Yikes! What a scare!

Yesterday, one of our neighbors posted a request for computer help in our community message forum. I responded and asked him to call me. He did. We arranged to meet at his house this morning. Anne planned to go help Greg at his house, so I just walked over to the neighbor's house, which was about a mile away.

Yeah, I was feeling good. I was out walking and the day was wonderful. I was wearing a pair of running shoes and not even walking fast. My shoulder felt good. I smiled.

One of the houses had a concrete drive with a small cobblestone surface. I did not think anything about it. It looked like the sidewalk in front of our house. A thin invisible dew film clung to those cobblestones. As I stepped on to it, it felt like I had just stepped into the middle of a patch of ice in downtown Minneapolis. I actually did that one time and I remember the totally helpless feeling as my feet went out from under me and I hit the ground.

That is what happened. I fell toward my left side and forward. Instinctively, my hands reached out to break the fall, but a little voice told me to protect my shoulder. Most of my weight came down on my left hand, but my right palm hit the driveway, causing pain to shoot through my injured right shoulder. I was sick and the words came hurtling through my mind "THIS WASN'T MY FAULT!"

I called my good friend from Church to take me to the doctor. They performed a full examination and did an X-ray. Dr. Bryan declared my shoulder is fine and looks good. He told me to come back in six weeks. He said now is the "boring period" of just letting my shoulder heal and being careful.

Tears of relief.

Bob

Awesome gift

I really enjoyed the white elephant gifting yesterday. We have some savvy shoppers. I hope Jeff enjoys the tools which he stole from me.

To whoever put together the Treebeard’s cookbook with the non-slip surfaced knives, I wanted you to know this is awesome. The bright orange Santuku knife has now assumed the position of official cheese slicer in my arsenal. It slices hard cheeses better than anything else I own. The non-slip coating is the secret.

Ah, the cookbook -- I have decided to exercise my latent desire to play a head chef role for some of our meals. I usually just play salad chef and dish washer. My first recipe will be Treebeard’s chicken breasts with mushroom cream sauce. If it goes well, I might host a family dinner. Isn’t that radical? I begin by actually seeking and laying hands on the ingredients in our kitchen. I am sure many of have experienced the sinking feeling of being half way through cooking a new recipe and discovering that you thought you had garlic powder in the pantry, but do not. That is how homemade mayonnaise gets made with olive oil instead of salad oil (Yuch!). I must admit that my career as a manager and planner will spill over to an attempt at cooking. I will probably drive Anne crazy. I am inspired by watching the movie Julie and Julia. Maybe I will write a short story called Bob and Treebeard.

Happy new year, everyone!

Making Coffee with Sarah and Jessica

Tonight, we had a sleepover at our house for granddaughters, Sarah and Jessica (now 2 years, 3 mo old). After their dinner, I began assembling coffee for tomorrow morning. Sarah came over to me and said "big chair" while pointing to one of the chairs in the breakfast room. I knew immediately that she wanted a chair to stand on, so she could see what I was doing. I grabbed a chair with my good arm (still recuperating from shoulder surgery) and dragged it up to the counter. She managed to get into the chair by herself and stood up beside me.

I measured a half spoon of coffee grounds and held over the basket, as she stood on her toes to see what I was doing.

"Do you want to dump it in, Sarah?"

"Yeah!" she said gleefully, as she reached over and twisted the spoon, while I held it firmly to be sure it all went in the basket. Sarah was delighted.

"Do you want to smell it, Sarah?"

"Yeah!"

I held up the coffee bag for her and she stuck her face into the bag to get a good whiff.

"Do you like it?"

"Yeah!"

"Would you like to touch it?"

"Yeah!" she said and stuck her little forefinger into the coffee basket gingerly. Then she withdrew her finger with grounds stuck to it and stared with total intrigue, turning her finger around to see different views. I showed her how to flick her fingers back and forth to get the coffee off and she did it obediently.

Along came Jessica and she wanted to get in on the action. She climbed up in the chair with Sarah and I made sure they both were stable, then proceeded to show her what was going on. We repeated the scenario, with Jessica answering "Yes!" in her own sweet way to each of the see-smell-touch questions.

Anne showed up behind Jessica. I don't know exactly how it all happened, but very quickly, Jessica, Sarah, and Anne had coffee on their faces and there was delighted giggling taking place.

I guess this did not last more than 10 minutes. It was one of the most wonderful experiences I have had with these little girls. I loved seeing their natural curiosity and intellect seek new knowledge with their grandparents.

I will cherish the memory.

Anne scores a steal

We have needed a knife block forever. Anne was in Marshall's and found a nice solid wood knife block. It holds 14 knives, a sharpening steel, and a pair of kitchen scissors. It was so cheap she bought it and I am proud of her shopping prowess. It cost $5.99.

Anne's knife block

Bob and Anne share a gift

Our living room furniture has been sagged out and broken down for a long time. It was getting kind of embarrassing to have friends over and say "Would you like to sit down in the living room?" Their reply would be "Uh, no thank you, I am comfortable standing."

So before Anne and I bought any Christmas presents for each other, we agreed to go look for a couple of recliners and see if anything grabbed us. We went to visit Mattress Mac and one furniture group reached out to us and said "Please take us home!". It was a floor sample and marked way down in price. Yep we bought it and added a small recliner to go with it. Merry Christmas, Bob! Merry Christmas, Anne!

By the way, we called Purple Heart to donate our old furniture. They picked it all up, except for the sofa. They said it was so broken down, even they would not take it! Its going on Craigslist under "Free stuff".

Our new furniture

Am I going to write or what?

I sit here thinking... What do I have a blog for? If you're going to have one, you better write more often than once a year. So right now, I have lots of time on my hands and I will see if I can start writing more.

Following my bike accident and followup surgery on my birthday (Sept 14), things did not go well. I'll just say it simply. My shoulder started coming apart. It hurt. No wait a minute. It HHHURRRRRTTTTTT!!!!! I experienced three of the most miserable months in my life. I tried to be spirtual and keep a positive attitude. I did not do so well. I started reading Disappointment with God, by Phillip Yancey. Does that tell you something about where my head was at?

So I finally decided it was second opinion time. I got one and this surgeon said what my first surgeon would not admit. YOU NEED TO HAVE ANOTHER SURGERY. Surprisingly, this thought cheered me up. It meant there was a path forward, instead of sitting and spinning in a painful circle. On December 13, the new surgeon operated and put my shoulder back together. Does it hurt? YES. Am I happy. YOU BET! My shoulder feels like everything is in place and I feel like I am having the kind of pain that means it is healing well. That's an odd thing to say, but that is how I feel.

It is unfair to say everything has been miserable. My first grandson, Liam, was born. Oh what joy! He is lucky to have two great parents, Greg and Melissa. It's very obvious that they are totally in love with the little guy.

Then there are two of the greatest joys of my life, Sarah and Jessica, my granddaughters. They make me feel totally important and loved with no limit. They are pure happiness and infinite energy all rolled into one. Sarah and Jessica will grow up brimming with self esteem because of their two devoted parents, Lisa and Jeff. They give their daughters firm direction with constant reassurance and praise.

To complete the positive thoughts, I think of my awesome wife, Anne. She has unselfishly cared for me physically and emotionally. I would be a total wreck, if she had not been there so many times to hold me and talk to me. She has been with me almost 39 years. We are working on making it a lifetime.

What Happened?

Many of you are aware that I had a bad bicycle accident on August 24. I decided to write the answer here to the question that many have asked: "What happened?"

I was riding a bike with dual sided pedals - plain steel mountain bike style flat pedal on one side and SPD clipless on the other. I was riding in running shoes. This combination should have dictated casual non-aggressive sit-down riding for city commuting. But its on a light weight early-90's Japanese steel racing bike that begs to be ridden hard. Add to the mix a rider who has no brains when it comes to cautious riding styles...

So I was standing up, accelerating away from a stop light. My right foot slipped off the front of the pedal and my foot got caught hanging just in front of the pedal. As I struggled for balance, the little voice in my head said "I'm going down!". I fell on my right side and my head hit the pavement hard enough to knock me out. The bike had tiny scratches on the front of the brake hoods with no other marks anywhere.

My body, on the other hand, took the brunt of the fall. My right shin was bloodied and scraped by teeth of the metal pedal. I cracked a right rib. My shoulder had a category 5 AC joint injury (ligaments ripped away from top of joint). My helmet had dents all along the right side.

Surgery will be required to fix the shoulder. Its scheduled for September 14. The doctor said he will wait for road rash to heal on top of my shoulder before he will perform surgery.