A pain in the ass

Let me tell you a little story. A story about a girl. A girl who liked to run. A girl who ran too much and got tendinitis. Double tendinitis in fact.

OK the girl is me and at 41 I’m not technically a “girl,” although I’m more a girl than I am a boy so let’s not get bogged down in semantics.

Anyway, remember how I mentioned running a lot during all of those nasty lockdowns of 2020-21? Well it turns out that I may have overdone it just a bit, resulting in a constant (and I mean CONSTANT) ache in my left piriformis muscle, which is located deep in the gluteal region and does helpful things like allow the hip to rotate. As a bonus, the sciatic nerve runs right through it. I know this because not only do I have glute pain but I also have sciatic pain! Yay!

The unpleasantness began in early October of 2020. I thought it might go away on its own, so I kept on running. But it didn’t go away, so I stopped running and made an appointment with my GP, or rather, with my GP’s intern, because you can get an appointment to see the intern relatively quickly whereas the GP has a waiting time of about three weeks. Here’s how that went:

Me: My butt hurts.

Intern: Why?

Me: I may have been running too much.

Intern: Run less. Also take Advil.

Me: Is that it?

Intern: Get some insoles. I’ll refer you to a podiatrist.

So off I went to the podiatrist. As it was my first time seeing one, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I couldn’t help wondering what exactly inspires a person to pursue this type of profession though. I mean it’s a little odd, no? Just looking at people’s feet all day? My son likes feet. Maybe one day he’ll be a podiatrist.

Me: My butt hurts.

Podiatrist: Why?

Me: I may have been running too much.

Podiatrist: Show me your feet.

Me: This is going to get weird, isn’t it?

It was weird. I’ve never had anyone take THAT much interest in my feet before. Also he was extremely serious. I kept trying to make jokes to lighten the ambiance, except he clearly didn’t understand them since he kept asking me to repeat myself, thus killing the jokes. Maybe podiatrists don’t laugh. That’s understandable. In the end, he made me some special insoles. They didn’t help. He made me some new ones. The new ones actually made my butt hurt more.

Then I tried my osteopath because she’s competent as well as good-natured, plus I’d been meaning to see her anyway. She did what she could, but said she suspected a DOUBLE tendinitis and that it would be helpful if I consulted a kiné (short for kinésithérapeute – physiotherapist). All French people see the kiné at some point in their lives. It is a very French thing to do. So I made an appointment.

Me: My butt hurts.

Kiné: Why?

Me: I may have been running too much.

Kiné: What part of your butt hurts? How about *here*?

Me: Nah.

Kiné: *Here*?

Me: Sort of.

Kiné: *Here*?

Me: OW!!!

Kiné: I think I know what’s wrong with you. But you should see a sports doctor just to be sure.

I made an appointment with a sports doctor. In Paris. It took half a day. But he was reassuring as well as charismatic, in a 50-something sports doctor sort of way.

Sports doctor: Where are you from?

Me: California.

Sports doctor: I lived in California for a while! I went there to play music.

Me: Cool! Where?

Sports doctor: *Cites unrecognizable and possibly fictional place*

Me: Did you love it?

Sports doctor: Meh.

Me: Meh?

Sports doctor: I need you to take off your pants and lie on this table.

Me: You gonna buy me a drink first or what?

That went OK. He said he was pretty sure what was wrong with me, but that I needed to get an MRI to confirm. So I made an appointment with the specific MRI place he said I had to go to. Also in Paris. Also half a day.

MRI technician: Hi. Take off your pants.

Me: My, aren’t you a straight-to-the-point kind of person?

MRI technician: Is this your first time?

Me: Is this YOUR first time? I hope not because this is costing me €200.

MRI technician: Here, lie on this table and put these headphones on. It’s Queen. Do you like Queen?

Headphones: *WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS…*

MRI technician: I’ll be back in 15 minutes.

Me: What?

I got the full results that night and had to take them BACK to my sports doctor, which meant yet another trip to Paris and yet another half-day gone. He was happy with the results and said they confirmed his opinion that I would need an infiltration (ultrasound-guided cortisone injection). Oh good.

I made an appointment for the injection. Also in Paris. Also half a day.

Technician: Hi. Take your pants off please. The doctor will be in shortly.

Me: Cool, cool.

Doctor: Hi. Which side are we injecting today?

Me: Left.

Doctor: Lie on your stomach, with your head at this end of the table.

Me: Uh … that’s my right side.

Doctor: Oh sorry. You said left, didn’t you?

Me: This is so not worth it.

The shot was 50 shades of weird. First, the doctor was roughly three times my size; he looked like some superhuman German grandpa whose dimensions were not of this world. Second, the technician turned the lights down, creating a soft (i.e. WEIRD) ambiance that could only have been made weirder if he’d put on some smooth jazz. And third, they may have numbed the injection site, but I could still feel the needle itself poking around inside the muscle. It didn’t exactly hurt, but the sensation was not what one might call “pleasant.” At one point, I heard the doctor say something to the technician involving the words “next” and “time,” at which I could only snicker. There will be no “next time,” my dude.

I spent the following day at home, awaiting some crazy effect of painlessness or painfulness. But in the end, it was pretty damn close to how I felt prior to the injection. Hmm. And today, a full week later, I have to report that the result is subtle at best.

You know what I think? I think that, much like parenting a difficult child, there is no real solution other than time. Your average tendinitis lasts 12-18 months. And while my children are finally starting to exit their difficult period, it looks like this particular pain in the ass is going to be sticking around for a while.

Gone viral: part III

Welcome to part III of my lockdown diaries. If you have a little oh, I don’t know, FREE TIME on your hands, part II is available here and part I is available here.

April 6

Amazon delivers a box. This is the highlight of my day—a box! With stuff in it! Stuff for me! Actually, it’s stuff to occupy my kids, but no matter; I bought it, so it’s sort of for me. Deliveries these days are bizarre. When UPS came with our new printer last week, the delivery dude basically threw the box at me and ran off before I could contaminate him or whatever he was so worried about. *cough* 

April 7

In an abundance of completely misguided wisdom, the government decides that there are entirely too many people strolling about during the one hour of exercise we are allowed outside of our homes per day. So they limit exercise to before 10 a.m. or after 7 p.m., which as any common idiot can imagine is ABSOLUTELY going to worsen the problem.

April 8

I go running at 7:01 p.m., along with what feels like half the town. WTF was the government thinking? I do my best to steer clear of everyone, even leaving the trail and running in the middle of the road (“Thanks for the asphalt,” say my knees and ankles). An older woman leaning on a walker glares at me, as though I were the Grim Reaper in the flesh, despite my respecting about 2x the recommended social distance AND holding my breath. Sigh.

April 10

Oh look! Our local authorities have noticed that the whole 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. restriction thing was an epic failure. But have they recanted? Not a chance! Instead they have doubled down, and now my entire neighborhood is encircled in barricade tape to keep folks off the most popular running paths, i.e. the ones that aren’t full of roots, leaves, and rocks. Speaking of barricades, I kind of feel like climbing one. Where’d I put my French flag?

April 12

Christos Anesti! I slip outside early in the morning and hide the 48 plastic eggs that I ordered online last month and spent 30 minutes filling with chocolates before going to bed a few hours ago. I sit in the garden and enjoy the silence. Having an apartment with a garden is an absolute lifesaver and I am incredibly grateful to be able to do this. The kids soon wake up and have a fantastic time racing about collecting the eggs. This feels like a solid win.

Easter Covid-style turns out quite nicely, actually. I tell the children that I am going to church, which these days means disappearing into my bedroom with my laptop and the online worship service of the American Church in Paris, virtual communion included. It’s alternative, but kind of fun! I like the fact that I can hit “pause” to go to the ladies’ room instead of slinking out of the sanctuary through the back door like I would if I were at a physical church.

Later, we go out for our daily stroll, which lo and behold takes us to the very neighborhood where I have an invitation to a “through the fence” wine tasting. We meet a very nice wine merchant, who lets us into his front yard where he introduces us to his wife and two children, who seem elated to meet our two children and the four of them R-U-N-N-O-F-T together immediately, which makes me realize how lonely my kids probably are, and I’m about to start feeling guilty but I can’t because there is a glass of chilled rosé being handed to me and before I know it the four of us are laughing and telling stories and GOOD LORD IT IS SO NICE TO JUST TALK TO ACTUAL PEOPLE! Like not on FaceTime or Zoom or whatever. Actual people. We buy six bottles and I stop just shy of asking them if we can be friends IRL. Come to think of it, I still might.

We head home, where I make a fairly elaborate Easter dinner, complete with hard boiled eggs sculpted into little chickens and again, I feel pretty proud of myself. My son says, “Mom, this is the best Easter I’ve ever had.” Remembering this simple affirmation is the primary reason for my writing this entire post. Our Easter is full of hope indeed. 

April 13

Macron addresses the nation wearing his furrowed, “empathetic” look. No wonder he’s trying to look empathetic—he announces FOUR MORE WEEKS of lockdown. I’m about to go look for anything I can make into a noose when he adds that after these next four weeks, schools will reopen. WADHESAY? So help me, there IS a light at the end of this long-ass tunnel. And that light is called “public school.” 

This really won’t last forever. Imagine that.

Into the woods

France is a sexy place. It has swingers’ clubs, fetish parties and bakeries specializing in penis-shaped bread. It also has the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (emphasis on the “laye”).

We live on the edge of this very forest. From where we are, it looks all green and beautiful. It has bike trails, blackberry bushes, historic landmarks and lots of hikers carrying fancy metal walking sticks—which they really don’t need because this is in no way the El Capitan of forests. It’s leafy and pretty flat. It also happens to be peppered with prostitutes.

Now, France has a long relationship with prostitution, which continues to this day although the circumstances aren’t quite the same. Gone are the brothels, but the prostitutes remain. If you want to find one, many possibilities exist. For those seeking outdoor adventure, there’s the forest of Saint-Germain.

To be a prostitute in the forest, you need a plastic shopping bag. Because racolage (solicitation) is illegal, plastic bags are attached to tree branches along the highway to serve as passive markers for the wandering eye. If you drive through the forest and come across a bag floating from a tree, there will be a prostitute perched fetchingly on a folding chair a few meters into the shrubbery. Sometimes the prostitute is a he, dressed as a she. Sometimes the prostitute is not fully clad, just to make sure that the open for business message is crystal clear.

Drive further on, and you will eventually come to L’Etang du Cora. A lovely pond by day and quite popular with the stroller crowd, it bares another face entirely come nightfall, when swingers, voyeurs and various other libertines take over—which sort of makes one think twice before sitting on any of the pond’s public benches, and often results in random pieces of TMI being strewn about for discovery by the morning’s first promeneurs. “Look Mommy, I found a balloon!” “That’s not a balloon dear, now let’s go wash your hands with some bleach.”

How do I know all this? Because I went to French driving school, and the parking lot of L’Etang du Cora, in addition to apparently being a great spot for casual group sex, is also a handy place to practice parallel parking and 3-point turns. Or at least that’s what they told me.

Next time: back to politics, with the final chapter of my 3-part look at the US electoral system. Less sexy than the French forest, perhaps, but cleaner safer more interesting less illegal.

Eye of the tiger

I have become a Parisian runner. As some of you may recall, sports aren’t really my thing—and by sports I mean competitive, sweaty, potentially violent activities; I’m not counting any namby-pamby New Age ones (those I obviously engage in, like any self-respecting Californian). The very word “sports” for me conjures up images of junior high gym class: donning a pair of ridiculous knee-length fleece shorts and being forced to engage in competitive group activities, demonstrating—regrettably—that the age-old stereotype of “girls suck at sports” is actually kind of true (I mean as it pertains to me, so save your righteous indignation). Messing up my painstakingly sculpted teenage hair by pulling that stupid gym shirt over it was enough alone to leave psychological scars, but repeatedly ending up last to be chosen for the softball team, dog-paddling my way through aquatic relay races and never managing to execute even one sorry chin-up ultimately created a profound distaste in me for “real” sports.

This is why I put off learning to run for years; I figured I’d be bad at it. I was tempted to seize the proverbial bull by his proverbial horns and release my inner Olympian when I began college—as a stress reducer if nothing else—except that at the time, I wanted something more original, more impressive (I was 18; give me a break). So I joined a Kung-Fu class in North Dallas, run by a guy who, fitfully enough, looked like a younger, greasier version of David Carradine. He made us call him “Master,” loved to spout random bits of wisdom from the Tao Te Ching and taught us animal-inspired stances so bizarre that if ever we had found ourselves actually needing to use any of them for self-defense, the attacker probably would have fallen over laughing—which would technically get the job done, so I’m not knocking it.

Don't make me use this.

In the grand tradition of B-grade martial arts movies, our “Master” firmly believed in the “no pain, no gain” approach to apprenticeship; he imposed bare knuckle push-ups on any misbehavers and took obvious pleasure in humiliating his advanced students by flat-out kicking their asses at the end of every class. I hung in there until the day he claimed to have cured his mother of cancer over the phone, at which point I realized with fortune cookie clarity that a mad teacher teaches only madness. And since I’ve never been lacking in that department, I decided to move on.

When I first arrived in France, I spent a lot of time in parks. I like parks; they’re green, peaceful, bucolic. They make for fantastic lunch spots if you can manage to snag one of the perpetually-occupied benches. While hanging out in such parks, I often noted a fair number of presumably French joggers. Nothing strange about that per se, except their clothing, which looked as though they’d initially come to the park just to relax, but were suddenly seized with an irrepressible urge to break into a jog: khaki shorts, polo shirts, canvas shoes.... Odd. Where, pray tell, was their sports gear? Now, G. has mentioned on multiple occasions that we Americans are totally hung up on sports equipment; even the average American housewife who wants to go out for a stroll around the neighborhood somehow feels she must put on a visor, headset, spandex shorts, sports bra and cross-trainers beforehand (with or without ski poles). OK, he has a point; it is a well-known fact that my fellow countrymen and I appreciate le stuff. But hey, at least we don’t go and try to exercise dressed like we just stepped out of a Lacoste casting call.

French jogger, ca. 1999.

In any case, it’s a moot point because over the past decade I have noticed a clear evolution in French sports apparel and now, when I go running (I’ll get to that in a minute), I see the same kind of Nike-clad, iPod-adorned, aspiring marathoners that I had expected to see all along.

So, after reading the hundredth women’s magazine article about how anybody can learn to run, I figured I’d Just Do It already. And in the end, it wasn’t so hard. Unsurprisingly, the first step was buying the appropriate gear, which actually played a major motivational role and clearly demonstrates the advantages of dressing like you mean it. I got through the requisite side stitches, the huffing and puffing, a brief episode of runner’s knee (also a question of proper outfitting), and today am a confirmed runner! My live-in “coach” and I run every week, come rain, snow or shine (mainly because he will not tolerate any whining what-so-ever).

Our territory of predilection is the Champs de Mars, a big green semi-park encircling the Eiffel Tower—I know, poor us. Running there is always an adventure, mainly because of the constantly changing obstacles. On any given day, we may have to outmaneuver masses of gaping tourists, unsupervised children, pétanque competitions, copulating dogs, marauding gypsy families, bridal photography sessions, homeless wanderers, rallying Copts, Segway enthusiasts, African immigrants hawking cheap Eiffel Tower replicas, and much, much more. Sometimes we’re treated to live music; other times we leave with free lettuce. Not wanting to trip over/crash into any of the afore-mentioned, we’ve learned to practice preternaturally aware running.

Today, thanks to my new-found recreation, I no longer fear sports. I’m not exactly what one could call a sports fan, mind you, but when I go in for my annual check-up and my doctor asks me whether or not I engage in any regular physical activity, I am proud to say that I can now reply with a triumphant “HELL YES!”

Survivante

Well, I survived the ski trip. But I think I have only the brevity of my séjour to thank for that! For as I predicted, I proved beyond any possible doubt that when I say “I’m awful at skiing,” it is not what the French would dub “2nd degree” (tongue-in-cheek) humor. I have bruises in places I didn’t know could be bruised, muscle aches in muscles I didn’t know I had. Taking the stairs at this point is pure agony, but I did it. I skied the Alps. Or more accurately, I slid down the Alps on my face.

My introduction to le ski was brief but intense, all the more so for having gone with G.’s family—both nombreuse and particularly, how shall I say, exuberant. Being virtually the only girl in the pack, I had to make do with a decidedly masculine, “sink or swim” approach to a choice selection of activities: snow hiking, cross-country skiing and some bizarre form of postmodern sledding involving thin, plastic contraptions vaguely resembling over-sized shovel heads. Zooming down the snowy forest trails we went on these things, narrowly avoiding violent collision with tree trunks and terrified children. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned inner tubes?

And as for the cross-country, that too was lost in translation. Somewhere in my life I had managed to develop the obviously erroneous impression that this alternative form of skiing was “easy”—in the sense that it didn’t involve big gnarly descents—but oh ho ho! Whatever was I thinking? The uphill segments were just fine: no falling over, just a bit of slipping and sliding. But alas, what goes up must come down, and those segments were most assuredly not just fine. Thank God I sprained both of my ankles back in high school, because that endowed them with an elasticity that kept me from doing any serious harm to myself when I fell over … and over … and over … and over, on down the hill, twisting them in all directions because cross-country skis stay on no matter what. Who on earth invented this sadistic, ridiculously hard-to-learn sport? The jury is going to have to seriously deliberate before delivering a verdict on any hope for a possible Katrin Goes Skiing, the Sequel.

At least I was able to experience the singular beauty of the snow-adorned Alps and the extreme pleasure of returning to a Paris several degrees warmer than the one I had left. Rainy, of course, but definitely warmer. Dare we speculate that spring is somewhere nearby? I for one certainly want to. Not that spending my evenings cuddling with the radiator isn’t fun and all, but I have fond memories of days gone by when I could actually sit outside, on the balcony, and not even shiver! Ha ha! Or were those but the wild imaginings of my sun-deprived brain? Paris weather often brings back memories of reading Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in a Day,” although the comparison is not entirely fair on my part; I should also point out that Parisian weather patterns are perfectly capable of swinging 180° in the other direction, resulting in record-breaking heat waves and extreme fan shortages such as that of 2003. Great year for French wine, incidentally. Rungis food market, on the other hand, will never be the same.

In any case, my skiing ordeal is over; here I am, back in Paris, snuggled up on the couch with a cocktail in hand, jazz in the background, and the extended edition DVD of Lord of the Rings to savor as I will. And I have to say, this beats any ski trip I can think of.

On winter recreation

In but a few short days I will be going skiing. Yes, I, Katrin Holt, have decided to blatantly put life and limb at risk. Why? Because love means making certain compromises—and in this particular case that means agreeing to extreme physical discomfort and a generous dose of ridicule because I’m the significant other of a Frenchman and in the winter, the French go skiing. With their significant others.

There are many sports at which I am bad. Volleyball was never my fort, nor was tennis. I never did manage the 7-minute mile back in junior high, despite the dubious pleasure of weekly opportunities. I’m lousy at basketball, never played water polo and the hand-eye coordination of softball was never my thing. But while my skills in these areas may be less than stellar, at no sport am I more pathetic than I am at skiing.

At this point in my diatribe (oft-repeated, especially around this time of the year), my interlocutor generally protests with something along the lines of, “But you said you’re from the mountains. How can you not know how to ski?” As if mountains were all the same, all across the world, each and every one of them outfitted for rock climbing in the summer and alpine skiing in the winter. Yes, I’m from the mountains, and no, my mountains aren’t known for skiing. Hiking, sure; apple pies, absolutely. But no skiing. It’s more a sledding kind of place. Sledding is fun; sledding is easy; sledding I like.

So no, I’ve never learned how to ski. And honestly, this ineptitude has never been the source of any significant sense of inferiority. On the contrary, the very concept of donning multiple layers of puffy, multi-colored ski clothes, strapping what appear to be 10-pound moon boots to my feet, and going sliding off on those precarious-looking contraptions popularly known as skis, risking a broken neck in the name of “fun” and coming home at the end of the day cold, wet and nursing a bruised body and ego, has somehow never succeeded in eliciting any form of enthusiasm from me. And yet, much of the world, including 99% of the French, sees things differently. How many times have I heard the praises of skiing sung? The beauty of the mountains; the thrill of the descent; the gratification of those particular muscle aches; the gustatory bliss of a piping hot fondue savoyarde or raclette at the end of the day. I could go on....

But I won’t. Let me just say that the skiing world and I have always had our differences. Even before ever attempting it, I already knew that it wasn’t my bag. Yes, I once took a shot at a quick bout of skiing, back in my wayward youth, at a site aptly named “Purgatory.” We only stayed for a day, the majority of which I spent falling over, careening into innocent fellow skiers and bouncing down gargantuan “kiddie” slopes like a human snowball much in the fashion of vintage Goofy cartoons, leaving random skis and poles dotting the hillside behind me. In the end, I sought refuge in a pseudo log cabin café, where I basically hid until day’s end, sipping hot chocolate and watching tiny children tearing the hell out of the slopes as though it were easy AND fun.

In light of my lack of affinity for winter sports, I long ago mastered the fine art of avoiding any form of participation in the masochistic post-Christmas French tradition of “le ski.” However, G. caught on to my heretofore-successful maneuvering and has somehow managed to finagle me into joining his ski-loving family this year for “just” a long weekend. We’re going to “zee Alps,” where I would just like to point out in passing that skiing deaths—deaths!—occur every single year.

But no matter. I shan’t be called a wuss. I shall go. I shall leave frozen Paris and travel to the even more frozen Alps, where I shall don the silliest ski clothes that I can get my hands on and spend every day acquiring the aches and pains required to earn my evening dose of raclette. Have I mentioned that I abhor raclette, right along with every other traditional Savoyard dish involving potatoes and/or bread and stinky, indigestible melted cheese? But never mind! I’ll go, and if I hate it (which I undoubtedly will), then I won’t go back again next year. That is the other half of the compromise.

And so, dear readers, if you never hear from me again, know that I at least left this earth in a spirit of adventure and diplomacy, risking my fragile ego and my (relatively) young life in the name of Franco-American relations. I should be awarded immediate French citizenship just for this. And if I do survive, you can expect a full report on this totally bizarre ritual fashion of rendering the already bleak winter just that much more unpleasant. Wish me luck!

Sonny Bono: I bet he agrees with me.