EUGENIZATION.

Above: My lovely, long-suffering wife comtemplates what it would be like being married to a man who wrote poetry for a living.

This past Labor Day weekend my wife and I were able to escape to Vermont to get away from the city, breathe some fresh mountain air, tease ourselves about snowboarding season, and have a generally romantic weekend away from home and responsibility.

Being purveyors of an active lifestyle, our Romantic Weekend Getaway somehow involved trail hiking and downhill mountain biking. I’m not sure this is what Don Juan or Rudolph Valentino would have done, but we had a great time. And we got to have a sneak peek at snowboarding season - fun on the mountain, dinner at Sirloin Saloon, and other sundry details my gentlemanly side prevents me from describing here.

Moral of the story, dear reader? It is good to live an active lifestyle.

Incidentally, progress on my ankle injury is generally good: the swelling is almost completely gone, I feel no pain when ambulating normally, and I can bear weight on it pretty well (as evidenced by my Leg Press performance of 500 lbs yesterday). Things I still can’t do without pain are: jump, land, and plantar flex more than about 75-80 degrees. I haven’t tried pushing it on inversion, but I’m fairly certain that it wouldn’t be a great idea. I’m slowly working on building stability and increasing ROM, but I admit I’m a pretty bad patient.

I know. A hike up a rocky mountainside in sandals. Do as I say, not as I do…

Above: No injured Jiu-Jitsu practitioner hike is complete without an adjustable ACE bandage holding one’s ankle together. Just remember: Your mileage may vary.