Vulgaires Machins: Canadien

“Puits sans fond”; ‘Compter les corps’ (2006)

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Weird juice with fruit chunks on a French magazine… — Photo by Me, Feb. 08, 2008

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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.

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A 3:23 Adventure: Walking Kipling
She really likes the snow…
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

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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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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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