Injury Prone

Most readers know that we have been prepping the house to put it on the market, and we finally got it ready last weekend. We've had several showings and one offer that we didn't accept. A couple of other offers are in the pipeline, so we are trying to be zen about it.
But as I worked to ready the house, I found myself becoming accident prone.
Some bruises make sense as I hauled furniture out of the basement, into a truck and then into a storage unit, or someone else's house.
Earl's nephew agreed to take the upright piano that we have had since Grace was 1. Earl's mother had originally purchased the piano and it was covered in black lacquer. She stripped the wood and finished it so that the wood grain shone through.

The piano movers. Tucker is kneeling with his back to the camera. Earl and his nephew are standing behind the piano, and Earl's brother is using a lever to get the piano on a dolly. 

We did love it, but no one played it anymore, probably since we moved to this house, about 10 years ago. I used to play the piano quite frequently, but in the move, I lost all of my favorite piano books and couldn't get motivated to start over again with learning various pieces.
As you can see, we had more help moving the piano, so I didn't hurt myself.
But many times as we are carrying furniture out, it's only me and Earl or me and Spencer. Spencer has admitted that I'm a pretty good mover for a girl -- I didn't take that as an insult, because I know that my physical strength is definitely limited, yet I'm willing to try to move heavy things, like this desk that needed to be out of the house at the last minute before pictures were taken.

Tybs is not very accepting of all the changes

Of course, I first had to clear everything off the desk. And Tybs at that moment decided that the desk was his favorite place in the world and we couldn't possibly move it out.
So many times I hit my shins as I'm walking forward carrying a piece of furniture, or the furniture hits me, leaving bruises, as I walk backward with it. I also have big bruises on my forearms, I suppose from lifting and holding items.
Then two weeks ago, I had that fall on my back porch as I tripped after walking five miles. The bruise from that fall has faded to a pale green that stretches from my knee toward my ankle. I stopped running after that fall, giving my knee time to heal.
But last week, I stepped on a sliver of glass that came from a broken picture frame. I'm awful at getting splinters taken out of my feet. I decided to avoid walking on it that night and I tried to tackle it the next morning. I soaked my foot in hot water to loosen it up. I used a credit card to try to scrape it out. Then I used tweezers but couldn't get a hold on it. Finally, I decided that I would let my body absorb it or spit it out. I only felt occasional twinges when I stepped down on a certain part of my foot.
Obviously, I couldn't run with a splinter of glass in my foot.
On Sunday, before the open house, we decided to clean the side windows again because it had been raining. The windows are old and have a series of storm windows and screens. Earl was outside on a ladder and I was moving the storm windows up and down. One of the windows didn't want to go all the way up, so I was reaching under it to get to the storm window, when the window suddenly released, like a guillotine, streaking toward the closed position, and it landed on the heel of my thumb as I tried to escape it.
The impact formed a purple/red ridge along the heel of my thumb as I sprang away in pain. The swelling has subsided, but it is still sensitive to the touch and the dark bruise is slowly spreading.
I wonder if the stress of preparing the house to move has made me more prone to injuries. Maybe I'm being more careless, focused on the end result rather than taking my time.
Now that the house is on the market, I'll use this lull to heal, letting my bruises fade. Once we have a contract and a determined move out date, I'm sure I'll be back to moving mode and receiving new bruises as I race to get rid of our belongings that won't be coming along on our trip to France.

French Eccentricities

This story starts last Saturday, with a trip to the wine tasting room here in Mireval.
We saw the signs as we drove in and knew that the winery sold muscat, a specialty of the region. It's a very sweet white wine that is used as an aperitif here.
We visited the Domaine La Capelle on Saturday and tasted the 2015 bottle of muscat.

Then, the tiny French woman who spoke no English, gave us a sip of the 1995 bottle of this thick golden liquid.
To me, it was a  bit strong, almost musty, but to Earl, it set off something in his taste buds.
We didn't buy it that day, but Earl continued to dream of it.
She told us the bottle was 58 Euros. That seems like a lot, but really, not that much more than gel manicure.

Yesterday, it rained, and I had gone for an early run in the rain along country roads that seemed a little sketchy.
After I got back to the room, the muscle pain along my right shoulder blade had returned, kind of like a stiff neck where you turn using your whole body rather than turning your neck and shoulders. I was also having twinges of pain in my throat and left ear. I decided it was a good day to relax.
So the final full day here, we stayed in the room catching up on some work that I needed to do while Earl worked on his novel.
In the middle of the afternoon, he decided to get his special bottle of wine.
The vintner was within walking distance, so he pulled on his raincoat and headed out.
"You're sure you can do it alone?" I asked. I didn't really want to go with him, but since I spoke French, I might have been helpful.
He waved me off, getting more secure in his ability to communicate with French people. He'd been out to buy breakfast each morning and even began stopping at the bar across the street to bring me coffee -- coffee to go in France is quite a rarity.
He asked whether I thought she would take credit cards since we hadn't replenished the cash we brought over. I figured she would since so few businesses operate in cash only.
I continued to grade papers and respond to email until a loud bang, followed by "Shit!" rang from the hallway.
I thought Earl had tripped coming up the stairs.
We are on the second floor, which the French call the premiere etage, the first floor. They count the ground floor and then the first floor. As I got up to open the door, he came in holding his head.
He had run into the closed door at the end of the hall with full force, banging with the bone just over his eyebrow. It started to bleed and a knot began to form.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I didn't turn the hall light on and I ran into the door," he said.
That's something else to know about France. The hallways are always long and dark with no outside light coming in. There are usually lights at the beginning or ends of hallways, but the lights are on a time. You press it then move as quickly as possible to your door or the stairs.
In this B&B, there was a door on the first floor (ground floor) which gave some light. The light for the upstairs hallway is at the bottom of the stairs. He didn't think he needed the hallway light so he came up in the dark.
 "Sit down," I insisted.
"No, the lady is waiting. I have to go get some cash."
I wanted him to press a tissue against his wound to staunch the blood and then hold something cold against it to prevent a large bump.
He requested a bandage, which I placed over his eyebrow.
Then I looked up whether there were banks in this tiny town. The post office has an ATM. So he headed off again.
When I texted Grace, she was appalled that I let him go out alone after a bump to the head, but he couldn't stand the thought of the old French lady waiting for him to return with his cash.
And, in spite of the difficulties, he returned with his special bottle of muscat in hand.

Concussions Suck -- But It Could Be Worse

On Sunday, Grace was rehearsing with her dance ensemble when she got dropped on her head. She called me before she drove home. The choreographer had urged her not to drive. She called me from her car as she sat in the parking lot.
Did you lose consciousness? Do you feel nauseated? I asked the normal parenting questions after your kid hits her head.
Just drive home, I encouraged her.

Here's Grace as Nancy in Oliver -- the last show she was in. 

She called the doctor's office on Monday, but they were closed for Martin Luther King Day.
Grace had a headache, but she continued her normal life, going to rehearsal for her musical on Monday night. As a concession to her head bump, she didn't do the dance numbers at rehearsal.
Tuesday, she got an appointment with the doctor, but had to be at work at 8 a.m. She went to work and got off early. She called me then because the doctor said she had a concussion.
"The only way you're getting away with this is because you're young," the doctor scolded.
She was ordered home with no work, no rehearsal, no screens. "Rest your brain," the doctor told her.
I'm hopeful that Grace's concussion isn't too severe since she hasn't been intolerant of light and sound, like some people with concussions are. She turns the television on then faces away from it so she can hear it even if she isn't allow to watch it.
We tried watching War and Peace, the miniseries, but it got too complicated with me trying to describe to Grace each actor and each scene. We decided we'd hold off and watch it when she recovered.
The hardest thing for her has been resisting her telephone -- the lifeline of the 20 something year old. No texting. No Facebook. No games or clips of cute little owls taking refuge from the rain under a mushroom. She was allowed to knit as long as she didn't make a complicated pattern that required her to think too much.

She's been knitting these mermaid tail blankets. She gave this to our niece Regan for Christmas. 

I didn't think of it right away because I'm not a huge homeopathy kind of person, but by today, day five, I did go to Whole Foods and buy some arnica. I pried Grace out of bed around 1 p.m. and gave her some arnica to let it melt under her tongue. Arnica is supposed to help with bruising and trauma. Grace took some acetaminophen too, which is the pain medicine she's allowed to take. After a meal and a shower, she looked at me in surprise. "My head isn't hurting!" she said. 

That's huge. Maybe it's the arnica, maybe it's just the days of resting her brain, but any day without a headache is a success.
I should have thought of the arnica because just this week, I had more proof that it helped. For Christmas, I had sent my parents a basket of things that I picked up at the farmer's market. Included in the package was an ointment with arnica. My father was having foot and leg pain, and I asked mom if she had tried the ointment on it. When I talked to them last night, they told me his pain was much better and he'd been able to get some sleep. So maybe there is something to this arnica. At least, I plan to keep giving it to Grace and I'll get more ointment for her on Saturday so she can rub it on her neck, which the doctor said was swollen.  
Tomorrow, she's scheduled to return to work, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that  she heals quickly, as a 23-year-old does.

Updates -- Health

Hopefully, my foot injury is still healing. I loved all the kind words and advice I got from you all on Friday.
On Saturday, I walked a third of a mile before running two miles then walking again at the end. I think walking first helped.
I stopped and bought new shoes on Sunday, getting the exact same kind I had before. I didn't want to try anything new because I was happy with the previous pair and had just worn them out.
New shoes on my feet, on Monday, I walked and ran again. Plus, I took Sally's advice and found a yoga video online to do afterwards.

This morning, after walking at the beginning, I ran three miles without pain. Then I stretched with the yoga video. 

I'm not going to try to increase my mileage for a couple of weeks. I'm just going to run three miles on four or five days a week and keep track of my pain. Yes, my foot hurts  now as I move around the house doing laundry and vacuuming, (it's my day off) but I didn't have pain while I ran. That's an improvement in my book. 

It's probably hard for people in other countries to imagine why I wouldn't go to the doctor after a month of pain and inability to run, but those people probably aren't dealing with the U.S. health system. Unfortunately, it's gotten worse since the expansion of health care.

I am definitely in favor of health care for all and would prefer a single-payer method, similar to that in Europe. Maybe our health care here is only going to get worse before it gets better.

We've always had health care through my husband's insurance. It's something over $100 per week that they take from his paycheck to cover the five of us in our family. 

For a normal doctor appointment, we pay a $25 co-pay, which seems reasonable. 

If we want to go to a specialist, the co-pay is $40. 

We also have a medical spending account that sets aside $2500 per year to pay those co-pays, prescriptions, and other medical expenses. With five people, that money goes surprisingly fast. We've used it to pay for contact lens and dental work plus two surprise costs. 

My husband had a colonoscopy, which is supposed to be no cost since it is considered a screening. But they found a non-cancerous polyp and removed it during the procedure. That meant it was no longer a screening and we had to pay $600 for it. 

Grace's voice teacher was worried about her vocal cords. She wondered if she might have a nodule or if the cords hadn't grown together yet, as they do in the early 20s. Grace made an appointment with an ear, nose and throat specialist.

We paid the $40 co-pay for the specialist, and Grace spent about 10 minutes with the doctor who said Grace's vocal cords looked okay. She used a camera on the end of a wand to stick in Grace's mouth and get a picture of the vocal cords. 

We were really surprised when the bill for the doctor and the facility (which was a typical doctor's office) arrived. Our part was $650. Those two surprise costs ate up half of the money we had set aside for the year. 

Tucker also needs his wisdom teeth out this year, which I think runs around $900 for us. So medical costs really add up.

With an injury, I could go to the doctor, which would probably lead to physical therapy, but I can't really afford it. That's why I self-diagnosed. 

No matter what the doctor diagnosed, I figured rest would be the main treatment. 

I've had stress fractures before and they told me to rest it for six weeks. I've also been doing stretches in case it might be plantar fasciitis or an Achilles tendon.

I try not to turn down the kids when they feel like they need to go to the doctor, but I'm definitely more cautious for myself. The cost just makes it not worth the trip. 

Money and Pain

I made a medical decision this week based on money.
I know it's something that a lot of people have to do, and I'm hoping I won't regret it because it wasn't about me, it was about Tucker.
At the first swim meet of the year, on the concrete blocks diving in, his right foot slipped as he dove. The left leg hit hard against the concrete block.
The crowd  went "Oooooh" as he hit the water.
I was timing in his lane, and I didn't think about him being hurt. I watched to see if he would force himself to catch up with the boy beside him, cause he hates to lose, even if it is because of a bad start. He finished the race, a 100 butterfly, but finished just behind the boy next to him.

This is a photo from a summer ago as Tucker swam the butterfly

Again, I was standing behind the blocks not too concerned, except thinking he would be mad that he had slipped. But the boy next to him turned and said, "Are you okay, Tucker? I heard you fall."
And the coach came to the edge of the pool and said, "Did you hurt yourself, Tucker?"
Later she said she was worried that he had pulled something because of the awkward start.
When Tucker hoisted himself out of the pool, he wouldn't put any weight on his left leg and he had a knot on his shin.
The boy next to him helped him to a chair and one of the dads, who is a sports medicine doctor, went over to look at Tucker. I kept timing and didn't think much about it.
I heard the doctor saying, "Do you feel nauseated?" and Tucker nodded. He was shaking and pale. A couple of guys helped him get to the room where the kids rest between events and Tucker lay down. The doctor kept telling him to slow down his breathing because he was going to hyperventilate.
Tucker put his hoodie over his face and breathed into it. I think he was hiding tears.
We got some Advil for him to take and after a few minutes of hovering above him, he told me to leave, he'd be fine. So I went back to timing.
Then someone came in and told me Tucker was throwing up.
The doctor and I both went back to check on him. About half an hour had passed and he was still in a lot of pain, pale and shaking, along with throwing up. The doctor said he didn't think the bone was broken, but we should take Tucker to the emergency room for x-rays.

This is what I wanted to do to make Tucker feel better
but he isn't a toddler anymore

The doctor later explained that the shin is one of the most painful places to be injured because there's nothing between the skin and the bone.
Two guys helped carry Tucker out to the car, acting like human crutches. Tucker still couldn't put any weight on his hurt leg.
In the dark of the car, Tucker reclined the seat and I slowly began to drive in the direction of the Children's Hospital.
I heard his breathing slow down as the car passed through the lighted streets. I had his phone in my pocket and I set it in the console between us. He didn't pick it up, which really worried me. Teenagers are rarely witout their phones.
I started talking to Tucker about the pain and the hospital.
I didn't say it, but I was thinking about the $200 co-pay the minute we walked in the emergency room.
Unfortunately, my earlier bout with a broken nose and surgery to correct it had depleted all of the money we had in our Medical Savings Account. A trip to the emergency room for me, plus surgery probably cost us a total of $2000, and that's with our good insurance. From here on, we were footing the bills directly from our checking account, which pays for two kids to go to college.
I didn't want to choose not to go to the ER because of money.
We decided to take a night to think about it. If we needed xrays the next morning, the doctor could send us to a walk-in place rather than the ER.
So we got back to the house and I ran in to grab the crutches. He was able to get into the house and ease himself into a recliner, where he sat for the rest of the night.
He started feeling well enough to drink some ginger ale and eat some pretzels. Later I gave him a bowl of macaroni and cheese.
This morning, he goes for his scheduled physical so we'll know more. The pain is less, but he still can't put weight on the front of his foot. He may yet go in for xrays. I hate having to make medical decisions based on money, but I know people do it every day in this country. That's crazy.
How about you? Do you put off medical care because of money?

Fake Injuries in European Soccer

For the past few weeks, I've spent some of my afternoon watching the European Football tournament. That's soccer to us Americans. Teams from various countries play for the championship. This week the competition was down to Spain versus Portugal and Italy versus Germany.
My friends know that I love sports and I'm pretty competitive, so I revel in a good sports tournament, especially when country honor is at stake.
Watching European soccer has been an eye opener. I generally root for the underdog.

Here's a photo from Zimbio

As I watch, I am astonished by the number of players who fake injuries and lie on the field, rolled into a ball, even as play continues around them. Now, I've seen my fair share of NBA (basketball) stars take flops when guarding the basket, but to stay on the ground when they aren't actually hurt is unthinkable. Don't they know their team needs them?
The replays generally show that the player either was not touched or received only a glancing blow. The players are hoping that the referee will take pity and give the other play a yellow card, which is a warning. This is a sport that could really use an instant replay clause. That would get those guys to stop faking injuries.
While watching players from Greece, the Czech Republic, Ireland, England, France, Denmark, The Netherlands, along with the countries still in the tournament, I have come up with a theory. The farther south the country, the closer to the Mediterranean, the more likely the players were to flop on the field and feign an injury. I hate to speak ill of the players from these countries I love, but I think they have a knack for melodrama.
Some of them will lie on the field so long that the team brings out a stretcher and four strong guys to carry the hurt player off the field. This reminds me of the scene from Florence in  A Room With A View where the Italians get in a fight and one of the guys is killed by a knife. The other men in the piazza pick up the dead guy and carry him to the nearest fountain to wash him off. They carry him just like the guys from the soccer field.

 

Here's a picture of Ronaldo, not on the soccer field,
 but in an ad for Armani, I think.
This photo is from this website.

 In soccer though, inevitably, the hurt guy hops off the stretcher on the sidelines and goes back in the game within minutes. Why? Because he wasn't really hurt.
The biggest offender I saw in the faking injury field was Ronaldo who plays for Portugal when he isn't being paid a lot of money to play for Real Madrid or one of those teams. Ronaldo fell to the soccer field whenever another player breezed by him. And because Ronaldo is famous, the player on the other team often got a yellow card and a warning not to be so rough. Time and again, I saw Ronaldo sink to the green grass writhing in pain. In the end, Portugal lost to Spain, in spite of Ronaldo's excellent acting skills. I don't want to discount Ronaldo's other talents though, as you can see from the photo of him.
As I watched the soccer players lying on the ground, I imagined what it would be like to put them on the field with NFL players. Football players get up even when they are gravely injured. They hobble off the field with torn ligaments and concussions and broken bones. I'm not condoning the brutality that happens in the NFL, but I think the soccer players could stop faking injuries and start acting a little tougher.
The least they could do is save the dramatics for an actual injury.

Injury Stories

So we found out last night that Tucker's swim relay teams will be moving on to State competition, which is awesome, and was also just a few hours after he stubbed his toe on the bathroom door and it swelled up.
Offering the proper amount of sympathy for an injury is one of those mothering things I struggle with, as Grace would be happy to tell you. So when Tucker showed me his swollen little toe, it made me reminisce about the time I broke my little toe.
Of course, I didn't stub it on a bathroom door. That would be so bourgeois.
It was the summer I spent a month in Corsica...
I won't bore you with the details of the handsome doctor Francois, the younger brother of the family I stayed with, but one day Francois, his brother-in-law Yves and I took the family sailboat to a beach that could only be reached by boat. It was a special beach, they explained, but neglected to mention that it was a nude beach. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised -- they were French.
So we sailed for about an hour across the Mediterranean on their little white sailboat. The color of the Mediterranean, was startlingly blue. As we sailed beneath the beaming sun, small fish with gills like wings skimmed above the water for long stretches -- flying fish.
When we got to the special, isolated beach, we pulled the boat onto the sand. Francois and Yves immediately shed their bathing suits while I spread a towel away from them, afraid to even look their way. (I was so American.) It was on that beach that I learned most Frenchmen are not circumcised.
On the way home that evening, sizzling from a day at the beach, Francois suggested I try the trapeze on the sailboat. The trapeze is a wire that attaches to the top of the mast then comes down to a harness that can go around a person's waist. I stepped into the trapeze and moved to the side of the sailboat to act as ballast. (I'm not sure if this was a comment on my American lack of thinness.)
I was timid at first, afraid to lean out over the gleaming water. But Francois and Yves both urged me to trust the wire and lean back with my feet planted on the edge of the sailboat. So I did.

I arched my back and felt the spray of the water cooling me as the wind directed the sails and we glided across the Mediterranean. Then the wind changed or Francois wasn't paying attention and suddenly the boat lurched and I went swinging toward the mast, where I hit my foot and broke my little toe.
Francois was a doctor and he assured me that, although the toe was broken, we couldn't really do anything but wait for it to heal. Luckily, I had a few more weeks to spend barefoot on the beach in Corsica.
How about you? Do you have interesting stories about an injury?

Cat Injuries

If anyone looked at me closely today (and no one every does) they might have noticed the shadow of a round bruise just above my lip. The small circle might have been mistaken for a smudge of newsprint, or perhaps a small mustache as I age.
But as I stood in front of three classes and in front of both my boys and my husband, no one noted the bruise on my lip or the one slightly higher on my cheek that came from a house cat.
I know, animals can cause injuries. I've had my share of scratches and a few sore shoulders when the dog used to pull on the chain, but the face bruise, well that's a new one.
I walked in the back door after work on Tuesday to an empty house, except for the cats. The cats generally gather near the back door in hopes of getting food or escaping whenever anyone comes in or out.
Tupi, the big, extra-toed cat, was sitting by the back door on top of the oak cabinet that we call a pie safe. It's one of his favorite spots for looking out doors and windows.
I walked in the door and let the screen slam behind me. This last day of January was a balmy 62 and the cats were feeling fiesty, which is perhaps why Tupi decided to jump onto the kitchen counter across from the pie safe.
So as I stepped into the kitchen, he squatted onto his haunches and launched himself into the air to make the forbidden and risky jump across the kitchen floor.
That's when we collided.
I took a cat head to the right side of my face and he dropped to the tile floor, of course, landing on his feet.
I worried about him for a minute as I put my hand to my face. Did that just happen? Could the cat have a concussion? Did he knock out any teeth?
"That really hurt, Tupi," I said as he scampered off.
I felt a bump swell on my lip immediately.
By morning, the swelling was gone and only a dark bruise remained, plus this slightly bizarre story about being head-butted by a cat, that no one will ever hear, because no one notices the shadow of a bruise on my upper lip.

Crutches and Ankles

What is it with my kids and ankles?

How about crutches? Do they have some sort of magnetic attraction to aluminum crutches?
We have two sets of crutches in the basement and neither pair fits me. They're all for tall people.
Any guesses on who's using them and how these crutches and the aircast came to be in my living room?
I guarantee you that whatever your guess is will be more entertaining than the actual story.

Teeth Woes

I just love my periodontist Dr. Sakamoto. Well, I don't love having to visit him, but he always tells interesting stories, like the friend who gave him an iPad because he did a guest lecture for him.
I read somewhere that the biggest beauty tip to help women look young is to preserve their teeth. Losing a tooth is devastating to the bones in the face. That's why I was worried when I started to feel pressure on a tooth when I would bite into something. Guess which tooth? A front one of course.
I went to the dentist and he saw a lot of bone loss, but only in that one tooth. He couldn't figure it out. That's why I went to Dr. Sakamoto.
He agreed with my dentist that the one tooth, well, about half of that tooth, had bone loss. He doesn't know why and guesses it must have been an injury somewhere in my past. The rest of my teeth are fine.
So he came up with a plan to clean out the area under the gum and pack it with cadaver (that's right, I said cadaver -- dead people) bone to see if he could regraft it to the bone.
And that's what he did yesterday. I'd been taking 800 mg of Motrin for 24 hours. He said that helps with the swelling and the pain. I'm not a wimp about pain. I had two of my kids natural. And I hate really heavy duty pain medicines, like vicodin.
So Dr. Sakomoto numbed me, told me the iPad story, talked about the touch pad benefits and drawbacks. Then (WARNING: this may gross you out because it still gives me shivers) he basically split open my gum and started scraping like mad on the bone there. It reminded me of when my nose was broken 20 years ago and they had to pull the bones apart to try to get them back together straight.
That scraping noise from inside my head...ugh. But it didn't hurt. I just felt the pressure and that scrape of metal on bone. I did kind of wonder if Dr. Sakomoto had a plan because he seemed to be going at the scraping with great gusto.
Finally, the scraping stopped and the packing of the cadaver bone commenced. Again, I'm okay with the cadaver because my ACL (the ligament in the knee) is cadaver ligament after I tore mine roller blading. (I do seem to have a lot of injuries, don't I?)
Then Dr. Sakomoto gave me stitches to hold my gum in place. They are lovely long black stitches above my front tooth. He told me that he tied the knots on the back side of my teeth because no one wants black knots on the front of their gums. He neglected to mention the long black stitches on the front. And I couldn't really see them until my mouth was un-numb again.
Here's a funny thing. They told me not to workout the day after and then do only a half workout on Friday if I felt like it. So I asked about my usual run on Saturday with my friends. We run about 7 and a half miles. The nurse was skeptical about that. "If you're feeling light-headed at all...."
So I have gum surgery and I should skip my run, but my friend Dream Girl has a lumpectomy and a drainage tube but she can run? She has chemotherapy two days before, but she can run? This seems like a lame excuse to skip my run this weekend. Maybe I'll take my roller blades!

Images From a Basketball Game

Anyone who knows me, knows I enjoy watching sports and I'm pretty competitive. Last night was just another ordinary basketball game night. Earl got to come to the game since it was his day off. His observation: Spencer has matured on the court.
My impressions:
Long arms like spider monkeys snatching the ball out of the air.
His hands like gecko feet stick to the ball whenever they touch it.
Long loping gallop, ball dribbling beside him as he leaps up for a layup.
The JV won by 30 points, so he sat most of the second half and the boys who don't usually get a chance to play had a turn.
Then the Varsity team comes running out. Spencer has managed to pull on his warm up jersey and run out before the rest of the JV team has even gotten to the locker room.
His white shorts dangle. The strings from the shorts hang out. He holds the shorts in a bunch with one hand and shoots with the other. He lets go of the shorts for just a minute to rebound then grabs them again before they can fall.
The moms in the stands, figure the drawstrings have come out. One mom has a safety pin. Earl had left by that time so I hand it to a dad who isn't afraid of being rebuked by the coaches or the boys. A couple of the coaches and some of the senior boys gather around Spencer. They stand in a circle examining the long strings and the loose shorts.
I laugh and laugh. I wish I had a camera.
The game begins. Within the first few minutes, one of our boys goes down on the floor, sliding along on his butt. His hands are over his face, his eyes watering.
He sits on the bench with an icepack on his face. Then the trainer hands him cotton. He twists it and stuffs it up his nose which swells throughout the rest of the game.
The game ends and long, tall Spencer comes out, the blue strap of his gym bag crossing his chest. Joe accepts a ride from us and the two of them laugh in the backseat about how Spencer co-hosts parties at Joe's house.
We drive through Wendy's to provide Frosties and Baconators.