Making It Up As I Go Along #323

MONDAY...
— Work noon to 8 to go to the ball game afterwards. I don’t play though, thanks to the hamstring. Just there to cheer them on.
— Watch the last two periods of overtime in the Pittsburgh vs. Detroit game tonight. Pretty good to watch but Pittsburgh is quite lucky to win that one.

TUESDAY...
— Hamstring is still coming along.
— Work is pretty quiet. Josee and Keith do some overtime, but I’m alone for half the shift. Supper out with Melissa and some groceries after work.

WEDNESDAY...
— Hamstring getting better still.
— Greek food with Melissa tonight. The downside with Greek is there’s no perfect quantity to order. You either get less than what makes you satisfied or you get stuffed. Still pretty good.
— Detroit wins the Cup. I don’t watch, just check in a few times on the internet at work. I can’t say I really care a whole lot. But nice for Dan Cleary to win I guess.

THURSDAY...
— Off to the doctor before work. Get some physiotherapy prescribed.
— Hurt the ol’ hammy at work. Slip on a step walking up the stairs and it flares the hamstring. Leaving me kind of sore for a few hours.

FRIDAY...
— Hot out today. 35 with the humidity included. Megan and I do supper... hot dogs at the chip wagon and ice cream after that. Claudio does half a shift of overtime, so I have company after I’m back from supper.
— Physiotherapy is in the cards for me. Booked an appointment to get the hamstring seen on Wednesday... but it is still improving each day so hopefully the extra attention will just strengthen it up.

SATURDAY...
— Another hot one. With the humidity, it gets up to 39 today. I go out with Nick and Jim to toss the ball around. I’m needing some practice for slow pitch pitching... something we’re planning for me to do Monday.
— The hamstring is improving lots. I still can’t push it to running but I can walk fairly easily now, with minimal tightness.
— After practice, I go to supper with Karl. We walk from his place to the pub and back again afterwards. And again the hamstring has no problems with this.


The Love of Heat
I’m ready for Arizona. The older I get, the more heat I like. Soon I won’t be able to go back to Newfoundland at all and I’ll be forever in sweaters or fleeces in Ottawa.

Sadly, the warm and drier weather also seems to do my joints some good. It’s way to early in life for me to be that old man on the porch, feeling a twinge in my knee while rocking in the chair and telling the youngin’s “storm’s a comin’.”

But for a few years now, that transitional period from the warm to the cold, and back from cold to warm, has ached the knees. And my last trip to St. John’s saw my left shoulder throb for most of the week (even though it’s my right shoulder that has been beaten down by years of softball). The shoulder was joined by my left knee in the pain department.

I blamed the confines of the plane on setting off the knee. But perhaps the weather played a bigger role in both shoulder and knee as, on my return to Ottawa, both brightened up... happy to be back to the warmth.

Yesterday, it was humid. Dense warmth settled over the city with the bright blue sky and beaming sunshine. And even though it was little more than a week ago that I sprained my hamstring, yesterday it felt almost normal again as I walked through the warmth. The day was like a warm blanket there to keep you all snug and toasty, even when being outside.

The season’s humidity for me is like those blasted blankets that the women are wearing more often. It’s beyond me how it became a fashionable practice for a woman to get a blanket, cut a hole in the middle of it for her head to poke through, and to walk the streets clothed in this. Is a sombrero far behind?

So at least the hot weather allows you to keep your personal dignity by dressing like a sane person while remaining warm.

Also yesterday, I walked over a bridge over the Rideau River. I’ve crossed this river many times with my friend, Karl. It’s part of our route from his apartment to the pub we often go to.

Yesterday I looked down into the water. Seeing the sun glimmering off it. Seeing the green of the aquatic plant life just below the surface. Seeing a few ducks paddle lazily through the reeds near the shore.

The river looked warm and inviting. It made me think about what it would feel like to step over the bridge’s railing and leap down into the current. The thought was refreshing and pleasant.

Then I thought of other times I’ve walked over this bridge. The winter journeys with wind whipping up the river, causing you to hunch up your shoulders as you walk, and bury your head low with the hopes that the jacket will offer warmth to neck and chin.

Ice coated most of the river at this time. Only a few spots remain open and you look at those spots as torrents of death. If you fell in there you’d be swept under the ice, never to see the light of day again.

Ducks huddle close together. Always I’d see them there and feel sympathy, wondering how they survive those months along the cold water’s edge with ice and dead shoots of reeds making up their home.

Looking down at that river yesterday, I realized that the older I get, the more I prefer the summer version of the scene. My joints agree. My hamstring nods to say it’s in line as well. And seeing women without the poncho blankets is an added bonus as well. I much prefer to look at them in summer attire than that monstrosity.

May winter never return.