Leaf Drop and Amputation
Posted on November 11, 2008
Filed Under Blogroll, another dread disease, bitching and moaning, snark, suburban joys | 9 Comments
Call it depression, call it surrender, call it what you will but I am NOT raking up all those leaves this year. In autumn’s past I’ve espoused the clean-as-you-go-theory of yard work, raking nearly every day to stay on top of the mess, finding each gust of wind personally insulting as new leaves continued to fall on the freshly raked lawn despite all my exertions.
As evidenced by all the leaves in this picture, I have tried a different approach this year. The close your eyes and pretend there’s not a thing wrong with the lawn approach, the hold your breath and hope someone else finds this leaf mess intolerable and eventually borrows the neighbor’s gas blower. The Who, Me? approach seems to be working so far and every other weekend the yard is restored to temporary tidiness by My Better Half who has thankfully settled in to his role as temporary but constant gardener.
And to be perfectly honest this laissez-faire attitude I have adopted is not entirely due to a new and more laid back me but more to the fact that I have serious wrist and forearm problems stewing and can proudly declare myself a winner of several fine diagnosis – De Quervian’s Syndrome, Wortenberg’s Syndrome, the beginnings of tennis elbow – all of which are orthopedic euphemism for, “Wow, your hand-wrist-arm apparatus is really fucked up. Let me give you a Cortisone shot and hope for the best because if that doesn’t work we’ll have to consider amputation.”
Simple tasks like raking, flipping pancakes, vacuuming, scrubbing the tub and folding laundry have all become excruciating antagonists to the things already gone wrong in this skinny arm of mine. And so I’ve been sidelined from some of the more banal but necessary tasks in life and, like anyone riding the pine, I’m anxious to participate. But I’m also enjoying the imposed break, nothing like a little doctor’s note to help a person settle in to a sabbatical from household chores. There is something liberating about letting things go just a little longer than I would usually. It’s so unlike me. I could get used to this slovenliness.
But then there’s the difficulty and attendant pain associated with tennis. And we all know how unlikely I am to give up the game. So I’m icing and pumping the NSAID’s and fully committed to getting this thing healed up so that I can continue to work on my court skills. And if amputation is necessary then I will be forced to play left handed. It worked for Nadal. No reason it can’t work me, right?
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