“Rasputin”; Boney M
It’s like a history lesson to a Disco beat…
Let me know if the video isn’t available.
I was grocery shopping recently for the first time since… November? I’ve pretty much run up one side and down the other of every menu from every take-out place within fifteen miles of my apartment so I’m going back to basics: chicken with Shake n’ Bake, hamburgers, peanut butter and honey…
While I was at the store, and again while I was having lunch at a restaurant downtown, I kept noticing people limping… there were a lot of really bad knees and hips out limping around. Every other person seemed to have a cane. Winter is a crappy time of year for people with broken bodies… every time you put your foot down on an uneven surface your knee and hip have to make corrections, and if they’re already messed up all those changes hurt.
Just like my knee does now… I walked with a cane for the better part of three years, I even had a futuristic super-brace for my knee. And now, according to my little brother, I don’t limp so much as lurch. In the summer of 1989 I was playing ‘American 21’ on an outside basketball court at a school down the highway from here. I went in for a layup and planted on a Dude’s foot.
Basically I dislocated my kneecap, tore some cartilage and ripped my ACL by a few millimetres. The first doctor told me it was a sprain… so after he gave me some T3’s, crutches and a tensor bandage we all went out to a Pit Party. Two years later I finally got the operation to fix the ligament… so I’ve been lurching around for nineteen years now.
A 3:23 Adventure: Walking Kipling
She really likes the snow…
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.
So far this winter I haven’t exactly been “active” or “participating” in “life”… I’ve mostly been “couch bound” or “growing exponentially” and “avoiding” all “human contact”. So my knee has only been uncomfortable a few times, and only a couple of times has it really hurt.
But mom fired her dog walker on the weekend… she hires kids from the high school, pays them way too much money, even buys them gifts, then the kids — being kids — lose interest and start missing days. It pisses me off because mom does invest time and energy in these kids because mom really loves her dog… but in a sane way, she doesn’t think Kipling is human.
So I told her I’d do the dog walking until she can find some kid to take over, and Kipling and I walked for an hour today. It was pretty much the first real exercise I’ve gotten since the early fall… and the kids only ever walk Kip around the block so it was hers as well. Towards the end Kip was limping almost as bad as I was. She lurches as well… she kind of lands three legs okay, then lurches into the fourth.
And now my knee really, really freaking… well, it’s not a sharp pain, more kind of a dull throb. Like the “Gorillaz” were having a concert under my kneecap.
In 2006 I was walking five miles every night… for the first couple of months my knee hurt like a bee-ach, but then it felt relatively okay.
With my schedule I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to be mom’s dog walker, I don’t think she wants me coming around at 3am to take Kip out for a walk, but it’ll be nice to have a reason to get outside… especially since it gives me an excuse to take my camera out.
I’m starting, already, to see the wisdom in making sure people with depression or disabilities have a pet to keep them / us occupied.
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...salted lithium. 
kitties. Get some kitties. Dogs….are dogs. They smell like dogs. I will admit that Kipling is cute however.
I’m just happy to see the freaking sidewalks. My knee and my back have been throbbing from falling and the weather.
The sidewalks in my Little Village are… kind of ridiculous. The ones rebuilt over the past three years are all too high, some of the curbs are ten inches off the road, so the driveway dips are very deep, and the ones on the back streets are decrepit… except for Main Street I mostly walk on the roads.
Mom keeps offering to buy me a cat but my apartment is really just two huge rooms so I’m not sure where there’d be a safe place for a litter box, plus I don’t like the idea of only one animal… I like the idea of two cats so they’d have something to do. I’m still after my step-father to let me have one of his homemade fish tanks… he has four massive tanks he doesn’t use anymore.
Kipling is a good looking dog, and mostly happy but only kind of friendly. She’s never bitten anyone but she’s… unpredictable. Most dogs you can tell how they’ll react, but her tail is always tucked and down… she’s very good company for my mom though.
I feel your pain when it comes to joint ailments. I’ve been fighting mine longer than I have been smoking.
There are times I really believe that if I didn’t smoke I would have no reason to get out at all and even visit the little grocery store in town. I’m making a spring resolution though that I am going to get off my tail this spring and start walking. Winter time really wrecks my knees and hips if I am too active during the winter.
When I was working at Wally I worked in the dairy and being in the cooler for hours on end was terrible on my ailing joints but I liked the department that I was in so I would strap on my braces when my knees got too bad and make the best of it.
I have 3 cats here and with the exception of changing the cat boxes and feeding them they are wonderful pets for someone that’s not active like I am. We tried fish but could never keep up with the care that they needed with cleaning the aquarium and changing the filters and all that stuff. we let our son feed them for the most part and didn’t think about them most of the time. Bad idea when you like to procrastinate like we do around here.
Nice to see you getting out though, take care and have fun while you can getting out and walking Kipling.
Gabe…I”m getting a dog this coming Saturday….a little beagle. The first dog I ever had was a beagle named Ginger.
I had a great,big, cross-eyed cat named Balzack. But, when I moved, he ran away the very first day. He didn’t move too far away, though. I located him at a nearby home. But, nobody what I do, he will not stay here. So, I just leave him where he is. He is really cool. He would get upon my chest and lay. He didn’t sound like a cat purring. He sounded like a robotic motor or sumptin’.
Forgot to add….I still love your weird pictures.
I thought about your tooth pic when I was at the dentist last time. But, he didn’t do anything interesting to me so while he was out of the room, I “borrowed” his dental implant teeth model. I’m gonna take some pics of them eating different things and then try to sneak them back into his office. I bought some neon rubber worms and bugs. I think Teethy will eat those first.