jimsjournal
Happy St. Patrick's Day -- 03/17/05


Sunday night I went into town after dinner to pick up a few things and when I got back I parked in the driveway and walked around behind my car... because of my shoveling on Saturday and some sunshine both days, the driveway was bare... except where some snow had been underneath where my car had been parked... and had melted... and then frozen again... And despite the floodlights above our garage, this was black ice on the black driveway in the shadows behind my car.

It must have been comical to see my feet go out from under me -- I was airborne for a brief moment -- knocked the wind right out of me when I hit. I just lay there for a minute or so, catching my breath, admiring the stars in an almost clear sky, doing a mental inventory of breakable body parts

My ribs were sore on my left side.

I couldn't sleep on either side that night but the ache was going away by Tuesday night and at some point during the night I was able to roll over and sleep on my side without the pain of doing so waking me up (because that's the position I was in when I woke up on Wednesday morning.

This meant no workout on Monday and Tuesday, except for a brisk walk outside at lunchtime on Tuesday (I actually went into the office on Tuesday!), and also no weight loss so far this week. So yesterday I went out for a run -- sunny in the low to mid-40s (5 or 6 C). There was still too much snow on the bike path so I ran in a town park near the bike path. After a couple of miles my side was beginning to ache and when I got to about three and a half miles I stopped running and walked the remaining half mile or so to home. Last night I couldn't lie on either side again, and today my side hurts.

Yes, even though it did not appear that I broke any ribs, there is always the possibility that I cracked one or two of them and that running may not have been such a good idea. I think maybe tomorrow morning if my side still hurts, I may try to stop by my doctor's office. I don't have an appointment but they take walk-in patients and I figure if I get there before the office opens I could be one of the first patients and wouldn't have to wait too long. This isn't so much for treatment -- I mean they can't put your ribs in a cast -- as to just find out if I did fracture anything or not and what kinds of exercise I need to avoid for a while. I'm going to be very upset if I can't run for a couple of weeks because I really had my heart set on running in the James Joyce Ramble in April, not to mention how that would mess up my Six Week Tweak.

[No, I don't think I have broken ribs... but I am concerned that there might be a couple of cracks that will heal if left alone but which maybe I should be careful of stressing... so I'm just thinking maybe I should find out. This is really nothing. Remind me to tell you sometime about when I cracked the cartilage connecting the ribs in the center of my chest. Now that hurt!]



I just heard that science fiction/fantasy writer Andre Norton has just died at age 93 at her home in Murfreeboro, Tennessee. She was the author of more than 130 novels during her career. Three Hands of Scorpio, her latest novel, is due for release next month.



This afternoon I was editing the books for a new course and was running through the Adobe FrameMaker files using the spell check function when I hit the word programmatically... Except that wasn't the way it was written; the course developer had misspelled it by leaving out the second m so that it was written programatically. The spell check recognized it as being misspelled, but instead of suggesting that it be changed to programmatically it wanted me to consider spelling it as a four word phrase: program a tic ally.

I burst out laughing, picturing attempting to form an alliance with that cartoon character, The Tick.



Happy St. Patrick's Day!



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