Stairs, pasta knees and stupidmares

I just did the stairs again. 

I did them yesterday in a moment of inspiration about how good it would be for me and since they were right by the ladies room, why the heck not?

I clambered up them quite easily. 

I was panting a bit after that but not too bad.  Went back to work at my desk, feeling good about getting a quick bit of exercise. 

Later I had to get up to make a copy and discovered that my knees were a lot like cooked pasta.  I had to move somewhat slowly to avoid the embarrassment of staggering.  My knees stayed like cooked pasta for most of the afternoon.  I went for a mall walk after work to try to work them out and get them back to normal.  Mission was pretty well accomplished by the time I got home last night.

This morning I woke up to aching calves.  Every time I need to stand up and walk I suppress a groan of discomfort.  So I figured, since I was already sore, why not compound that by giving myself pasta knees again? 

So off I gimped to the stairs.  And up the stairs I went!  By the 4^th floor my speed was ok but I was starting to pant.  By the 5^th floor I was moving rather slowly. 

Then I turned around to go back down.  This is the harder part for me.  My knees have never been great for going down stairs.  I screwed them up with torn ligaments back in middle school and they never totally recovered.  I cautiously went back down the stairs, gripping the rail just in case. 

As I went I was praying no one else would come into the stairwell because the echo effect of my heavy breathing might scare them.  Luckily no one else joined me. 

Whew! 

Now I want to tell you about my night last night!

I watched Vikings on the History Channel.  I was horrified by an execution and deeply regretted watching that before bed time.  I’ll admit I spent part of that show with my eyes squeezed shut, peeking to see if it was over yet.  And yet I watched.  I saw too much. 

At least I didn’t have nightmares.  Instead I had stupidmares! 

I dreamt that Ben and I and Ralph Fiennes were walking down a gravel road…it was like historical.  Like I was back in the 20’s or something.  Don’t ask me why I think that.  It just felt that way. 

Ralph stayed behind at some place where he found some old machine that he thought was special.  It looked like an inanimate R2D2 to me but he was terribly excited about it.  Ben & I went on to this “hotel” that looked more like an unpainted prop shanty out of an old western, to wait for Ralph to catch up with us. 

Ben and I started doing shots of whiskey.  I spent most of my time trying to make sure our shot glasses were even.  For some reason it was difficult to do.  I also remember thinking it was probably a bad idea to do whiskey shots first thing in the morning. 

Occasionally my mind would pan back to Ralph Fiennes as he fixed up his stupid machine, cleaning, painting it and putting fresh decals on it and such and looking up to the heavens and laughing with joy.  He was seriously over-emoting.   

Oh, on a side note the “hotel” was supposedly haunted though none of us saw any reason to know that but there it is. 

At least I didn’t dream of hideous executions.  That’s something! 

I was honestly a little bit sad when I woke up this morning.  I kind of liked that dream.