• Tight with my right

    I don’t know who started the “all thumbs” saying, but I’ve got a few phalanges to pick with them. The last couple days have taught me something: if I was all thumbs I could conquer the world single-handedly!

    I’d forgotten how attached I was to my right thumb. You’d think it would be hard to forget, dangling from your index finger like Ringo on the Beatles’ coat-tails.

    Who am I to pick on Ringo? What do I know about the Beatles? The first time I listened to them was on a CD. Somewhere a vinyl purist is suffering a burst blood vessel.

    In case you haven’t heard, my thumb was the tragic victim of a fall from inline skates. I was having a nice morning skate at the rink up the street. (Can a big patch of concrete for roller-hockey, sans ice, still be called a rink?) I was playing around, trying different moves, when I tried to do a quick stop like you might on ice. I did stop – in the sense that my velocity changed suddenly, but I’m grasping at straws of dignity. The trouble was I didn’t stop moving. I leaned back, turned my skate approximately 90 degrees relative to my heading, and expected my skates to loose a bit of traction, skidding to a stop. I don’t know if my angles were wrong, I didn’t have enough speed/energy to force the wheels into a skid, or if I was just plain stupid, but the wheels held pretty good. Instead of moving down the rink at a generous clip and coming to a skidding stop, I went into a spectacular spin. I bet it would have been really impressive if my posture even hinted I was doing it on purpose.

    Flailing rarely comes across dignified.

    I ended the maneuver (having thankfully bled off most of my speed) falling face first towards the “rink,” my body stopping short of the surface due to the heroic efforts of ten spread fingertips. I didn’t need to see the orientation of the proximal phalanx on my right thumb (the second bone from the tip), or how it made my palm look like it was pregnant with a ping-pong ball, to know something was wrong. The sound was enough.

    I don’t remember if it hurt immediately or if there was a delay. I’m sure lesser men would have passed out. (Caveat: I’m also sure most aren’t lesser men.) Oh, but it hurt. I ran through the Urban Dictionary like an R rated spelling bee on amphetamines.

    Of course I went home and played the tough guy.

    “John, do I need to take you to see a doctor.”

    Oh no, I’m fine.

    “Ummm, John? I have some idea what fine looks like and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve a fetal position, break-dancing, or cradling your hand like a newborn baby.”

    So I went to see a doctor.

    At least, I thought I was going to see a doctor. It turned out the urgent care facility only had a PA on duty. (I have nothing against PAs unless I’m hoping for pain medication with a little kick.) She did an x-ray and pronounced it unbroken (my thumb, not the x-ray machine), which made me feel better until I heard my nephew just had a similar problem, and a radiologist reversed the initial ruling – finding a hairline fracture in his thumb.

    I’m not too worried though. It doesn’t feel like a break to me, and I know my breaks! All those years playing basketball were good for something.

    I am a little worried about work though. Just the swelling and pain would have my thumb out of business, even if I wasn’t wearing a split you can find pictured in the dictionary under “overkill,” but my typing rhythm is seriously off having to reach for the spacebar with my left thumb.

    SERIOUSLY!

    Typing this post has been a test, and it hasn’t been pretty. But my left thumb is getting a chance to play with my other fingers, so someone is having a good time.

    However, I think it’s time for a rest. All this activity is going to catch up with my left thumb soon, not being used to carrying the load, so I better save it for the office.

    I want to say one last thing though.

    WARNING: If you’re a pregnant woman, suffer from chronic neck or back pain, or become disoriented from sudden motion or changes of direction, you should stop reading now.

    After moving to another web host a couple years ago, I’m finally transferring my domain. I’ve felt a little dirty dealing with my current registrar so it’ll be a relief to finally move.

    The down side is I’m not sure the switch will be seamless. They may not finish the transfer for a few days and then I don’t know if I’ll need to re-configure all of my domain settings (with possibly another day or two for those to spread to your corner of the internets).

    So, if the site disappears for a few days don’t fret none. I’ll be back.

  • Canadian Cold

    I’ve never had any reason to dislike a Canadian before this weekend. Looking at the averages, they still come out ahead in the overall likability rankings, but Saturday night was still disappointing.

    I’m telling my friends at work I’m coming down with a Canadian Cold. Knowing my travel habits (I have none), this invites a simple request: “explain yourself kind sir.”

    As you may know, we spent the weekend at the modern melting pot known as Disney World. We were camping at Fort Wilderness – something like a Fisher-Price “My First Camping Trip.” We capped off the experience with a horse drawn wagon ride with thirty of our closest friends.

    The wagon was packed like it was the last of only two rides for the day. (Funny thing, that.) Late arrivals were divided up based on available space, so Adam and Beth were sitting next to a young Canadian girl, whose mother was on the other side of the wagon.

    This young Canadian girl, from the lands between Toronto and Ottawa, was picking on Adam!

    I know! Our sweet, innocent Adam!

    O.K., he wasn’t quite so innocent, but the young lass was clearly in the wrong. Way, WAY in the wrong. Canada Girl was running a fever and expelling germ ridden sputum like a rotating sprinkler head. It was so wrong. It was so disgusting.

    It was SO not cool!

    You may be asking me (futilely, from miles away in front of your computer screen) what about Canada Momma? I say to you, AMEN brothers and sisters! Who brings their kid on a packed wagon ride at Disney World when he or she is running a fever and sputum factory?

    That’s SO not cool!

    I understand crossing the continent for a moment with the mouse is pretty exciting, especially if it was planned months in advance. But it’s time to employ a little Vulcan logic here.

    Say it together with me (imagine Spock dying in front of the captain, while good ‘ole James T is cursing Khan):

    “The needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the few – or the one.”

    Where are you Spock? You’re our only hope! Please don’t take it out on everyone else if I’ve misquoted you.

    Given the nature of the typical Disney visitor, you could start a pandemic. Visitors come from around the world – and ultimately return to their homes across the globe. In fact, if I were a paranoid person,

    Who are you kidding?

    I thought I told you to stay in your box.

    I might think this was a Canadian Terrorist plot to give the world a cold. Think about it, just passing the kid in a crowd would be like walking through those mist machines at Disney to keep people cool. Only in this case, it would be a cloud of germs, with the intent to keep people cold with feverish chills.

    But what would Canada possibly stand to gain from the world catching a cold? How about WORLD DOMINATION of the O.T.C. cold medicine market? Do you have any idea how many cold medicines are made in Canada? Neither do I, so I let my Google do the looking. Have you ever heard of Buckley’s? Neither did I, but Wikipedia says it’s “…a cough syrup invented in 1919 in Sydney, Nova Scotia…. Noted for its strongly unpleasant taste….”

    1919?!?

    Strongly unpleasant taste?!?

    Sounds like ‘ole Buckley could use all the help he can get, eh?

  • Worth it

    Parenting is hard.

    For some, this is obvious. For others suffering denial, this is a sign of a severe character flaw. For a blessed few who’s beatification awaits them at their death, who’s names will be remembered in song and psalm for all time, this is an inconceivable truth.

    God did us this one favor – he made these people rare. This is not to say parenting is without its rewards. If it was, Homo sapiens sapiens would have died out long ago (no mater how much fun getting there was/is).

    This little post is for all of you out there who live in the real world.

    Fortunately, there are times that force the hard parts to the rest of life’s background noise, and this weekend was filled with those times.

    We took the kids on their first camping trip this weekend. On Friday I worked half a day, Cheryl picked up the kids early from school, and we drove to Orlando for a weekend of camping, Disney style.

    Admittedly, Disney, realism, and roughing-it don’t really belong in the same post. But this weekend did involve tents, sleeping outside, camp-side cooking, and relaxed standards of personal hygiene.

    Being Disney, it also involved buses, pools, water-slides, campfires with Disney characters and shops stocked with grossly overpriced marshmallows.

    We brought our own marshmallows.

    While the kids enjoyed the Disney aspects of camping, they also enjoyed its traditional appeal: running around dark campsites with friends exhibiting all the signs of a marshmallow sugar high, setting foods dense in simple sugars on fire, and eating lots of grilled meat.

    It warmed my heart just seeing them having fun, soaking up all the new experiences and never growing saturated.

    One simple moment almost moved me to tears.

    Adam and I were settling down for the night and I knew he was afraid of the dark, preferring to sleep with one or twelve of his stuffed, furry friends for safety. I asked him if he was o.k.

    “Well, I wish Halo was here,” (his stuffed dog), “but I’m o.k. because you’re here with me.”