Life of Wry

Getting old’s a bitch.

Here we were, early morning, driving down I-5 pre-dawn, on our way to a baseball tournament.  Happy, happy. I was waxing on and on to Jim about how fabulous I was feeling, how I was just loving my new exercise regimen and all my new-found flexibility. How surely all the stretching was going to pull, lengthen and realign knotted muscle fibers, and deliver much needed nutrient-rich blood to over-stressed tendons and ligaments.  I was telling Jim how just yesterday I had achieved some personal bests in the stretching realm, gotten my body into positions I’m not sure I’ve ever managed.  And it felt so good!

We arrived in Ripon, somewhat south of Manteca, at about 8:00am and commenced to unload the car and ready ourselves for a long, sunny day of baseball watching. I was putting some sunscreen on a leg–one of my well-stretched legs–when suddenly, someone stabbed me with a big, giant butcher knife, right below my left hip.

Many nasty, horrible, X-rated words came to mind, but only gasps came out.  I struggled to find a position that would ease the sharp shooting pains… and sorta found one, but it was not exactly convenient, contorted and bent over the bumper of my car.  I found some–not much–relief on my knees, then finally acquiesced, at everyone’s suggestion, and just lay down on my back in the parking lot.  At least it was a pretty day.

See picture.

Maybe 20 minutes.  Had some nice conversations with nurturing Frances and funny Matt (pictured), and other people in passing cars.

Realizing I couldn’t stay there the whole day, I, with plenty of helpers, got to my feet and spent the next five hours shifting slowly from various standing positions to various sitting positions.  And pretty much, that’s still the situation.. 34 hours later.

I managed to ride in the passenger seat back to Davis, then join Jim for another pair of 80-minute drives to and from the east bay for his 40th high school reunion (hold the dancing).  Today, more or less homebound.. pumping myself full of non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, icing, and walking as much as I can tolerate so as not to freeze in this position forever.

Not sure how this one’s going to play out, but it’ll likely put a crimp in my fancy new exercise program and delay my comeback.

Ouch.