A Big Blur

I have emerged from roughly two weeks of time away from the office combined with illness with Christmas thrown in the middle of it. It is far too long of a time period for me to give any sort of detailed recap, not that you would want one anyway. The worst part of the flu for me was done by Christmas, by that time random coughing fits were the main remaining symptom. That symptom remains today, just to a lesser degree.

Overall my time off was pretty low key. Luckily I did not have a lot of Xmas prep that needed to be done last minute. My Christmas was enjoyable as I hoped. My Christmas present buying efforts seemed to be much appreciated and I got some cool things as well such as the Hedra RGB lights you can see in this picture, adding even more color to my very colorful office.

I did a couple live streams during my time off, one public, one for channel members only. During the public stream I gave away a number of things including my Inmotion V8S. The person that won was very excited. It felt good to spread some holiday cheer and good energy.

I got back on the pickleball courts finally, playing a total of three times during my time off. I did not play too badly despite the lack of court time. The biggest thing I noticed was my energy reserve was low, after only a few games I was tired. One of my gifts was a book called The Tao of Pickleball. It is a good book that focuses more on the mental aspects of the game as well as tying some of it to the ideas behind martial arts. I am finding a lot of things in the book I would like to work more into my play.

Elsa hurt her back leg playing with my girlfriend’s dog over the break. She isn’t able to jump right now which prevents her from doing things like getting into my bed which is one of her favorite hang out spots. When it first happened I tried scooping her up but the way it put pressure one her back legs made her cry in pain so I I just let her stay in her dog beds on the floor. I have been giving her a few days to see if she improves. It seems better but she is still not normal. I have since adopted a different technique to lift her that doesn’t hurt so she is able to hang out on the bed. She can get down by herself without issue. I am far too familiar with dog joint issues as they get older so I am hoping Elsa can heal up on her own with enough rest. I actually have a pet ramp that was used to load heavy EUCs. I set it up but Elsa just did not get the concept.

The Eagles have had two wins during my break, beating the Commanders who were wrecked with injuries. Even so the game was very close in the first half. Last night the Eagles beat the Bills on the back of incredible luck, 13-12. The Eagles had a good first half but once again the offense disappeared in the second half. They set some sort of record by scoring zero points while throwing for zero yards in the half as well.

Last year was different, once the Eagles got a lead they could lean on Barkley to grind out yards and clock to close out games. Instead the Eagles gained 16 yards in the entire second half, yes, 16. All year they have demonstrated an inability to counter if a team changes things up on them. Without Barkley producing consistently Hurts just can’t carry the load with his arm. It feels odd to be complaining about a win, on the road against a team that was 11-5. The wildly inconsistent performances of the team just make myself and many other Eagles fans frustrated. Despite their record, I will be amazed if they go anywhere in the playoffs.

So I entered the 10 day break feeling like garbage and wishing for the time I could emerge into a more normal existence. That time has finally arrived. I am feeling a bit of the post-Christmas blues that I have always dealt with but a little self reflection makes me realize I don’t really have anything to be blah about.