Turkey Legs and Wounded Knees

Well, things went pretty well with my knee-fixing procedure. There were a few minor foibles, but nothing of any real consequence. I do have one hospital tip for you - if they tell you to show up at 6:00 AM don't come early. We arrived at Oak Bend Hospital in Richmond (formerly called Polly Ryon and affectionately known as "Probably Dyin") at 5:45 and there was nobody there, which when you think about it makes perfect sense. If your work day started at 6:00 in the morning would you come in early? Neither would I. I have one other hospital observation that I'll share with you. Prepare to be progressively a little chillier than you'd like. I spent time in three different rooms, each about 10 degrees cooler than than the previous one, ending up in the actual operating room, which I would estimate to be about two degrees above freezing. Not that it really mattered because once they put the knock out drops into my IV I was out in about two seconds.

I started my rehab yesterday by doing a series of about 15 exercises and a few ten-minute walks around the neighborhood. My physical therapist is coming over this afternoon to take off my bandages and probably give me some more exercise stuff to do. Tonight I'm going to a high school football game with a friend, so life is good.

Here's the knee I've been talking about for the last two weeks. Does it look swelled up?

Here's me patiently waiting in Polar Zone #1.

Yesterday for Thanksgiving we went to Camelo's for dinner. As I think I mentioned, this was the year for both Kayla and Bethany to spend Thanksgiving with their in-laws, so we didn't see the need to do the full-blown Thanksgiving dinner routine for just the two of us. Because Vicki's sister and brother-in-law (Cheryl and Bob for those who know them) were in the same boat we decided to team up and go out to dinner. At first it did seem a little odd to be at an Italian restaurant with a menu in our hands instead of at the dining room table next to a big turkey, but we got over that in pretty short order. I wouldn't want to do this every year, but I must say yesterday's experience was very enjoyable. After dinner everybody came over to our house and we had the pumpkin pie I made last weekend for dessert. Not to blow my own horn, but the pie was probably the best I've ever tasted. I'm sure everyone felt the same. Nobody actual said that, but I could just tell.

Get this, on the way home from Carmelo's we passed the Best Buy store in First Colony, and there were people camping out on the sidewalk. And I don't mean just standing in line, but literally camping out - with tents! I wonder just what bargain could possible be so fantastic that one would spend the night sleeping on a concrete sidewalk in a suburban shopping center parking lot? Especially since I understand that you can get the same Black Friday prices online as in person. I hope nobody got mugged.

Okay, I'm off for my first 15-minute walk of the day. Yesterday when I was out for my first walk my neighbor - who had heard of my ladder incident - said "So, I guess you found out that you can't really fly." My response was "The flying part was easy. It was the landing that gave me problems."