Mind games

A big pet peeve of mine-- people who bottle things up until it is too late to do anything to address the problem because it has gone beyond the stage of possibly being fixed before the other party had any idea there even was a problem, or until they explode inappropriately. We had a bit of a bru-ha-ha at the ole homestead this evening over our recent electricity bill. As has been all over the news lately, there has been a huge rate increase for electricity and gas here in Britain. Actually in everything it seems, because they just increased the fare for all public transportation too, as apparently they do every New Years' Day. Argh. But anyway, I recently bought a decent size electric heater at Homebase, which I then left in our lounge until I brought it into work. Our office, which is on an abandoned ward, can be very cold, and we all decided to contribute a few pounds each toward an electric heater. Now, our recent electric bill was pretty high, higher than our gas bill in fact, and someone decided the huge increase from when the bill was last paid in October until now, must have been due to the fact that I'm using electric heaters all the time. And wrote a nasty, accusatory email with offensive language, stating they were not going to pay a full third of the bill when I was the one using so much electricity. I now have an apology, after I gave an explanation of where the electric heater actually lives (as above), but I really don't like this style of communication. There was no reason for this whole thing to ever have been played out with such drama and disrespect, when it could have been dealt with diplomatically face to face. As it eventually was, once everyone was home together tonight-- But the damage had already been done from the awful email earlier in the day. Final tally: it's the electricity company to blame with large rate increase, not any individual in our house using tons and tons of electricity.

Now, this person is not British, but it did get me to reflecting over the past almost year I have lived here... I have found that the British stereotype of being very reserved and not discussing feelings and not bringing up problems until (quite often) it's too late, is still alive and doing very well in Blighty. I've run into this obstacle in several important instances, and it's like banging your head against a brick wall, "If you'd only said something to me, I had no idea!..." Very, very, very frustrating to know a situation might have been avoided or resolved, some compromise reached, if only you had known what the other person was thinking or feeling. Again, this is not to say that every British national fits this stereotype, but you do get to often wishing you were a mind reader over here. Sheesh.

It was a very mild day here today, around 60ish (15 degrees Celsius), which would have made for a nice run, but I'm very much not inclined to run in Leytonstone-- let me just diplomatically say it's not inspiring at all. So it was the treadmill at the gym again for me. However, as a birthday gift, my parents gave me a 3-month subscription to demandfitness.com, which came with a 4th month free. I signed up yesterday, and I must say I am very impressed! Over 150 classes, which include everything from yoga, pilates, fitness ball, ab workouts, cardio workouts, you name it, different levels available for each class, all available on demand via streaming video. Very cool. I'll let you know in a month or so how I'm getting on with it as a supplement to my gym membership!

New shoes

Guess I need a new pair of running shoes. My sneakers have been wet and squeaky, and thus I didn't notice until this morning that you can also hear air rushing in and blowing out every time I step on the balls of my feet. Haha, the race must have done them in. I'm a bit disappointed-- even though it's been a year, and I should be replacing them anyway, I've loved my Nike shox so much, it's a bit of a bummer that they've given out. I've had other sneakers that have lasted longer, but maybe that's what happens with air-cushioned shoes.

Anywho, the play last night was pretty funny. Lots of sexual jokes, which I expected. No audience participation unfortunately, but they did directly address the audience at times, and there was a mix of comedy and tragedy with the tales that they chose to perform (Carpenter, Miller, Knight, Clerk or Oxford scholar, Nun, etc). For a fiver, definitely worth it!!!

pumpkins and steroid shots

Anybody out there dealing cortisone injections? Think my hips could use a couple! Little tip: if you work in rehab, and have tendinitis in your hips, the day after you run a decent-mileage race, you're pretty much useless as far as transfers and manual handling go. So you better have some understanding colleagues who are willing to pitch in, or your dept better have access to an electric standing frame. (Fortunately, my dept has both.) I checked the RunLondon web site today, and the South team won, by an average time of 56 minutes 7 seconds. (North average was 56 minutes 26 seconds.) Booooo-- I ran for North.

I walked home from work, and having decided to skip the gym (on Cecilia's advice, she runs marathons, and said a walk was plenty), stopped in at Tesco's. I have two patients who had to go cold turkey on smoking and drinking as a result of their strokes, one of whom I posted about recently because he was actually a full-fledged alcoholic (the one who freely admits he's got the attention span of a goldfish). As it turns out, he's very good at crosswords, Sudoku, and other word games, and this helps to keep his mind off the drink. Since we're running out of puzzles for him at work, I stopped to get him a cheap book of puzzles, and wouldn't you know it, Halloween is catching on over here. Tesco's had pumpkins for carving, and all kinds of decorations and costumes on display. From what I hear, a few (very few, but still more than none) trick-or-treaters even knocked on our door last year. This is very, very recent, and I wonder why it has so suddenly caught on over here?!

I did it, I did it, oh yeah, yeah, yeah

My hips are none too happy with me, but I did it! The RunLondon 10k in Hyde Park was this morning...apparently something like 30,000 people were there, and I believe it. Way too many people. To call it a madhouse would have been a bit of an understatement. But quite a rush to have a big crowd cheering! Good weather for it too. So now I need to figure out whether I actually want to run a half marathon, and how my hips continue to feel over this coming week will be a big factor.

I was going to treat myself tonight for my accomplishment by watching The Mummy Returns, but it's missing. Again. I brought the DVD over here and it disappeared, and the one roommate who was borrowing my DVDs said she didn't have it. So eventually I re-ordered it on sale, and my mom shipped it over to me. It was a set that also included The Mummy, and The Scorpion King. I just now went to get it out, and my new copy of it has also now disappeared. The other two DVDs are in there, but The Mummy Returns is gone. Very, very weird.