Thursday, January 29, 2009

Wanted: Sympathy, Comic Books

If my 40s are anything like my 30s, I'll be dead before my 50s.

Let me explain what happened to me today. I had a nice lunch at Panera Bread and got a large coffee and lemon poppyseed mini-bundt cake to take with me to work. The guys in charge of such things did a remarkable job of clearing the snow out of the parking lot. Considering the slippery state of the roads in general, this was one clear parking lot.

I was thinking this as I walked to the building. I got to the sidewalk and noticed that they weren't quite so clear — mostly just snow that had blown across from beside the sidewalk. It was a little slippery, but a little slip doesn't didn't scare me. I got to the little dip in the sidewalk for wheelchair access — a little slope down to the lot — and I remember thinking that, if I were going to fall, it would be here on this little incline. But I made it across fine. But then,

The first step I took after the handicap ramp was a disaster. Most of my body slipped down to my right to the sidewalk. My right foot decided not to follow suit.

I hobbled into the building, inconvenienced about a dozen people going to and from lunch, nearly passed out, nearly vomited, and answered a bunch of questions from the woman in charge of the facilities. Then the ambulance showed up.

If you've ever been to the emergency room with non-life-threatening injuries, you know what I mean when I say that it's really just an expensive waiting room. I think I waited for over an hour before I could get my leg x-rayed. The IV they gave me in the ambulance emptied itself into my arm and hung there useless for maybe two hours.

In the end, I learned that I had cracked the bottom of, I believe, my fibula. Not a complete break, but a (painful) fracture all the same. They gave me a temporary cast, some pain meds, and the number of an orthopedist.

Now I'm finally home, laying on the couch. My ankle is throbbing. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to work out the rest of the weekend, and the remainder of the month. I can't drive (it's my drivin' foot). I suppose I could try to drive with my left foot, but that might not be such a good idea. Especially in this snowy weather.

I am thankful, though, that I bought the WiFi router, so I don't have to sit in front of my desktop to do stuff.

When my brother was laid up in the hospital for a few weeks at the beginning of the sixth grade, people brought him all sorts of comic books to read while he was there. I still remember being jealous. One of them was Peter Porker as Spiderham. Since then, I've always equated hospital stays or general medic down-times with comic books.

But I don't have any comic books. :( Maybe I'll go online and read the Heroes comix.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Conspiracy Theory Alert

Two things happened yesterday:

  • A plane flying out of NYC was forced to land in the Hudson River in, as newscasts put it, "the shadow of ground zero."
  • Dubya gave his farewell address.

I suspect a large number of anthropophobic, obsessive-compulsive conspiracy theorists are at this very instant penning their belief that these occurrences are not coincidental. The beginning if Dubya's presidency was marked with a terrible incident involving a commercial jet running into something that it shouldn't. And now, the end of his presidency is marked with another commercial airline incident — and in the same general location as the first!

I'm sure the stories will differ. Some may believe that this incident was designed to show people that, even though things can happen, airlines are still safer than they were on Sept. 11, 2001. Others may believe that this is a failed attempt (by either Bush or his enemies) to crash another plane in the same general area.

Who could be involved? Dubya and Cheney, of course. Barack Obama, likely. Big oil? Commercial airline bigwigs? Osama bin Laden? Rudy Giuliani? Al Frankton? The Illuminati? Martha Stewart?

Regardless of what their stories turn out to be, I'd wager that they will all miss the mark. The downing of flight 1549 reveals a new threat that I'm sure all the usual conspiracy theorists will miss, that will go unspoken even in the most paranoid circles. The threat is, of course, suicide Canada geese.

Of course, these are only the pawns in a global war against homo sapiens. The real ringleaders are the squirrels, the most intelligent animal on Earth apart from humans. (Have you ever been to a college or university — hubs of learning and cutting-edge technology — that wasn't jam-packed with eager squirrels?)



[Hat tip to Tim Bedore]

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Who Could Hang a Name on You?

Why does every day seem like Tuesday?

Well, yes, today is Tuesday. But that was a surprise this morning; I was sure we had had a Tuesday yesterday. Tomorrow will be horrid — such a long week, and it's only Tuesday.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Wii-in 2

113 213 lbs. I count that as a 2-pound loss.

[Oops!]