My Hips Don't Lie

Jim and Adelay and I were in Cincy today for his brother's graduation (congratulations Brett!) where we endured the reading of fourteen hundred graduate's names, and where I officially became the Biggest Pain In The Neck Ever to bring along to a college commencement ceremony. Second maybe to Adelay, who had a meltdown of historic proportions, but that is a story for another time. Today's story is why my family must love me a lot not to have left me behind somewhere in the Fifth Third Stadium. Or not to have at least put a "Slow Moving Vehicle" or "Extra Wide Load" sign around my neck.
Now, the knee thing and the pregnant thing are not my fault, granted, but they do slow me down considerably. And slowing down is not what you're going for when you're in a crowd of ten thousand or so people and you're all trying to get good seats in the stadium and the only seats available are up like a zillion flights of cement steps. But for some reason I was just not thinking when I chose my footwear for this particular venture, because to add to my considerable handicaps, I wore these sandals that have a heel. A wobbly heel. Now, it's about a one and half inch heel, and back in the day that would not have phased me in the least, but that was then and this is now, my friends.
In order to keep up and get to the stadium in time, I eventually had to take the sandals off. I trotted after everyone in my bare feet down the hilly sidewalks and then limped oh-so-tediously up the endless stairs until my good leg was quivering and numb. And I repeated the barefoot escapade, garnering many an odd look, all the way back to the parking garage, hopping across the hot pavement as best I could.
So what does this have to do with hips? Well, after bearing all of my (substantial) weight up and down many, many stairs and up and down many, many hills, my left leg and hip (that's the good side) had pains shooting up and down it with every step for the rest of the day. I was wincing and wheezing and clodding along like a... I don't even know. I have never felt so ungainly and burdensome. If our little family unit had been on National Geographic, I would have been the weak, sickly one that the hyenas would have gone for first. They would have separated me from the rest of the herd and gone for the jugular.
All of this to say, I am more determined than ever not to slack off on the physical therapy. I have GOT to get this knee back to normal so I can take stairs at a reasonable speed again!
Also: I have GOT to stick to flats for the rest of the pregnancy! And maybe for forever!