As I write, I'm sitting at the bar at Pepin, my favorite Spanish restaurant in St. Petersburg, Floriday which is my hometown where I've been for the past 2 weeks. It's been over 8 years since I've had what normal people would consider a vacation, the type of trip where you go someplace where you don't work and you spend days doing fun things you don't usually do and you disconnect from your every day life and you rest and you don't worry about anything and you get a tan.
That's pretty much what I've been doing since I arrived in St. Pete on the 17th of December, and even though the first few days of me being here were spent planning and fussing over my Mom's funeral which was on the 20th of December, that was still a lot of fun and it felt really different from the type of work I usually do in running the studio and in running my Pilates school, Pilates Excel.
Almost every day since I've been here, I've walked my favorite beach, the one I grew up playing and swimming and drinking and skiing on, it's called Pass-a-grille and it's at the very southern tip of St. Petersburg Beach. Pass-a-grille is about a mile long and 2 blocks wide, the long sides are on the water with the west side on the Gulf and the east sde on the Intercoastal. It's still relatively untouched by development, progress, bastardization. The main resort, the Don Cesar, still anchors the approach to the beach fro the Bay Way, which is a series of bridges that connect south St. Petersburg to the Gulf of Mexico beaches.
When I haven't walked Pass-a-grille, I've walked the downtown waterfront which is so stunningly beautiful, it takes my breath away.
My family moved here from Ohio when I was 4 in 1961 and I left here almost 30 years ago but it still feels like home.
So much so that sitting at the Seahorse Restaurant one morning, the woman next to me at the bar said "don't you shop at Bamboozle?" I do.
I eat at a table in Debby's section at the Seahorse almost every morning and here's what I have, every single time: Cheesy grits with butter, 2 scrambled eggs with ham and cheese (that would be American cheese) and white toast with butter. I also have about 5 glasses of iced tea, unsweetened. I only sit in Debby's section at the Seahorse. Debbie is a gum smacking, sass talking sweetheart of a woman who has waited tables for over 40 years. I love Debby and at every meeting and at every parting we squeal at each other, both talking at the same time, saying things like "hi baby, how you are you precious, hi sugar, isnt' it a beautiful morning, you here with friends?, how's Corinn, is she coming?" Debby kisses my face and my neck even though I'm slathered with a quarter inch of non-greasy greasy SPF 50 and I kiss her face and her neck even though she's sweaty wth the work of her shift. I love Debby.
Shortly after arriving I couldn't help but notice that my pants began feelng tight. I went to TJ Maxx and bought a size 10 Lucky low rise and they felt much better than the Ralph Lauren's I brought with me from Seattle. I think my weight gain has something to do with the cheesy grits with butter almost every morning, but I don't care.
As friends have joined me for breakfast, Debby's met them all and we've loved telling her how long we've all known each other. We bring old pictures of us together for us to see and we show them to Debby and she always says how we haven't aged, that we still look 4 or 14 or 24 or 34 or 44. I love Debby.
It's New Year's Eve and I'll have one more Seahorse breakfast before heading back to Seattle on Friday morning. My oldest friend, Leslie and her husband Kevin are going with me to the Seahorse tomorrow morning. I'm not sure I can get through it without making a scene; saying goodbye to Debbie is going to be heartbreaking. I love Debby.
My evening meals have been at Pepin's where I always get the same thing: chicken with yellow rice. My waiter at Pepin's is William, he's been taking care of me for years and he always, always makes me feel like I've never left. One night William wasn't working and I had a lovely waiter named Joe who honeymooned in Seattle so we had some things to talk about. The marriage didn't last but his fond memories of Seattle did. Only 3 nights out of the more than 2 weeks I've been here have I not eaten at Pepin's. When I wasn't at Pepin's, I ate at Gigi's, my favorite pizza place out on the beach. One night at Gigi's I ate an entire medium pepperoni pizza by myself and my dinner mate, another of my oldest friends Carol Roberts (Dr. Carol Roberts who has a radio show on the local PBS station) only had soup. Carol weighs 1/8 of an ounce less than she did when she was 14. I think there may be a correlation between Carol's stable weight and her eating a cup of soup for dinner.
The whole trip has been a food fantasy and my friends have been very supportive. I've told them if they want to see me, they need to either come with me on my beach walks, to the Seahorse or to Pepin's. When I'm not doing those things, I'm working. They understand.
I've gained 10 pounds.
I'm eating more food in one day here than I usually eat in 3 days in Seattle. This does not concern me.
The blisters concern me.
When I first arrived in St. Pete, my peeps in Seattle were just beginning to get snowed on. Feet and feet of snow fell and fell and fell. More snow than we'd had in 20 years. Did you know that Seattle is the country's third hilliest city? Behind San Francisco, then Honolulu, we have tons of really steep hills, many right in town so if you're a walker, which Heidi and I both are, your butt will not only stay up but be nice and firm as long as you keep climbing. I digress.
The studio is a block off of Queen Anne Avenue and Heidi had brunch at Peso's one day, Peso's is our favorite mexican place and it's at the foot of Queen Anne hill, and she called to tell me that the good people of Seattle were snowboarding down Queen Anne Avenue, stopping in at Peso's at the foot of the hill for a drink then hiking back up the hill for another run. All the steep streets in Seattle are closed as soon as a dusting of snow falls.
Heidi, bless her born-in-Seattle heart, is ill prepared to stay warm in really cold weather and I was worried about her being warm enough on her walks to and from the studio so so I told her to go to my apartment and get one of my two down coats. She told me that not only was she not cold on her walks but that she was actually getting overheated on her walks because of all the extra effort in sinking into and climbing out of the deep fluffy snow.
In a show of solidarity with Heidi and my other Seattle peeps, until the snow melted in Seattle I walked Pass-a-grille on the loose dry sugar sand, working much harder than necessary as the soft sand shifted under my feet. I hike and even jog in my Tevas, and I didn't have a lick of trouble with my feet the whole time I was walking Pass-a-grille up in the soft sand.
After the snow melted in Seattle, I migrated on Pass-a-grille walks to the wet sand just above the waterline where the traction is much better and I promptly got a blister on the outside of my right little toe. Eventually, I got blisters on the outside of both my little toes and on the inside of both my big toes.
The first day they formed, I wasn't sure why I only got one on the outside of my right little toe then I realized my return route was the fast portion of my walk and because of the slant of the shore, I got rubbed raw. By the time that first walk along the breaking waves was finished, there was a big fluid filled blister but by the next day it had flattened but the skin was still lifted.
We learned in my Sports Medicine & Human Performance program that you should never pop a blister but if you absolutely have to, do it with a sterile pin and then cover it until it heals.
We see a ton of foot blisters in the studio at the very beginning of warm summer weather when our clients begin wearing strappy little sandals which tear up their feet. In the studio, we can't have blisters uncovered because 1) we can't have open skin in the studio and 2) if the blister breaks and leaves a little puddle of fluid someplace it's a haz mat clean up that could have been avoided. If your clients comes in with a blister, cover it for them. Keep a supply of bandaids in the studio and if you put the bandage on, you'll know it's been properly applied and it will stay put for the duration of the session. If you give your client the bandaid to put on, they may do a horrible job of applying it and it might come off during the session.
If you don't cover the blister, there's a really high probability that a full blister will break during a session and you won't even realize it's happened and everyone will know, or nobody will know other than you and your client that it's happened. Yuck!
The health department is intersted in how we keep our studios clean and allowing open skin in the studio is not sanitary. Once a sore heals and scabs over, that's okay because the skin is closed but any open skin regardless of why it's open, must be covered while you or your clients are in the studio.
It's also not up to health department standards to use natural products to clean and sanitize common areas and surfaces.
If you sanitize with T-Tree oil, for example, and you have an issue with the health depatment, they'll put you on hold, call a meeting and 15 health department employees will laugh at you for a really long time and then one of them will get back on the phone with you and they'll tell you that T-Tree oil is not on their list of approved products that kill bacteria. Also, if you're a T-Tree fan, you should know it's from one of the most allergenic trees, the melaluca, and in Florida for example, the city will remove melaluca trees from rights of way and public property because it causes so many breathing and allergy problems in the general population. It's a non-native and it's considered a nuisance tree in many jurisdictions.
When I was a student at the University of Washington, 4 athletes got a staph infection and the weight room was the common denominator so not only did the weight room get sanitized but all of Husky Stadium, all 70,000+ seats, every handrail, every surface, got sanitized, too. And guess what they used to clean it. Chlorine Bleach. Not T-Tree oil.
If you're thinking this is a non-issue, it's not. It's a serious issue that can be a big problem for a studio. If you allow clients with warts to use equipment without covering the warts, the wart virus can live in the foot bar and you just might have clients getting warts in a line across the palms of their hands. This happened at the studio where I went through my primary training. Have you taken apart the footbar covering? Do you realize how it's made and how it can harbor germs? If your studio gets the reputation of being dirty, it's very difficult to overcome that perception and it can materially harm your business.
Bit of a tangent there, sorry. Back to my blisters.
I didn't break the blister but I did cover it for subsequent walks. As other blisters formed, I've covered them too, so that I can continue wearing my sandals and feel the sand and water running over my feet as I walk. I just love that feeling.
I walk for 2 hours, by the way, at a pretty fast pace. I cover about a little over 7 miles round trip in an out and back route.
As my walks along the surf have continued, the blisters have gotten worse and tomorrow, my last day, I'll probably wear my Nike running shoes which I brought but haven't yet worn. When I finish walking, I rinse my feet at the shower carousel and then, when I get home to my fabulous pool house at my fabulous friend's swanky home, I put my feet in the pool and let the inflammation subside. I think that really helps heal the abrasions around the blisters and they feel just fine by the time I load into the Tevas the next morning to go at it again. I do bandage up but I can really feel the friction especially on the second half of my route because I'm going faster and my foot strike is heavier because of speed and because I'm getting tired and my form isn't as smooth.
It's really hard to see the lifted skin in these pictures, and the one of both feel I've put in simply to show off my tan. The last picture is to show you how neatly you should try to apply bandages. If you don't put them on carefully and well, they won't stay put.
Note: At all times in the great State of Florida, I'm slathered in SPF 50 all over my face, arms, everything but my legs, and I wear a long sleeved SPF shirt and I wear a huge straw sun hat - I look like a Bedouin! I spent the first 25 years of my life frolicing on Pass-a-grille absolutely trashing my skin and then I spent the next 25 years trying to undo that damage. I'm done with the sun, except for on my legs so this foot tan shot is just about all I'm able to do at this point. Sad but true. The sun is your skin's greatest enemy. True dat.
So, if you get a blister, don't pop it, try not to make it worse by continuing the activity that caused it and a little soak is a good thing most times. Mole skin is a great protective product to have on hand and all the band aid manufacturers make realy cushy coverings that will help protect the tender spot from further damage.
I even use mole skin on the heels of my waterproof Merrill day hikers which are my everyday winter shoes in Seattle. The inside of the heels just tore right up in spite of the rest of the shoe holding up really well. I get blisters and open bleeding skin when I don't either bandaid my heels or put mole skin on the inside of the heel cup of the shoe. The mole skin lasts on the shoe for a couple of weeks before it starts to peel off around the edges and I have to reapply. I tried duct tape but it was a disaster.
That's about all for the blister report from St. Pete. I'll be back in Seattle on Friday and will get back to weekly posts on matters having less to do with my beach walks and more to do with the business of teaching and learning and loving Pilates.
Here's a shot of me giving you an air hug from the sunny shores of Pass-a-grille.
Happy New Year World, let's have a lovely 2009.
