The weekend that was

Between dinner at The Pot Luck Club and Gallery on Friday night (hands down the best meal I've ever eaten in my life), nine solid hours of gin at Tjing Tjing bar on Saturday night, and a garden party that included Beach Party yesterday ... well, let's say, I don't remember much of the weekend that was, apart from that it was amazing.

A year, six months, who's counting?

So, as of this morning, it's official: I am now heavier than I've ever been in my life.

This I attribute to:

• Slacking off on any real exercise while my knee's out of action
• Eating like a motherfucker
• Drinking like the same

Of course, given that being at my official highest weight ever means I can no longer fit into my jeans, something really needs to be done.

And done today.

I think, if I lost 10 kilos by next summer, I may finally achieve that blissful state of being happy with my body. Six months should do it, right? Therefore, by 26 September 2012, I will be 10 kilos lighter than I am today.

And since I can't go on Jolly Mollies, or get liposuction, or send myself on some three-week detox retreat, I suppose instead I shall go about it the old-fashioned way: eat less, exercise more, try not to spend every weekend at the bottom of a bottle of wine.

Sounds reasonable right? I'll keep you posted.

Sand, sand, everywhere

So in keeping with the idea of 2012 being a year of new experiences, I signed Le Boyfriend and myself up for a sandboarding trip a little while ago, and we finally got around to it on Saturday morning.

Now, I'm not a total clutz, but I'm also not the kind of girl who, when you look at me, you automatically think 'adventure sports lover', so this was always going to be an interesting morning in the dunes. While Le Boyf got the hang of standing up speeding down a dune strapped to a plank quite quickly, I bit the sand at least three times before I mastered it. There's a somewhat amusing video of my more spectacular bail out, too.

Of course, once I'd figured out how to do it, I didn't want to stop. The problem then, is that dunes, unlike ski slopes, do not have chair lifts. Which means that after 20 awesome seconds of hurtling down the sand (upright, for a change), you need to hike your way back up to the top of a soft sand dune to do it again. Which at the time didn't seem too terrible, but your quads know all about it the next morning. I'm still having trouble with stairs. Lord only knows how I'm going to manage my strengthening session at Sports Science at lunchtime.

But enough with the whining. Sandboarding was, all in all, really pretty rad. Radder still, was showering afterwards. A windy day in the dunes (yes, okay, and tumbling down them with your ankles over your head a couple time) means you have sand in all kinds of special places, where one should never have sand. Getting undressed (which I did standing in the bath) produced my own personal beach. I'm pretty sure there's still a grain lodged somehwere behind my right eyeball, and I keep accidentally winking at people while trying to dislodge it.

After my Pity Party Tuesday, it's now officially No Negativity Wednesday.

And in keeping with the theme of today, I have decided to spend the day looking on the bright side (regardless of how annoying I usually find endlessly optimistic people).

So, today, instead of being frustrated at my inability to find The Perfect Flat, I will instead focus on being happy that I can finally afford to live on my own, in somewhere that isn't a hole.

Instead of being all bleak about my knee injury, I will instead be happy that's it's fixable and doesn't require surgery.

Instead of being bleak that I couldn't make quiche last night because I seem to be the only person who doesn't know that shortcrust pastry comes frozen and needs to be defrosted before being used (Jade's foray into cooking), I will instead be happy that it means I'll be having quiche tonight instead. (I realise this quiche obsession seems a tad odd, but someone made it for me, it was super delicious, apparently it's super easy to make, and it will mean that I have officially cooked something other than popcorn or toast in 2012. So there.)

Still creaky

Okay so I was going to post today about the absolute awesomeness that was Two Door Cinema Club on Saturday night (also, the absolute drunkenness) but since you've probably read about it on every other Capetonian blogue there is, I've decided instead to have a little pity party.

Yes, lucky you.

Remember how I said I had to stop running because of the pain in my knee? And how super bummed I was? Well, it now seems my double-jointed hyperflexed spastic joints have absolutely nothing to do with the pain after all.

Hooray!

Not so much.

Turns out that my tiny little bit of running training was, in the words of Dr van der Merwe at Sports Science – that's Dr Knee to the rest of the medical profession – 'a little too much, too fast'. Which is ridiculous, because, really, if I had been building up any slower, I would have been running backwards.

Anyway, he gave my knee bits a squeeze, declared I probably had garden variety runner's knee as a result of thinking I was an athlete when I so clearly am not (no, not his actual words) and then dispatched me for an MRI to confirm. And while I was having a jolly time in my MRI cage and enjoying a little lie down in the middle of the work day, it never crossed my mind that when we looked at the images later he would say:

'Oh. You've done some real damage there. See that dark spot? Your bone is bleeding.'

Yeah. I didn't know bone could bleed either.

'So that's bad?'

'It's pretty bad.'

'So no running?'

'No running.'

'So no gym?'

'No gym.'

'No, um, no dancing?'

'See that dark spot there?'

'Fine.'

Pause

'How about Pilates?'

'How badly do you need to stretch Jade? How badly, really?'

'Fine.'

Sucks to be me, right?

Anyway, so now I have to see a biokineticist three days a week for six weeks, and try to conceal the fact that I need to rehearse for our show in April (and, oh yeah, perform in the show) which will require a vast amount of pointing, jumping, stepping, bending and generally throwing my body around all over the floor.



Note Boyfriend had just informed me that apparently bleeding of the knee bone is somewhat common. He also reminded me about the 30th birthday party we attended laaaast Saturday where the host tried to kick the chandelier, tore all the ligaments in his knee and will be on crutches for months. And then he reminded me about his colleague who on Thursday tore her meniscus playing action cricket. So I guess the message there is, Dutchman up Jade. A little bleeding bone never hurt anyone.