I’m in Palm Springs for the next few days to hang out with my sister, her husband and kids, and our parents in what has become our informal, annual get-together. While my brother-in-law attends to some work-related stuff, the rest of us entertain the little ones and venture bravely crazily out into the heat.
The heat. Wow. The average temperature in Palm Springs in August is 107 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s oven-like and sinks right through your skin, down into your bones. It feels good compared to the humidity I have been suffering through for weeks back home, but quickly becomes oppressive with any extended outdoor activity. Like the thirty-second walk from my car to my hotel room.
Speaking of my room: while I should be frolicking with my family right about now, I am instead holed up in here with a bad back. Neither trauma nor any poor-form lifting went into the mess that is my lumbar region; I was tossing socks into my bag this morning when a mild discomfort first bloomed across my lower back. Everything I’ve done since then has been punctuated with whimper-inducing spasms that leave me embarrassed for how un-stoic my reaction has been to them.
My family has been great: they’ve offered plenty of perfectly legal painkillers and massages and stories of our growing collective creakiness, and kindly picked up a heating pad with soothing vibration action for me. We all had a laugh when I literally couldn’t get up off the floor where I thought I might feel better. But this — being here in my room, back being vibrated, slurping a root beer float by myself — kind of sucks. I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling magically restored, but I’m not picky: I’ll settle for “upright”.
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