There was a coffee and donut fly-in/drive-in breakfast at Glenndale this morning. It was too yucky to fly, so everybody drove in, except one guy who should have driven in. He flew in with a C-150, landed 2/3rds of the way down the runway, hot and fast, used up every bit of the runway, and then when he took off, he started at the threshold instead of the end of the runway, put in no flaps, and almost didn't make it over the wires on a cold day with one person on board. He also didn't call and check on the condition of the runway, which was standing water that had frozen over. He's lucky it was frozen. He's the super high hour airline pilot who has flown everything and who asked me rather aggressively if I was any good at it when he found out I'd be flying the Twin Beech. He may be able to fly circles around me in a Boeing 757, but I can kick his butt all over a grass strip. ;)
Kaylee pinched a nerve or hurt herself in her sleep last night. She can't move her head at all, her shoulders are uneven, her back is starting to hurt, she's cried several times today from the pain and frustration. Tomorrow I'll take her to a walk-in clinic and see if there's anything they can do for her. She had this happen one other time and it took almost a month to completely heal up. That time it happened after she cracked her neck and something hurt right away. (I've had that happen before too, I think a nerve gets pinched when the joint or whatever it is in there spreads apart). I don't know what they can do for her. She's hoping for a muscle relaxant or something. I don't know if they'll do that or not. We've tried an ice pack, we tried a heat pad, we tried a muscle cream with aspirin in it, I tried massaging it for a long time. She can't swallow a Tylenol or any pill without tossing her head back and she can't move her head, so she hasn't had any anti-inflammatories. I may get some Children's Liquid Tylenol for her to try to help with that tomorrow. Poor kid.
I read an article online about how the military trained its people for awhile on how to fall asleep anywhere. A tired military member makes mistakes, etc. I don't know when they taught this, or which branch, or whatever, but I read it out of interest and started implementing it myself and it's been interesting. The technique is to close your eyes, breathe slowly, and then relax each of your muscles, either top to bottom or bottom to top, and then once all your muscles aren't bunched up, blank your mind for at least 10 seconds straight. They said if you can't blank your mind, just say a phrase like "don't think don't think don't think" for 10 seconds and that you can't think of other stuff when you're doing that. They say you'll be asleep quickly if you do that. I've had trouble with falling asleep my whole life. It usually takes me 45 minutes to an hour after I lie down before I finally go out. I started doing this, and I learned a few things that I found interesting, and I HAVE fallen asleep faster. First, I had no idea how tense I would be when I laid down to sleep. I didn't think I was, but my upper body is wound tight. Shoulders will drop quite a bit when I deliberately relax them once I lie down. And my face! My eyes are tightly screwed shut, my lips pressed together, like I'm trying to force something. As I work my way down to loosen up muscles, I usually have to relax my face a couple of times before it stays that way. Shortly after I blank out my mind for a few seconds, I actually do drift off. I don't know how long, because if I thought about time passing, I'd be violating the rules. ;) But I've tried it for the last week or so, and it actually does seem to help me go to sleep faster. Just getting everything as relaxed as I get seems to make a real difference, and I hadn't realized I wasn't relaxed in the first place until then. It was interesting. Here's an article that says everything I just said, and it's got a lot of ads, so you don't have to click on it, but it's sort of "proof" that this exists. lol https://www.iflscience.com/brain/heres-a-us-army-trick-for-falling-asleep-anywhere-in-120-seconds/
Try it sometime, if nothing else it helps you relax a bit more before sleep.
I bought two "My Pillows" today. We'll see if they're as good as they say. They get 4.5 stars on ratings, and Consumer Reports said that 50 percent of people said the pillows helped a lot, and 17 percent said they helped some. So that's not bad. I need pillow help. I'd sure like it if it would fit comfortably. Flat pillows need something under them, fluffy pillows cut off my airway and tilt my head too far forward, two pillows stacked is too tall and one pillow is too flat and anything like feathers (sneezy) or memory foam or anything like that tends to flatten out on me. So I'm on a quest now. I hope this is the answer. The only negative I saw is that some people said sometimes you have to beat the pillow into fitting properly again if you switch positions during the night. I switch positions a LOT, so I'm hoping that's not true. If so, I can return them...
I have a flight coming up with someone who asked to have a copy of my pilot's license and medical so that "if things went wrong he could prove to the FAA that he did due diligence". My eyebrows shot up when he said that. I didn't send it to him, but I did send him a screenshot of the public access FAA's website that shows my name with Commercial Pilot information, and medical class and date on it. He doesn't need actual copies of my stuff with my home address and so forth on it. In fact, I'm sort of offended, to be honest. I said "We don't have to do this if you're concerned." He's not concerned, he says, just covering his bases. Mmmm.
Guess that's it. It's midnight, I'm going to try to get to sleep, and we'll see how this muscle relaxing thing goes tonight. I feel a little tense at the moment. ;)
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