Disabled List

I’m a baseball fan and when a player gets hurt, they put him on the disabled list for a period of time. Given my recent track record, I think life requires a disabled list. If there was one, I’d certainly be on it.

I have no idea why but my left knee decided to act up. Guess it was jealous of the all the attention the right knee was getting. In theory, the arthritis is the same in both joints but the right has always been more problematic. So maybe the left is making up for lost time.

I went to my lesson last night. This probably sounds silly because when it hurts to walk, dancing is generally not a good idea. Except I’ve “played through pain” many times and, sometimes, it actually loosens up with movement. Or maybe that is just me being way too optimistic.

Anyway, we worked through the Mambo, Rumba and Cha-Cha. The good news is that all of the pieces came back in a few attempts. We’ve spent the better part of the last month working on the routines for Showstoppers so now it is time to get back to the grind of the nine dances. Got to get the new routines locked up in muscle memory but still try to remember the little bits and pieces of technique that keep getting tossed out. Small little things but trying to remember what feels like 100 of them for a given dance is a bit much.

Stuck it out for group class which was Tango. OwnerGuy was out and about at another studio doing something. DH was also gone so the Silver group fell to JoNY. She picked a step I had done with Kid T but I think she tried to learn it that day to teach the class so maybe she didn’t have all the subtle stuff down because it ended in kind of an awkward way. Still we got through it but, by then, my knee was acting up and I had to skip out on my second lesson.

Now, I’ve iced it multiple times but it isn’t helping much. I suppose I’ll have to call the ortho guy and see if we can get a little needle action. I’ve had one cortisone shot in that knee but that was many years ago so I should probably be happy that it hasn’t acted up more.

Had my first session of physical therapy for the arm yesterday. Same place that I just finished with my thumb stuff. But a different therapist since hand things are done by an occupational therapist. The guy was going over the list and asked if I had done therapy before and then he saw that I just finished a treatment course.

As he was going through the various tests, I think he changed his mind on what my problem was. Given the location, it seemed like it was just a strained muscle but then with the reduction in range of motion and the fact that things didn’t hurt with resistance, he now things it is something with the shoulder. But I guess the tests he was doing don’t have a lot of specificity so it could still be other things.

But the first thing he wants to do is deal with my range of motion issues so I’ve got a couple of simple stretches to do. He also taped up the shoulder to see if that helps. He didn’t mention surgery although, from what I’ve read, that is sometimes necessary. Hopefully, we’ll be able to avoid that. I also read something about length of recovery which is kind of depressing. Some days, it just feels like everything is falling apart.

Well I don’t want to just talk about my failing body parts because that can be depressing if you think about for too long. So abrupt topic change.

Having driven to my Dad’s many times, it is amazing how many parts of the journey remain unchanged. What is constantly changing is the stuff closest to home because its a big city and vacant land doesn’t stay vacant for long. Even if you don’t really need it, someone will decide to build something and then someone else decides they need to build something next to it and so on.

But once you get away from most of the people, there is a sameness to the trip. There’s a place where someone has a large rocking chair in their yard. Why? Because they’ve always wanted giant furniture. Who knows? There’s a old church that isn’t used anymore but still has the stained glass. Kind of sad that they haven’t found a way to re-purpose it yet but I guess in those areas, there just isn’t as much demand. If it were closer to home, someone would have bulldozed the place to put up another useless strip mall.

There is an apple orchard that stays in business. There’s a neighborhood of nice homes that seems to be miles from nowhere. I always wonder who lives there and why. There have been additions but then they start to blend into the scenery. At one intersection, they built to large churches. They lack the character of the abandoned one and I wonder if there are enough people nearby to fill them.

There is one town along the way that has an exit off the highway. There used to be another horrible town you had to drive through but they cut a huge limited access bypass so now you never even see that town. Since it was a notorious speed trap and had at least 15 lights in a seven mile stretch (maybe an exaggeration), this new route shaves a lot of time off the trip so I’m happy for it.

The other town is about the halfway point and so I stop there all the time. They built a gigantic gas station right as you get off the road. One of those designed for cars and trucks but it doesn’t look like a typical truck stop. There’s one of those about a mile up and it always looks kind of sketchy so I’ve never stopped there. But this place has clean restrooms and a donut shop inside so it’s a good place to get out.

There’s a little museum that I pass along the way and I’ve always wanted to stop. I mean I don’t know that much about the area but I don’t think there’s been a lot of historic stuff that happened so I wonder what’s actually in the museum. Someday I’ll actually stop to see what’s there.

There’s a sign for a monument that always interests me. I’ve since learned a little about it and why it is there but it is really in the middle of nowhere. But it is off the road and they don’t tell you how far it is. Sometimes I wonder if it is just a trap. You go looking for the monument and you never come back. Still, someday I’m just going to take my time going up and stop at all these places I keep seeing along the way.

Oh and there is one dairy farm. OK, there are several farms since it is the heartland and all. This one is close to the road and you are generally going to see cows. What can I say? I like cows. I see them and it makes me happy. And then it makes me guilty when I think about having a hamburger.

Now I’ll close with something for dog owners. There has been an explosion of people making dog cookies. Our local bakery actually makes dog cookies in addition to the other baked goods. Well the town where Dad lives has a store that specializes in that stuff. They’ve been in business for years and Mom always used to buy treats and bring them down when they came to visit. It only took a couple of visits before the dogs were all over her looking for the little white bags containing cookies.

Anyway, they also have bigger cookies which are shaped and named just to attract people. I got one that was squirrel shaped. I mean, Rocco has no concept that it is a squirrel so that was just for me. There was another one that was like a donut with blue icing and sprinkles. Again, that is just for the people because a dog is generally doesn’t care what the cookie looks like. Well, let’s just say that the blue food coloring in the icing had an impact. I took him to the vet today and I’m just glad I didn’t have to provide a sample because they would have looked at the color and probably thought all sorts of things were wrong with him. Um, no we don’t need a lot of expensive tests – it was just a cookie.

And that’s the type of story you’ll get here. Aren’t you glad you stuck around until the end.