Recovery is a strange concept. Our friends, Merriam and Webster (not to be confused with the household gods, Owen & Webster), advise us that the term's earliest known usage is in the 14th century in Middle English from the Anglo-French
recoverer, from Latin
recouperare, from
re +
caperare, from Latin
capere "to take", more at "heave" (a transitive verb with the obsolete meaning "to elevate"). I can tell you from the current viewpoint that my recovery certainly has elements of elevation about it; humorous and physical. Nearly a month out from surgery, I have developed a distinctly seafaring gait that someone referred to as "Peg Leg" would probably recognize. I am assured that this will resolve itself in time and that my body will accept and compensate for the various insults and injuries done to it in the name of Repair. We'll see. I'll be content when every task doesn't have to be considered in terms of how many steps it is going to involve and whether I'm going to have to bend over at any time during the task. The dogs have figured out that, if I have to bend over to pick up something, it's going to be an extended process so they watch for their main chance at snatching whatever it is that I'm bending over to get. In a letter to a friend I was bemoaning the fact that putting on bed socks involved an entire series of discrete actions that included the hope that the dogs wouldn't decide the item in question was a soft toy, grab it and make away with it before I could put it on. Alas.
I saw Gracie striding purposefully across a counter yesterday with a sodden tea bag in her mouth, which she must have rescued from the kitchen sink. I'm sure she thought it was some sort of exotic small rodent, what with that long, string tail and all. I snatched the tea bag from her and deposited it in the trash bin (yes, I know, I should have done that in the first place). In a fit of feline pique, she went into my bathroom shortly thereafter and pillaged the pottery dish on the counter for transportable trifles. She settled on one of a pair of earrings a girlfriend had given me for Christmas and removed it to the floor, where she had more scope for destruction. I found the gutted remains of the poor trinket later and gave it and its sister a decent burial. Yes, I know, I should have put them in the jewelry box as soon as I took them off. There is, however, a certain atavistic charm in coping with domestic wildlife in one's daily affairs. I just wish that they weren't so much faster and sneakier than I. At least, after more than a dozen years, old Scooter and I know what to expect of each other and comport ourselves accordingly. These young ones, though ...
The snow that has been our constant companion for the past week is finally showing patchy. The river rocks in my dry stream have reappeared and the mess the local teenagers made of the playing fields in the park across the street is now much less ugly. It is unusual for so much snow to stay around for so long in this part of the world. The snow and ice, the cold temperatures and the physical situation of my house rendered me housebound for a week. My deathly fear at the moment is falling. That has primacy of place on the list of things my surgeon said I must not do. My house sits at the top of the property and everything then slopes down to the street. My driveway would do service as a bunny run at a ski resort and it was lavishly covered with lots and lots of fluffy snow, which then packed to lots of snow and ice. I discovered that even going out into the garage to let the dogs in and out for routine airings caused a great deal of discomfort to the entire area that the surgical team had been messing with. I have no idea how well or poorly titanium conducts heat and cold, but I do know that it hurt like stink by the time I got back into the house! There were no snow plows for two days after the first snowfall (it is The South, after all) and the street in front of my house more closely resembled an ice rink than a thoroughfare for motorized vehicles. This did not, I note, hinder some local yahoo from tearing up and down the street in his beat up green pickup truck at about 30 mph towing a plastic sled behind him with small children on it. I was appalled but saw little point in attempting to explain the physics of that stunt to the bonehead (even if I could have gotten out of the house); the children on the sled were traveling as fast as the truck and ... had no brakes. I still don't know how they managed to stop without death or disfigurement because there isn't really anywhere on the street for them to turn around without making a 3-point turn. Oh well. I didn't hear any emergency vehicle sirens and the Life Flight helicopter didn't have to land in the field in the park, so I guess there were no tears before bed. I heard later that several of my acquaintances had also engaged in this behavior themselves, so I suppose it's a rural nonsense. At least my friends were doing it out in open fields where the driver could spin the sleds out behind him to stop ... that's what I'm telling myself, anyway. The day I finally was able to go back to work, a large and sturdy detective came to collect me and held on to a large handful of my coat all the way down the driveway to his car. We figured my dignity was of less importance at that point than the real possibility of taking a header off my crutch. I suppose that, if I wasn't in my current state of disability, I would have found the snow and its attendant weather more invigorating. As it was, though, it was just a great thumping nuisance and I'm glad it's scheduled to head out. I see in the extended forecast, however, that they are guessing there will be more by next weekend. Somebody explain this global warming stuff to me again.
"The worst thing that happens to you may be the best thing for you if you don't let it get the best of you." ~ Will Rogers
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