I'm definitely not doing it right, then! I'll have to try and switch my style once I get my mile in under an hour.

IcompletelyON, yesterday, I noticed a light rash appearing on the right half of my chest, starting at my neck and going down to the top portion of my right breast and over to my upper right arm. I've been scratching at it off and on all day today, and was wondering what the hell it could be. Maybe a reaction to something I've been taking since my surgery? Maybe a reaction to the outpatient surgery I had last week? Maybe something I was wearing, or something in the pool?

I called my sister, my expert in all things bariatric, and mentioned it to her, only to find out that she has had exactly the same rash (same part of the body and everything!) since last Thursday. So, we're figuring it's something in the air, even though she's in Vegas and I'm here in Chicagoland. All of us kids have sensitive skin (my brother has horrible excema outbreaks all the time), but this is the first time either Sis or I have had this rash. Guess I'm picking up some hydrocortizone and seeing if that clears it up.

Damn, maybe I can talk to teens and they hear me??

This is an important skill to know you have.

Liese, are you having fun Spring weather? A genealogy contact of mine was at Meteor Crater earlier today with her nieces and posted this:

Before we got to the Meteor Crater we ran into a dust storm and 60-70 mile an hour winds. Tumbleweeds were blowing and looked like rabbits hopping across the highway. When we got to the crater it was spitting rain with ice in it. When we left the crater and got almost to Flagstaff we ran into a blizzard and it snowed 5 inches by the time we got to Williams, Arizona. I don't think I want to take any more trips on spirng break. Last year we went to Florida and almost froze to death at Sea World.

Yup! I am having that apocalypse! It's snowing now; I've got a fire going in the woodstove! I'll have to put up the video we took of the windstorm the other week.

So yeah, not so much on the gardening activities over spring break!

The Biscuit was sprawled in front of the fire all afternoon, and eventually it got low so he came in the other room to get me to stoke it.

I just had my girl's bf say "wow, I need a male version of u!!!" Damn, maybe I can talk to teens and they hear me??

Got any guys you can hook him up with? I figure every teen could use an awesome non-parental but responsible figure.

I am feeling pleased because a friend just called me up and was like "I need a dinner date, you free?" and I was! And it's someone I've been becoming better friends with. So that's yay.

I'm in the middle of the paintball episode right now, and oh, mothereffing gee,

For example, I breathe on the opposite side of my stroke, not under the arm that's stroking forward (IOW, when my right arm is stroking forward, that's when I breathe to my left, and it's always to my left).

No matter how many miles I'd swim, I could only ever breathe on my right side. All efforts to breathe on the left resulted in near drowning. Not sure why. Left handed and all.

Keeping the bum up was always a challenge for me too. Weirdly, stroke paddles helped with that. If I wasn't at the right angle, they'd pop right off.

You all are tempting me to get back in the pool. There is one within visual distance of my front door, but I've never been in it. Somehow, the smell of chlorine takes me back to high school like one of those squiggly screened tv flashbacks and I become immediate tired. And the germs creep me out. But...exercise. It would be good for me, right?

Cleanup on aisle three. I just had Harmon's babies.

Whoa. The design basis for Fukushima Daiichi was to survive a 5.7-meter tsunami and a magnitude 8 quake. The tsunami that hit the site was 14 meters high and the quake was magnitude 9. The reactors and backup generators were 10 to 13 meters above sea level.

They're making progress. They have offsite power run to units 1 and 2, although the most recent update I've seen says they're checking equipment before energizing it. The fire trucks got water into the unit 4 spent fuel pool.

I feel a need to point out that radiation levels in food that exceed government standards does not necessarily mean "dangerous" levels, as the headlines say. Also, there was a burning oil refinery and the waves washed over gasoline, oil, lead and who knows what else. That stuff is much harder to test for, but certainly harmful. The good thing about radiation is that it's easy to detect by anyone. One of my favorite quotes was in an article some years ago about a toxic waste management company. The manager said, "Nuclear waste! I love nuclear waste. If you lose it, you can find it again."

Go, bonny!! I've turned into a mega-advocate for swimming. I feel so damn good after finishing off my laps, and it's the best all-body exercise I can think of. No impact on your joints (although you can whack the hell out of your arms if you don't pay attention to how close you are to the wall!), and if you're sweating, you don't notice it in all the water that surrounds you. (I hate sweating.)

See how much they charge. If it's a community pool, it might not be too bad--mine only charges $69/year for residents, $89 for nonresidents.