

I needed to work on Saturday morning and suggested 8 a.m. to start, which was readily agreed upon. The project wasn’t supposed to take long, so I had delusions of getting home around 11, stopping really quick at the street market and hitting the gym before returning to the area of the office and cooking for part of our security team. There’s one woman who’s done it on her own once a month forever, but this month we have some guests, so I offered to help. The plan was to get there at 3 p.m. and start frying chicken, eat around 5 p.m. I figured I’d be home around 7 p.m.

Well, nothing worked out. The contractors, whom I really didn’t think would be there at 8 a.m. but I figured around 9 a.m. for sure, arrived about 10:30, and the “couple of hours” project was still going at 3:30, but at that point someone else offered to take over, so I headed to the building to jump in with the cooking, but the coordinator wasn’t there yet.

Around 5:30, I was wondering if she really meant Sunday, but as the people to be fed assured me it was Saturday, she finally arrived – she’d been cooking the side dishes at the house and got behind. At that point, we thought we were ready, but then we had issues getting the cooker to work. The American propane connector, on the cooker, didn’t want to work with the Turkish gas tank, so we ran back for a turkey fryer, which took forever. Basically, I thought I was going to be home at 7 p.m. but we didn’t even start cooking the chicken until after that.

But when it was all said and done, the chicken was awesome; I brought an extra piece home for lunch. Cornbread too. Man, she thought of everything. Talk about feeling lucky!

Today, I’d planned on doing more sightseeing – I’m running out of weekends – but after getting home after 10 p.m and skipping the gym yesterday, I decided to just play homebody today. I hit the gym, pool and sauna, then took a short nap before pulling myself out of bed.

A friend is coming this weekend so I have to clean; I feel staying home was a smart move. I’m on the second load of laundry and have run to one store but the street market calls.

No real feel on what we’re going to do this weekend. This is one of those visitors who’s not so much in it as Istanbul as a destination but more of a “I need a peaceful break” kind of thing. There will undoubtedly be some sightseeing (I will use anyone/anything as an excuse to go to the Galata Tower area!) but for the most part, it’s going to be chillaxing by the pool – and possibly catching “Han Solo” at the theater. That, more than anything, would make my day.

Get moving

Get shopping at the Grand Bazaar

It’s a great time now in Istanbul – our movement restrictions got lifted, so we are free to move about the city. And man, what a city!

Coincidentally, a friend came to visit the weekend after we got the green light, so I was able to go and play tourist. We visited the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Galata Tower and the Grand Bazaar, plus this quirky place called “The Museum of Innocence.” Later, I hit up the Pera Museum and Topkapi Palace.

Istanbul is just amazing. There is so much to do here, and I really hope I can make a dent in the list before I leave post.

My big errand over the weekend was to take the rug I bought in Morocco to be fixed. I bought it used and it had been unraveling at one end since I got it. It was only around $25 or so, but it’s got sentimental value since it’s a Peace Corps acquisition.  I took it to the same rug guy whom I’ve bought three rugs from. He’s going to fix it and I have to pick it up next weekend. This means I get another run at the Grand Bazaar, too, which is awesome.

Galata Tower. My favorite area.

Since the rug is heavy and bulky as heck, I plan on that being the last thing I do on Saturday. That morning, I’m hoping to do a little Bosporus ferry “cruise.” It’s not a cruise in that it’s a touristy thing with booze or anything. Well, they have those, but I’m not doing that. Instead, there is a public ferry and it makes a good handful of stops after it departs the Sea of Marmara area and then finally finishes up at the mouth the Black Sea two hours later. I forget the name of the city – I reckon I’ll have to figure that out before I leave – but you’re there for a couple of hours before you head home on the ferry. You have time to either head up to the Rumeli Fortress or you can just wander around the little city and then have a great seafood lunch. I’ve done it before and am looking forward to doing it again.

I am just so lucky to be posted here. There are so many options, whether you stay in Istanbul, wander around Turkey or leave town. Hopefully, I can hang around town for the most part before I leave. It’s really mind boggling how much there is to see and do.

Look closely at the pattern.

My favorite area is the Karakoy area surrounding the Galata Tower. There’s a street that’s got some fun shopping, not entirely touristy, and it goes straight downhill to the bridge. I could walk up and down it all day long, although I learned after a couple trips that there’s what’s called a funicular that will take you up the hill and then you stroll down, looking at the music stores, leather places, funky clothing stores and all kinds of random stuff, and you can get freshly squeezed pineapple or pomegranate juice on the way. As far as I’m concerned, it’s paradise.

As is the whole city.

When the whole goal is half

One of Istanbul’s half marathons was a couple weeks ago, and I made it a goal to participate. Again, I’m not going to pretend I was going to run the whole thing, but I intended to finish. My No. 1 goal was not to die. I felt I met that one, although once I got home I swigged Airborne after a cup of hot chocolate. It was 55 (tops) and cloudy and windy. Just awful weather in which to be outside. I felt worse on this one from the get-go than any of these yet. Getting minimal sleep the night before didn't help. But I did it! 

 

I got home and soaked in a hot bath with a cup of hot chocolate.

BUT my ultimate goal was do it in under 2:45, and I came in at 2:42:48 so I'm thrilled. The bad thing for the competitor in me if that since I felt so awful and the weather was terrible, I know I can do better. I do NOT need to do another of these things. 

Usually, I can run about 2km before needing to walk. Last race, I went 3k before needing to catch my breath. This time, I barely made it to the 1k mark and I started doing this pattern of once I hit a marker, I'd run until whatever song was on ended, then walk (briskly) for an entire song, then run. That worked pretty well. My walk, seriously, is not slower than my jog. A couple of places the markers were on a slope so I kept going, but once I got to the 20 I had to pull up mid-song. It finished on a slight incline and I had to walk from the 300 to the 200 meter mark; couldn't even turn it on at the end, which I usually do. Going to sit down after it, I almost fell over. I sat down next to some other lady, and I noticed she almost fell over when she stood up.

And Big Brother being what it is, as soon as I sat down I got a text with my time on it. That's scary.

 

But I made it! I am so relieved to have finished it. I know I could do better, because I hadn’t been “training” much since I’m still doing physical therapy on the shoulder.

Yeah, that’s not fun. First, it irritates me to pay someone to watch me lift weights, the same weightlifting I would be doing in the gym if I wasn’t in the physical therapy place. I’m just tired of it.

I’m also concerned it’s not working because the same movements hurt of just feel weird. I had a follow-up appointment, though, and the surgeon assures me it’s OK. He also suggested swimming, which was good since I started doing that the day before he said I could.

It gives a different type of resistance, so that’s good. He told me to do the over-the-shoulder swim method, which I never do and now I don’t like doing it because it hurts! I’ve been trying to experiment with stretches  and holy cow, I have done something twice that has caused more pain than I can ever remember being in.

One happened when I was doing some kind of butterfly-ish backstroke. I held my hands together at the top of my head to stretch and I swear, I felt stuff rip. Apparently, this is what was supposed to happen but man, it hurt.

Yesterday, in another move, something like that happened again. You know what it sounds like when you pull up a weed that has a bunch of little roots? That’s the sound.  It hurt so bad I screamed, but once it was over, the pain stopped. However, I was not even remotely tempted to try that move again. I just could not believe the pain.

I guess is normal. I’m supposed to go back to the surgeon in another week for another checkup.

In other news, I’m down to about two months here and am trying to get started on the get-ready-to-move process. Trying to sell my car. It's a POS and the odds of selling it in the consulate are slim since I am departing before most people arrive. Per the customs guy's suggestion, I listed it on what's basically Istanbul's Craigs List.

Oh my. Ad in English, specify it's diplomat-owned and owner needs to be eligible for duty-free purchase. Specify I'm a foreigner and don't speak Turkish. 

My phone has run off the hook. Not a one speaks English. At work, a friend helped me but they continued until 11:30 last night --- I stopped answering them. It is a nightmare. For those who grab, for example, a broken English-speaking uncle and ask me details of the sale, I don't know since that's why I put the "diplomat-owned" and "must be eligible for duty-free purchase in it." If you are not one of these, I cannot explain what you can do, as I have no clue.

The customs guy sent me a paragraph in Turkish explaining who's eligible so I've Whatsapped it, and I've sent pictures to many. (One guy, who spoke zero English, called me baby and, after sending 14 photos of the car to him, he responded "picture yourself?" I blocked him.)

I've had Google Translate open and I've tried to answer questions, but I just don't understand some of it. And when I run "I don't understand, please call tomorrow so someone can help translate" into Google and run it back, they follow up with more questions in Turkish.

I have no idea how this will go down. In the two weeks or so I’ve had it listed, I’ve probably had 200 calls/texts or emails. I guess only blocking three of them so far isn’t such a bad track record.

A nice prelude to Easter!

Last week, I took a tour to the three Baltic states. It’d been planned for awhile, as I wanted to take off one more week before departing Istanbul. I usually try to go somewhere for my birthday but couldn’t swing that week. I have a project I work that eats up April and May, and since I leave at the end of June, it seemed like the last week in March would be perfect. When I planned it, I had no realization that Easter would be on April 1, the day the tour ended and I’d head home, but it was available for the Baltics, my preferred destination.

The other thing I hadn’t realized was how dang cold it would be there at the time. This dawned on me months before I left, but certainly had no impact on booking the tour. The silly thing was, the “Stans” are also on my list but I was pretty sure they’d be too cold. So although I considered weather when booking, I didn’t consider it enough.

Still, I did fine in packing. Three pairs of pants (one lined Redhead pair of jeans, the other two LL Bean), one pair of long johns courtesy of Eddie Bauer, three LS button-down shirts and three LS T-shirt-ish shirts, plus the wonderful LL Bean coat I got for living in North Dakota. Normally, I don’t pack more than a pair of shoes but threw in boots at the last minute (also LL). Debated the snow boots but am glad I didn’t opt for that. Was fine with the clothes, plus the hat, gloves, scarf and whatever those things are that are wide tubes of fabric you can use as hats, scarves or what-have-you. I got on in Helsinki and it was perfect.

We met in Vilnius, which I still cannot say, in Lithuania, which I still have trouble spelling. I’d researched airport transport before, which was pretty much the extent of my research for the trip, and paid a whole euro to get from the airport almost directly in front of the Radisson Blu we were meeting at.

The tour, run by Baltic Visions, was perfect for what I was looking for. I missed the get-together the evening before because my flight was a little later than everyone else’s; they all had long journeys. We only had nine people because it was basically offseason, so that was cool. There were three singles, me, a guy from Brisbane, Australia; a stereotypical New Yorker I had my fill of by Thursday; a young Australian couple from Canberra; an older Irish couple from Dublin and a mother-and-daughter from Germany. The daughter was older than me, and the mom didn’t speak English, but everyone else did. I can’t imagine flying from Australia for just one week anywhere; the couple had gone something like Canberra-Perth-Doha-somewhere else – Vilnius. The single guy, who was a physical therapist, was traveling in the region for the following week, so that wasn’t so bad. But boy, that is a long, long way to go for a week.

The routing was Vilnius-Riga-Tallinn with a couple of sightseeing stops on the travel days. It was nice to be in Christian countries around Easter, and I was able to go into churches celebrating Easter. I couldn’t understand a word, but I spent the night before Easter in some cathedrals listening to music, seeing weird rituals (a priest going through the standing crowd – no chairs – chanting and waving smoke at people) – and just being at peace.

My favorite stop, which I had no idea about before I booked the trip, is this site in northern (I think) Lithuania called the Hill of Crosses.

Here’s a link to the history of it: https://sacredsites.com/europe/lithuania/hill_of_crosses.html

“The tradition of placing crosses dates from [the 1200s] and probably first arose as a symbol of Lithuanian defiance of foreign invaders. Since the medieval period, the Hill of Crosses has represented the peaceful resistance of Lithuanian Catholicism to oppression. “

In case the name wasn’t clear enough, it’s literally a hill that is filled with crosses people have put up. And by “crosses,” I mean thousands upon thousands. One university class attempted to count them but stopped when they hit 100k. In a small area, there might be one big cross that has smaller crosses and rosaries hanging off the T part and then scores of smaller ones planted at the base. It’s a combination of spiritual, peaceful, eerie with a good dose of “wait, isn’t this just litter?” thrown in.

It’s a little walk off the highway, and you go under an overpass to get there. On the parking side of the overpass, there are several booths where you can pay 1E for a little cross, maybe six inches high, with a spear to spike it in the dirt. As you walk through the site, you can see them starting to decompose when you look closely at the bottom layer.

Stuff made of wood was big in the Baltics; driving through, it’s forest upon forest. Stupidly, I did NOT buy a cross at the Hill of Crosses. They had the little cheap ones to plant, sure, but I didn’t want that. I collect nice ones but I have to also like them. It’s not like “Oh, I’m here; I need a cross so let me just grab … this one.” I have to like it, and the only one I saw there was pretty dang expensive, so I didn’t buy it, reasoning that since there was wood stuff everywhere, I’d eventually find one. No. Oh well.

Still, it was my favorite part of the tour, even though it was basically just a 30-minute stop. A very good place to just stop and reflect.

Ahead of the deadline

April 15 is a big day in my world. It’s the end of my employer’s rating period, which signals a month of frantic writing of evaluations.

They’re horrible things, really, and a great exercise in both quasi-fiction and writing around topics. If our EERs – what we call these things – were movies, they’d be “inspired by real events.” A few could be classified “based on a true story” but barely any are hardcore documentaries.

If anything comes good out of anything you were involved in – even loosely or peripherally involved in – you can take full credit. If you didn’t sign the contract, you “contributed.” Doing nothing but showing up and nodding can be defined as “contributing.” Even if you as an individual did absolutely nothing but boss and order people around for 365 days, you are able – and even encouraged – to take the credit of what they accomplished.

It’s really sickening because the people who read these things base promotions off of them. Since people aren’t honest and embellish up the wazoo, these things sound phenomenal and louses get promoted. It’d be nice to see people write, “Soandso so is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year” when Soandso is an idiot and didn’t do a damn thing all year. Instead, they’re scared of getting sued so it comes out more like, “Soandso gets along well with her peers and subordinates and her section has accomplished X, Y and Z during this rating period.” Except there’s also a comma after “Y” because we have to use the Oxford comma.

That’s another thing about these. The junior officers are so freaked out over them that they really believe something like the use of the Oxford comma, using two spaces vs. one after sentences or spelling out what “TDY” will make a difference between getting tenured/promoted or not.

Seriously, people, if your promotion depends on putting a comma after the “white” in “red, white and blue,” do you really want to work there?

Me, I just don’t care. I’ve written how I liked and barely made any suggestions to the other two people who have to “rate” and “review” me and I’ve done fine. I just don’t think it’s worth stressing over. It’s really amazing the amount of time spent on these. There are people who have to write 15+ of these things (my Guanghzou bosses were on the hook for 25 or so every year) and that’s a giant time suck, especially when you get high-maintenance officers who want to control every word of what two other people write. It’s painful, and parts of the department shut down for two months to work on them. My first big boss literally blocked off four hours of each day for over two months to write them. Nothing else gets done.

Since my job is to push these through the HR process, it also will take up much of my day from here until May 15, the deadline. My goal is to get mine done and then get out the whip to crack on everyone else.

I’m very much into getting the pain over with, and that goes for the other April deadline as well. Taxes are just horrible. This year hasn’t been fun. I don’t understand the new tax laws – I never do – but between the fact that the charitable check I write annually didn’t clear until January 2018 and that I got a promotion, I got socked with paying four digits instead of getting back anything. I’m not sure how it happened but it’s really annoying.

What is also annoying is tax software. I’ve used TurboTax for 10-15 years and have been fully satisfied with it, but last year they dumbed it down. I think using the phone/tablet software things have made things so much worse. I hate scrolling and miss having it all on one page. TurbotTax has done that in spades. It’s just a series of “duh” questions that aren’t relevant with cutesy responses.

I hate clicking just to click and that's all TurboTax is now. It takes forever to get through a single subject. To answer one question, you go through a series like this:

Let's see if this applies to you click we'll ask you some questions click are you ready click are you sure click ok click here's option one click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option two click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click here's option three click how do you answer click are you sure of your answer click one last chance to verify your answers click are you sure click do you want to review your answers click are you sure click ok, are you ready for the answer click here it is click do you like the answer click great! Click.

And then you get to No. 2. It’s lather, rinse, repeat and it’s made a laborious process even more laborious.

This year I cut the cord and moved to H&R Block. It cut the clicks by maybe 30 percent. Still a PITA, and I had to pay slightly more in taxes but it was worth it to cut the clicks. I’m just glad it’s over with.

Signs of old age, I guess

Happy birthday to me! I’m now officially on the road to 50 and just hope I make it.

For my No. 49, and this was premeditated, I celebrated – or whatever the right word would be – in Acibadem hospital, getting my shoulder fixed. Not the same shoulder I got fixed two years ago; the one I hurt picking up a jacket.  No kidding. My suede Timberland jacket fell off my chair at work last year and, when I went to pick it up, an evil gremlin ripped it out of its socket, twisted it and then crammed it back in.

It’s been over a year, several topicals, a shot, steroids, a couple MRIs, X-rays, PT, two cortisone shots and more PT, and finally it came down to surgery. And at that point, after all that, to think I could really be on the road to recovery in a day, well, that was a birthday present. I found out I’d need the surgery last week but they couldn’t get me in until Saturday. I was fine with that.

So for my birthday, I headed up to the hospital, decked in green. I got a lot of weird stares. Oh well.

The hospital, someone at work told me, was like a six-star hotel. I gotta say, it was really swanky. There was a room service menu, but I couldn’t eat anything prior to surgery. Gosh, that’s the worst. I couldn’t eat or drink from midnight to surgery time, which meant 12 and a half hours. No tea for 12 ½ hours – that’s criminal. And I was just so hungry!

There was a giant clock above he TV and I was just counting down until I went under so I didn’t have to think of how hungry and thirsty I was. Finally they took me to the room, which didn’t seem like an OR to me. It had a bunch of equipment in it and I felt like it could have been a warehouse except everything was clean. I almost expected more people to be in surgery at the same time; there was that much equipment.

Anyway, they put me under intravenously. Took no time at all. When I woke up, some two hours later, I was just shaking uncontrollably, but I guess that was normal. No one looked panicked, and there were a bunch of people there.

Back in my room, I was still thirsty more than hungry but when the guy brought food I got hungry again. He brought two meals; I guess because I missed lunch. I had both soups but only the roasted chicken meal. Felt so much better after that.

Everyone in the hospital was nice, but you can’t get a lot of rest with people checking up on you constantly. One person kept coming to ice my shoulder and another would do the IV thing.

I hate the IV thing. It’s preferable to needles going in and out; I get that.  But the idea of a needle living under my skin just gives me the heebie jeebies, It limited me more, too, because I had on arm immobilized and a needle in my other. I couldn't hold the phone to my ear at all.

I was mobile, but when they had the IV hooked up, it was a pain. You think grocery carts have bad wheels? They had nothing on this. I had to drag it from here to there and it would just get stuck on one of the bad wheels. I even resorted to just picking it up but since I had a needle in that arm it creeped me out. I really didn’t want to drop I and rip the needle out of my arm, so I mostly drug it, feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The rounds continued through the night so I didn’t get a lot of sleep but I haven’t been in real pain yet. One of the IVs was a painkiller but they didn’t send me home with any drugs. The doctor said to just take Advil.

After a tiny breakfast of a piece of pineapple – no tea, no milk, no toast – and the an amazing lunch of salmon, potatoes au gratin and chocolate cake, I got the OK to leave. I was still trying to find out some details and I was walking to the nurses’ station to ask when I saw a lady with tea. She must have caught a glimpse of the look on my face because she offered me some. Did I want tea? Of course!

Now I’m home and doing fine. I have a sling more complicated than one of Wendy’s saddles and a massive ice pack. Playing work by ear but plan on going just out of sheer boredom.

Right now, though, I am curled up with Butch and Sundance.

Running out of time

 I’m down to about four months left here in Istanbul. One some days, I can give an exact account. That tends to happen on bad days at work. Last time that happened, it was 115 days, so it’s less than that. On *really* bad days, I can tell you the number of working days left.

That’s going to change. Well, obviously the number will, but I did the counting thing before scheduling a handful of days off. I have a ton of leave and after the end of June, I won’t be able to take annual leave until 2019, so I need to burn some.

Absolutely no idea.
These guys were in our Antalya 10k hotel
lobby - some kind of promotion.

That means I get to do my favorite thing: plan trips. I’m stepping into the AirBnB waters for a couple of upcoming ones. In the days of Peace Corps, I did CouchSurfing but haven’t tried this yet. As Leila and I are looking forward to a week in Switzerland in 2019 and AirBnB seems cheaper than hotels, so we’re looking to that for options. I figured trying now might work.

There’s a week off I’ve been planning for months. Well, I’ve done very little planning; I’m doing a package tour of the Baltics. It’s going to be so very cold, but I was kind of limited. The other week trip I wanted to plan would have been colder – the Stans. That gets saved until later.

Anyway, the Baltics still isn’t for a bit, but it’s the next one scheduled and I tried to do some pre-packing today. The weather will necessitate a lot more clothes. A backpack won’t suffice for that one.

In an effort to check off more countries, a couple more trips will be the kind where you fly into one place and then figure out transport to another, where you have your outgoing flight. There are two of those coming up, and they’re the ones I’m doing with AirBnB. My hope is that my hosts will be able to point me to a bus schedule or something.

As amazing as Turkey is, I feel like I’ve done the stuff that I want to outside of Istanbul. Inside Istanbul, that’s another story but I’m kind of limited here. However, there’s one more trip I would do if I could: the Seven Churches of Revelation. I have two more weekends blocked off and could do it but I have to work out some logistics.

Even with the planned time off, I’m down to under 100 days, I suppose. It’ll speed up (and slow down) down the road, but I have another thing that might take me out for more: shoulder surgery. Yeah, that tune again. Different shoulder this time.

A little over a year ago, I dropped my jacket at work and went to pick it up. It was like you pulled my shoulder out of socket, twisted it and stuck it back. Now, first, I was stupid to not immediately jump to legalese and crap and file a workers’ comp claim. I was at work, and I did get injured in the workplace, not that the injury is in any way related to my job. But I didn’t do that, so no sense in mourning it.

 I just have a thing for boats.

What has aggravated me since is by four months after the injury, when it wasn’t getting any better, I figured I’d need surgery. However, the medical rigmarole is just as bad here as in America. It’s now over a year later and I’ve seen something like six doctors. I’ve had creams, anti-inflammatories, rice, some kind of shot, steroids, a round of PT, two MRIs, X-rays, two cortisone shots and another, longer round of PT. It’s not any better. I mean, it’s better than it was, say, six months ago, but it’s not any better than a after the injury itself. It’s one of those random ones that it is fine when I do “this,” “this” or “this.” It’s only when I do “that” that it hurts, and it’s not like a little tweak – it’s a world of pain.

I’m at the surgery step now, but it’s never that easy. The hospital doesn’t take my insurance, and even though I can file afterwards, I have to somehow pay up front. So far, I don’t know how much it will be, but my problem is that I live and die by AmEx and it’s not called “American” Express for a reason. Not accepted here. But it’s just an annoying detail and I’m going to get this done as soon as I can. Unfortunately, it requires an overnight.

It’s the recovery that’s going to be a PITA. More PT, yah. Groan. I’m told it will be six weeks before I can lift my arm over my head, but I can start doing the hang-down PT the day after. What I don’t want to mess up is the preparation for my next goal: a half marathon.

I realize when I ran the 10k in Siem Reap a couple of years ago that would likely be my only one. Well, I’ve done maybe 3-4 of those (one last weekend in Antalya – those are the photos), a 14k and a 15k. I want to do this. I am totally realistic in that it will take me 2:45, but I’m fine with that. I just want to do it. (Remember, I don’t use the term “run a race.” I say “participate in a 10k.” I’m not racing anyone.)

I'm liking the B&W settings for pictures.
Everything looks better in B&W.
Well, maybe not the sci-fi couple above. Red's their color.

The shoulder thing, as well as the week off, is going to hamper my training, but that’s really sort of an informal thing anyway. I don’t properly train any more than I warm up or stretch afterwards. (Which might explain the leg cramps, but whatever.) Some guy at work temporarily was a marathoner and he suggested that what I should do is over the weekends is to extend my regular 12k-ish run, so I did that this weekend. I ran 14k on Friday night, 15k on Saturday morning and 16k this morning.

There’s still so much I want to see in Istanbul, or see again. It took one of our temporary workers out yesterday and we ate fresh see bass and some kind of mussel, then took a bus to one of the walking areas. After the morning run, I walked another 7k. I really think my calves should be like steel by now. I also bought some little touristy things, but it now occurs to me that I don’t yet have a magnet that says “Istanbul” on it. I have 2-3 from Turkey, but nothing specifically from Istanbul. Oh well.