jimsjournal
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jimsjournal |
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Yeah, I managed to do it again -- I dumped my bike yesterday. (Charlie, stop laughing!) Yeah, sort of what like I did last September except worse because that spill I did all by myself but yesterday I did it with witnesses! (So I could feel extra dumb.) I had an appointment with my cardiologist so I thought I'd ride my bike to the office and back. To the office worked fine and the return home also was fine until I was a bit past halfway back. This is a spot where my route (following the bike path) has to cross High Street and then there is an extremely steep zig-zag hill (because the railroad -- the bike path being an old railroad right-of-way -- had crossed over the street on a bridge, but that bridge had been torn down decades ago). I had stopped to wait for traffic but the traffic (a woman in an SUV) stopped to let me cross the street -- and thus also stopping the two cars that were behind her. So I started up across the street, standing on the pedals to get going faster -- thinking about what gear to shift down to for the steep climb once I crossed the sidewalk -- and as I approached the sidewalk I waved a thank-you to the woman who had stopped -- and I think I had drifted a little too far to the left so that my front tire hit a small raised bump at the sidewalk instead of a smooth transition -- and since I was off-balance, standing on my pedals with just one hand on the handlebar -- well, whatever, I went down... twisting my left leg and taking most of the impact through my left forearm and into my shoulder. Yeah, the one with the bursitis... that I hurt back in September... and that had fully recovered and was back to normal. Yeah, that left shoulder that now hurts. Fortunately, I still have photocopies of all of the exercises assigned by the physical therapist that the orthopedic specialist had sent me to... plus the stretchable bands to go with those exercises. So I'll wait a few days (with the help of Tylenol) for the worst of the pain to go and then I'll start those specific exercises... and then back to the chiropractor as well. Went over to "Rhode Island" at lunch time today (that is, the island that is also known as Aquidneck Island, but which is the island that gave the state the first half of its name -- please forgive the repetition, those of you who have heard me say this before, but the full name of the state is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations -- Rhode Island coming from the island that holds Newport, Middletown, and Portsmouth, and Providence Plantations for the area that eventually became the city of Providence). Where was I? Oh yeah, so we don't get to see much of each other since our employer closed the Middletown office and we all became work-from-home employees -- other than our annual technical conference in Las Vegas -- but one of the guys who had gone up to New Hampshire had to be back in Rhode Island this week for business purposes, so we decided to get together for lunch. As it turned out, half of the group -- four people -- could make it. One of the guys hosted it at his house in rural Portsmouth... interesting country house, built by a carpenter around 1940 for his own house, much of the structural wood being recycled from the wreckage of some houses destroyed in the great hurricane of 1938. Alan has fixed it up during the four years that he has owned it, hardwood floor in the kitchen, granite counter tops, etc. A pleasant lunch break and mini-reunion... then back home and back to work...
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