As My Grandmother Used to Call It, Arthuritis

I had the meniscus removed. Since then, I’ve been able to tell when bad weather is on the horizon.


Very early on Memorial Day, I was sleeping alone in our bed; the Wife was sleeping in the guest room with the Daughter, because of the latter’s hacking cough. So when I woke in incredible pain, in my left knee, at least I didn’t disturb anyone else. How to describe the sensation: if you ever were dehydrated and woke up a cramp in your calf, except in the knee, and far more intense pain. I had a difficult time finding a comfortable position in which to sleep; anything involving the straightening of my left leg was contraindicated.

I hobbled to the office and actually wrote three blog posts. I really had nothing better to do; I couldn’t sleep, and I was afraid that if I went downstairs to watch TV, I’d never make it back up to the bedroom. The Wife wakes up, asks me how I am, and I tell her that she needs to take me either to the emergency ward or the urgent care place.

Ultimately, after breakfast, we discover the urgent care place is indeed open – my primary care physician’s office is not – and Carol drives me there. The X-ray reveals that I have a severe amount of arthritis in my left knee. This is not surprising.

In 1994, I went to a conference in Snowbird, Utah, outside of Salt Lake City. There was a mountain just behind the hotel, and having some free time, decided to start walking up it. I didn’t plan on climbing to the top, which turned out to be 3000 feet above the 8000 feet at which I started out, but I did. Going down, though, proved to be trickier. I started sliding down the mountain. My left leg got caught in a hole, while the rest of my body was still sliding downward. I tore my meniscus and ended up crawling down the mountain. Don’t know how I got to my hotel room, but I got someone to take me to an urgent care place to get my knee X-rayed.

Back in Albany, I had the meniscus removed. Since then, I’ve been able to tell when bad weather is on the horizon. Apparently, that is a common occurrence with joint injuries.

Present time: the next day, I get around on crutches I still had from the 1994 incident. After retrieving my X-ray from the urgent care place, I get a ride to the bone & joint place, which drains liquid from the knee; they will have it evaluated, to see if I have gout, if they’ll recommend knee surgery, or what. I also got a cortisone shot, which was helpful. Still, it’s easier to ride the bike than walking, and running, I’ve discovered, is contraindicated.

Strangely, my wife has developed similar ailments in the past couple of days; it really isn’t contagious.

Still achy, and the pain reliever makes me loopy, so I take it only at night. So if you see me with a cane or crutch, or just a little gimpy, you’ll know why.

No, I won’t blog about THAT

if you choose not to participate, YOU ARE NOT HURTING MY FEELINGS. REALLY.

 


Almost everyone I know is aware of the fact that I blog. This doesn’t mean everyone READS my blogs, only the fact that they’re aware of them, or at least one of them. The local folk knows because my Times Union blog gets excerpted in the print “Best of the Blogs” section of the newspaper. It happened at least thrice in April.There is this situation that involves someone, not in my family, that is pretty dire; can’t tell you more than that. And when I had to blow off choir rehearsal one night because of said situation, someone said, “Well, I guess you can blog about it.” And the thing is: no, I can’t.

I think the problem is that because I’ll blog about EVERYTHING, topicwise, if it interests me, the thought is that I’ll blog about ANYTHING. And I guess I got a little irritable about that, I suppose.

But then again, it’s a great cover. If they think your life is an open book, they won’t snoop for secrets they are convinced don’t exist.
***
Incidentally, recently I accidentally invited a whole bunch of people in one of my electronic address books to join LinkedIn – sorry about that – and a few people took me up on it. I expected a couple of people to be irritated, but no; they were apologetic that they just don’t do that online thing, that they’re just not working anymore so they don’t need to, or that they have no idea what LinkedIn is.

Let me say this about anything you might get from me from LinkedIn or Facebook or whatever; if you choose not to participate, YOU ARE NOT HURTING MY FEELINGS. REALLY. I’m on Facebook and I ignore stuff, or delete it as unread, all of the time, just as I do with certain e-mail. Especially Farmville-type stuff, which I have actually figured out how to block. Nothing personal, I’m just not interested. Whatever I send to you, intentionally, or possibly by accident, please ignore if it doesn’t suit you.

 

Picture from Flickr

U is for Underdog

“And for almost every little guy who wins, there’s a big guy who loses, and that makes us happy too.”


There’s a small private university in Indianapolis, IN called Butler. “In 2010, Butler was runner-up to Duke, after advancing all the way to the National Championship after defeating Michigan State in the Final Four. With a total enrollment of only 4,500 students, Butler is the smallest school to play for a national championship since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. In 2011, the Bulldogs advanced to a second consecutive Championship appearance after defeating Virginia Commonwealth University. In the 2011 title game, Butler lost to the University of Connecticut.”

Almost everyone who wasn’t otherwise interested rooted for Butler, because it was the underdog, while Duke and Connecticut were larger, well-established programs that had won the championship in the past.

Why do we root for the underdog? Maybe it’s “because we want to help compensate for undeserved inequality. If one contestant is outmatched for reasons that aren’t his fault, that’s unfair, and our sense of justice reaches out to fix it.

“We might also root for underdogs just because we enjoy drama:

“An alternative or additional, motivation for supporting underdogs might derive less from abstract moral concerns about fairness and more from self-interested, rational calculations of one’s own emotions. Because underdog success is by definition unexpected, this may increase the excitement of rooting for an underdog.

“And for almost every little guy who wins, there’s a big guy who loses, and that makes us happy too:

“Rather than being strongly supportive of underdogs, might people instead root against dominant entities (this would be consistent with the sentiment, ‘my favorite team is whoever is playing the Yankees’)?”

Those who are viewed as disadvantaged arouse people’s sense of fairness and justice — important principles to most people. Moreover, as this article states: “We all can relate because at some point we all feel small and powerless.”

Among the definitions of the word underdog include:
1.One that is expected to lose a contest or struggle, as in sports or politics.
2.One that is at a disadvantage.

One of my favorite cartoons as a child was Underdog. He was a clear parody of Superman, a “mild-mannered” dog known as Shoe Shine Boy, who became the crime fighter when villains such as Simon Bar Sinister plotted some evil scheme. His would-be love is sweet Polly Purebred, an alliterative name like Lois Lane or Lana Lang.

The introduction even evoked the Man of Steel:
A crowd of people…would say, “Look in the sky!” “It’s a plane!” “It’s a bird!” After this, an old woman wearing glasses would exclaim, “It’s a frog!” Another onlooker would respond, “A frog?!?” To this, Underdog replied with these words:
“Not plane, nor bird, nor even frog, It’s just little old me…” (at this point, Underdog would crash into something, then finish) “Underdog.”

There was a none-too-well-reviewed live-action Underdog movie that I did not bother to see.

ABC Wednesday – Round 8

5000 Questions, Part 4

A light green lounge suit. It was the 1970s…


76. Do you prefer Disney or Warner Brothers?

Well, WB for shorts, Disney for long-form.

77. What is the first animal you would run to see if you went to the zoo?

Zebras.

78. Would you consider yourself to be romantic?

It waxes and wanes.

79. If the earth stopped rotating would we all fly off?

I’d think not.

80. What is the one thing that you love to do so much that you would make sacrifices to be able to do it?

Blogging.

81. If you (and everyone) had to lose one right or freedom, but you could pick which one everyone had to lose, what would you pick? Continue reading “5000 Questions, Part 4”

The royal connection

My daughter is a princess.


There was this online article about Prince William’s Fargo, North Dakota cousin’s royal celebration. “Kay Johnson wasn’t too upset about being overlooked for Friday’s royal wedding guest list. Besides, she wasn’t the only Spencer to get snubbed.” Unfortunately, the free access post disappeared.

This story is specifically interesting to me because my wife and daughter are likewise related. Seems that late in the 17th century, John Olin married Susannah Spencer, and my wife is a direct descendent, ninth-generation I believe. Susannah Spencer is somehow an ancestor of Diana Spencer, who married Prince Charles, who had two sons, William and Harry.

We didn’t get up early to watch the wedding. But we did turn on the TV c 7 a.m. EDT to see a bit of the post-wedding pageantry, during which time I shared with the daughter her royal connection. Ever since, she has shared the news with all of her friends, has done drawings of herself as a princess, has dressed up as a princess…This too shall pass, eventually.

I met Kay Johnson (pictured) at an Olin family reunion in Binghamton, NY a few years back.

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