Lots of Updates: 1) Itchy

The Caladryl test was not strongly conclusive. The patch of skin I chose displayed no visible change, by contrast with the rash's sudden addition of deep red spots after Caladryl. The test patch did itch afterward, for a couple of days, but it was mild. It could conceivably be just the result of me paying attention to it. I do have dry itchy skin most of the time anyway.

Guess I have to wait for another rash and do a half-and-half test. :-)

The rash no longer itches and is slowly fading from its supreme ugliness of a few days ago. When it gets to the point I won't scare off the other swimmers I'll get back in the pool.

Lots of Updates: 2) Flying

Saturday's lesson was less stunningly wonderful than last Sunday's, probably because my instructor kept failing everything on me. Soft field takeoff! Short runway for landing - with an obstacle sitting on the numbers! Oops, your flaps don't work! There goes the engine! I'm surprised he didn't find a way to fail the gear.* My landings were not as beautiful with all this going on.

However, I was (in his words) "perfectly safe, and that's what matters". He had no critical comments after our lesson, and that's a compliment.

Sunday we were weathered out. The storm system we'd thought we would see in the late afternoon arrived earlier than predicted. SJC's TAF indicated it would be heavy enough to bring visibility down below VFR minimums, and while PAO (my home base) wasn't bad YET, we weren't sure when we'd get closed out. We said forget it.

My homework for this week is to complete my flying club's annoying aircraft checkout questionnaire. Weight and balance calculations... fuel used during climb to 3,376 feet on a 71.2 degree day... bla bla bla. Not hard, just takes time. I get to show that to my instructor this coming Saturday.

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* This plane does not have retractable gear. He did fail the brakes, in a sense -- on the "soft field" takeoffs and landings we didn't use them.

Lots of Updates: 3) Square Dancing

(No, I'm not dancing.)

There was a dance in our area this weekend. We got to host a couple from Los Angeles; we'd stayed with them multiple times and it was nice to be able to extend our hospitality to them in turn. One slight change in routine is that they are Major Sit-Down Breakfast Eaters while we are Grab-The-Protein-Bar-That's-In-Your-Flight-Bag Eaters. Either the scrambled egg breakfast I faked up Saturday morning was okay or they were gracious enough to pretend it was. I will never know.

When they came home from the Friday night session I heard that the dance hall was awful. They said it was shaped like a pie wedge, with the caller at the point, and all the squares were dancing thirty degrees off from their neighbors. Apparently this is very disorienting. After my flight lesson Saturday, the timing worked out so that I could meet a group for lunch. Again the conversation turned to the difficulty of the material being called and the confusion of the dance hall itself. I decided I had to go see this hall.

It's rectangular enough. The problem is that the stage is in one corner and the carpet reinforces that effect with radial stripes originating there. They'd set the caller up in the "obvious" spot, in the corner. I had to admit it was very odd to watch the dancing, skewed that way!

I felt very welcomed when I dropped in. People from all over -- Canada, Japan, Florida -- came up to me and said hi.

I have to admit that if I could have one thing back, one capability my feet used to have, I'd be very hard pressed to decide between running and square dancing. Swimming is such an inefficient use of time that I'd love to be able to run for exercise, but square dancing was a huge part of my life! If given the choice on Saturday, I would have chosen square dancing, no question. Away from the fun and the social atmosphere I'd probably still choose square dancing. Maybe someday. I sure do like the people.