Little Squirrel Lost, Part II
May. 8th, 2003 10:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonSo, it turns out the little squirrel lived on our porch (second floor, remember) all day yesterday. I saw him flittering about on our porch railing as I was walking home, and oh, it is so cute. The new theory is that it did indeed climb up the 2x4. So, HLM repositioned said 2x4 to stretch between our porch and the next one, but little squirrel didn't really do a full search pattern... it kept simply climbing the porch pillar closest to where it could hear its family. There it would end up frustrated in a kink of the drainpipe, 12 inches from family but unable to get around the metal overhang that extends all around the edges of all the porch. Awwwwwww... so we talked for a while about how best to get it home, and then we pulled out power tools and put a cross-piece on the long 2x4 in such a way that if the squirrel again climbed to the kink in the drain-pipe, it would find the cross-piece very easy to get to... and walk along... up and away from the house... so that from the far end it should have an easy hop to the third porch. It should be like a 4-lane highway to a squirrel. To sweeten the deal we put some pecans on the cross-piece, having read that these are like candy for squirrels. But all this took some time, during which our squirrel hid under the deck of our porch, of course, and when we were done he wouldn't come out and try again. Squirrels keep such early hours! So, this morning at 6:20.... rain, no visible squirrel, but no nuts had been eaten so I think he was still under our deck. HLM will keep watch and tell me what happens.
Yesterday I did a legs-only workout... intended to do it all but I'm starting to feel low-energy from all the not eating. I was very experimental. I did dumbbell squats with a narrow stance, leg presses, stiff-legged deadlifts, one-legged squats of various styles (and hated 'em all... the balancing kind, with the other leg in front, would work best for me if only the opposing psoas could take it, but it always fails)... and then I experimented with a natural glute-ham raise. Failed miserably. So I did them, but just by swaying forward until it felt tight and then coming back. I don't know if that's better or worse than the other thing I might do, namely doing them with a BIG push-up motion to get me back up to where my glutes and hams could take over.
I learned one other interesting thing. We have a crappy leg-press machine that isn't adjustable and thus only lets you do the equivalent of quarter-squats--the legs can't bend very far. For me this is all quads. But my coworker M says he feels that mostly in his butt! This adds to my existing suspicions that I just don't know how to engage my glutes. Every time I walk up stairs I try to start the motion there, but can't always feel it. Hmph. :b
Anyway, today I think I'm the right amount of sore. I can feel my lower back... I hope it's from the SLDLs and not from terrible squat form or something. I really need to settle into a routine, though, so I can get a grip on what's normal for me. It's also completely possible that I should only be doing this once a week. No frickin' idea at this point.
I just got some blank business cards that can be printed on with a laser printer, so today's little project is going to be designing social cards for me and for HLM. I've decided those are cool... you never know when I might decide to radically alter the size of my social circle by meeting a new person, after all, and cards make it really easy to give out one's email address. :)
Yesterday I did a legs-only workout... intended to do it all but I'm starting to feel low-energy from all the not eating. I was very experimental. I did dumbbell squats with a narrow stance, leg presses, stiff-legged deadlifts, one-legged squats of various styles (and hated 'em all... the balancing kind, with the other leg in front, would work best for me if only the opposing psoas could take it, but it always fails)... and then I experimented with a natural glute-ham raise. Failed miserably. So I did them, but just by swaying forward until it felt tight and then coming back. I don't know if that's better or worse than the other thing I might do, namely doing them with a BIG push-up motion to get me back up to where my glutes and hams could take over.
I learned one other interesting thing. We have a crappy leg-press machine that isn't adjustable and thus only lets you do the equivalent of quarter-squats--the legs can't bend very far. For me this is all quads. But my coworker M says he feels that mostly in his butt! This adds to my existing suspicions that I just don't know how to engage my glutes. Every time I walk up stairs I try to start the motion there, but can't always feel it. Hmph. :b
Anyway, today I think I'm the right amount of sore. I can feel my lower back... I hope it's from the SLDLs and not from terrible squat form or something. I really need to settle into a routine, though, so I can get a grip on what's normal for me. It's also completely possible that I should only be doing this once a week. No frickin' idea at this point.
I just got some blank business cards that can be printed on with a laser printer, so today's little project is going to be designing social cards for me and for HLM. I've decided those are cool... you never know when I might decide to radically alter the size of my social circle by meeting a new person, after all, and cards make it really easy to give out one's email address. :)
