Summertime in Sonoma County

We've had a veritable Goldilocks spring...sometimes cold and rainy, sometimes scorching hot, but for the moment summer has arrived, and it is just right. The umbrella is up, the sky is blue without a cloud in it and if you look carefully, Spike has sought out the shade under the umbrella, the table and the chair all at once without losing his Kong.

I think, with the help of a quarter inch heel lift, that I have conquered, or at least gotten a handle on some lower back and hip pain as my body adjusted to a new knee. The heel lifts aren't permanent and I'm hoping that I won't need them after awhile. Working on stamina now....

There is another woman in my Pilates class who had a TKR in December. We probably could have talked and compared experiences for a lot longer but the next class was starting and we had to leave. She said she still feels like she has an Ace bandage wrapped around her knee. Mine feels the same way. Another woman was standing by who acted as a little rooting section. I think she still has her own knees but she said her husband had both his knees replaced and that it was 'brutal' surgery. Another useful parameter for when to have a replacement...if you can walk for a mile, don't do it. I could do that before surgery and I can do it now, so I'm pretty sure that I won't be doing the other one....

I have been thinking that the city fathers couldn't possibly do anything to make the downtown less inviting. They built a mall across a number of streets in the 80's, effectively cutting off the railroad square area from the downtown area. They took out a road that went through the center of the plaza and 'reunited' the two halves by taking out some old redwood trees and replacing them with metered parking. The entire downtown as well as the mall is covered with acres of parking. The city wants to tear down a multistory parking garage an put an apartment building on it while many lots are very underused. 

Now they want to take out the hand sculpture in front of the entrance to the horrible mall and put in a driveway and more parking for a PF Chang restaurant which is going in there.  I hate the mall (have I mentioned that before?) and I don't love the hand sculpture but at least it's some kind of public art in an otherwise rather dismal place which will not be improved by adding yet more parking. I have to use my car to drive downtown, which I practically never do, but if I can walk few blocks from where I parked my car, just about anybody should be able to.