More about Knees - If You though That Wasn't Possible

In the middle of the night I sat bolt upright in bed  and performed the old fashioned head slap when I realized that I had forgotten to include one of the most knee punishing activities of life.......Gardening.............gawd ......how could I?     The endless hours of dig, plant, weed, dig, plant, weed.  And that activity, once begun in life, never ends till they plant YOU.   

The percentage of time spent on my knees during this lifetime just went up to nearly 50%.

And, while sitting bolt upright in bed, I thought that I really should have explained that, in my current enfeebled condition, getting up from being on my knees is no small feat.  In fact, were it not for the beloved Yoga Downward Dog position in which you are on hands and knees, then curl your toes under to get a bit of purchase, hoist the fanny straight up in the air to form a human triangle between toes and hands and push off with the hands to rise to a standing position, I would probably have spent the past two years in a permanent kneeling state.  For some reason, getting down on hands and knees, while not beautiful, is possible, but getting up therefrom is another story.

If none of this makes any sense to you, it probably means you didn't read my last blog.  Shame on you.  Go back at once and all will become perfectly clear.

Writers' Cramp - Very Unlikely...... But Housemaids' Knee Still a Threat

This week I just raised my aching bod up from my knees for the for the 40skillionth time during my long life and it occurred to me that I may well have spent a goodly percentage of my lifetime on my knees........no.....not praying and not for lewd pursuits or any other weird things either.....I just realized how many supposedly simply tasks end up requiring one to crawl around on the floor on ones hands and knees like a gimpy spider.

We can skip the obvious like the crawling stages of infancy, but not long past that time it begins........subtle at first with games....blocks, marbles, pick-up-sticks  (anyone remember that one?), jacks, tiddly-winks.  Ah, but those young knees hardly even noticed any punishment, even though they were usually bloody or scabby from falling down during other games like baseball, rollerskating, Dodge ball  and almost anything that required upright bodily movement.  For me anyway.......even my  Grandma had to agree that I was a Klutz.....   ........ Sigh. 

The next extended use of the kneeling position came, for me, when I began pursuing the development of my artistic skills and, at some point, every application of some media onto paper required matting and sometimes framing.   This was done on the kitchen floor, using a large wooden plywood drawing board, a steel T-square, ruler, utility knife and  endless hours on the knees..........how else?????

Next came the time in my young starving artist life when I realized that  I had to choose  between eating or covering my nakedness with some garment and I undertook to make all my own clothes using just $3.87 worth of fabric and supplies....... except for shoes......I never quite got the knack of making those..  Naturally,  since I possessed no cutting table ( not to mention no dining table) the cardboard cutting board would  be unfolded on the dining room floor (where the dining table would  be if I could have afforded one......(.I later built one out of a beautiful discarded solid core walnut door which had one damaged side......perfectly fine for the underside of a dining table).  There was always a great deal of scrabbling around on hands and knees positioning the fabric, the pattern pieces, the pin cushion and the scissors, the tailors' chalk and the glass of bourbon......... 

Knees aging but still willing, we enter the era of Hi-Fi and Stereo.  No cigarette pack size thingy in a pocket with ear buds for us.  To properly hear music required a pre-amp, amplifier/tuner, 3 speed turntable, tape player and at least 2 very large speakers.  This stuff also required some furniture to hold it all and the totality necessitated about 3 1/2 weeks of scuttling around on the floor on said knees connecting thousands of wires from one device to the next. Oy.

And just about the time when even my knees were getting too old for such shenanigans some nerd had to invent the desk top home computer which required infinite connections of unmentionable numbers of units to one another and to the surge protector multi-plugs which greatly expanded the old 2 plug wall units and resided under the desk requiring.....you guessed it......days, weeks, months, milleniums (millenia ?) spent on one's knees under the desk, (flashlight in mouth because at least 4 hands were required for most connections) while clutching the easy-assembly sheets in at least one of them.  

Oh, well.......laptops took care of all that, didn't they?  Hmmmm.....then what the hell was I doing on Wednesday of this very week crawling around on my knees on the floor with a flashlight in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other?  Apparently, even in the most modern of times it is still necessary to obtain from the Modem which, in my house,  lives on the lowest shelf of the bookcase,  the network type and serial number in order to add a new laptop to one's personal network of computers.  And how did it happen that, at my advanced age, I should be found  yet once more on those poor knees?  Yes, I do have help these days which should be assigned to such crawlings around, but sadly, nothing can be substituted for experience when confronted with an appliance containing a mind-boggling assortment of different types of number combinations all discretely placed in the most inaccessible spots on the damned Modem thingy.  Florence was overwhelmed.  So who else was there?

Well here's how it is, folks.........whatever the next world changing gadget may come along......if it requires any kneeling of any kind, I think I'll just pass.  Not that I am too old to accept change you understand.......it's just the damned knees.



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Update on the Madwoman of the East San Fernando Valley

You are all probably wondering if I ever came  back  down  to earth after my last post which seemed suspiciously like a drug induced flight of fancy.  I assure you that it was not in the slightest way drug induced and my feet never for a moment left terra firma regardless of what pain medications  may have been stingily doled out to me during the worst of my recent experiences with practitioners of the finer tortures of the Spanish Inquisition.  All ideas presented in my last blog were the result of various epiphanies and none were inspired by medications or magic mushrooms.  I wouldn't mind trying a magic mushroom, but I haven't a clue what they look like and it would be just my luck to pick some poisonous variety.....


Happily I can report that my groin and thigh have had their staples removed and the thigh has returned nearly to normal size and color and no longer causes me to scream or even say "ouch"  more than 10 or 12 times a day.  However, between the mended but still achy left hip, the totally broken down left knee (which never got replaced) and now the still tender and achy right thigh I have had to sadly give up all hope of  ever being invited to star in the Ice Capades.  Thank heaven   I gave up that ambition many years ago when I realized that even though I managed to skate forward without falling down more than 3 or 4 times an hour, I would never be any good at all at skating backwards except on my fanny.   I gave away the blue  velvet skating skirt with the red satin lining years ago.

Anyway, my main motive in writing this blog is to reassure you that I am returning to what might be considered normal (for Me).  Also, after watching 3 football games and going to  bed dazed and cross eyed at 9 pm. I found myself unable to fall asleep and not even the act of raiding the cupboard and devouring 4 fig newtons slathered with peanut butter gave me any assurance that, if I went  back to bed and tried to sleep, I would do anything but  berate myself for  ,my low class gobbling, so I decided to dash off a few lines while waiting for the Sandman to show up.  

Naturally, I have no exciting news to report since I am still recovering my joie d' vivre (or however the hell that term is spelled) but my spirits are improving and perhaps I will come up with some bizarrre adventure to report one of these days.  Looking at my empty calendar I suspect I may have to make something up.  We will just have to wait and see, won't we?

 

Things Are Not What You Think Think They Are.....Or Is That the Morphine Talking

When you are worn out from screaming and hollering with pain, not overtly but inside your head, you finally shut up and just pant a little.......that is when it gets blissfully quiet inside and you get a chance to meet your soul.  At least that is what happened to me during these recent stays in the hospital.  While crawling around inside trying to find a place to hide I  stumbled on a little niche just under my rib cage sheltering a small blue unwavering flame and I knew that was the essence of me.  We did not converse, but I took great comfort from the encounter.

This really confirmed my suspicion that the image I see in the mirror while brushing my teeth is just a robot creature......a construction intended to provide protection, mobility and a comfortable residence for that awesome, remarkable blue flame to enable it to accomplish something.....I wish I knew what.

I imagined what it may have been like before "the Beginning".    Just whirling chaos, and the Super Intelligence takes a look around and sees an infinity of immense power but no mechanism to put it to work. So what is needed is a container with attributes.........something solid but resilient and mobile.....a couple of legs and arms and oh yeah,  some hands with opposable thumbs, some plumbing, some heating, a pump/motor a small computer brain to enable thoughts, ideas, creativity and, most importantly, a safe niche to cradle and protect  the blue flame of source energy.  Yeah.....that oughta do it. Now all of that sacred energy can be put to work to accomplish.....well, something.

Sadly, it is my opinion that at this point a grave mistake was made. (yes, I admit my arrogance, but that is how it appears to me).  Instead of simply cloning a bunch of the creatures and letting them have at it and seeing how it all worked,  they were ordered to, "Go forth and multiply" and once sex was allowed to enter the equation it was all for naught........because obviously  no good deeds or brilliant projects, no matter how finely wrought, can compete with the sex drive.....and so here we are and that is my interpretation of how we got into this mess and I contend that my idea is as good as anybody's.

Needless to say, I haven't the slightest idea of how we are supposed to get out of the mess we are in..... But the one thing that was clear to me during my communing with my source is that, at some point the trusty robot creature will break down, wear out and cease to function and can be abandoned by the roadside to be recycled into something useful.  No tears are necessary or appropriate.  The blue flame will simply fly back to join the group hug in the vast lake of its source.  Nothing is lost and nothing is wasted.  

Beyond all this, I still know nothing.

P.S  Lest you fear that the Lo you know has completely morphed into a madwoman, I swear that I believe I have never been saner.   And for more good news, my right thigh, which once resembled the Smithfield ham that eclipsed Manhattan, has retreated in size and tenderness and is now very near its old, flabby, fatty self.  And that is a GOOD thing.

And now, back to Football.............

Not Pollyanna.....This Is Mean Old Cranky Lo....You May Want to Pass

 I know, I know, not a decent peep out of me since I came home from the hospital.  Well, the truth is the creature I brought home in this box labelled "Lois" is nearly unrecognizable and she even scares me sometimes.  Bitter, disgusted, disgruntled, angry and perhaps dangerous.


I am fed up to the teeth with these misshapen monsters whom I find it impossible to avoid.....Mutt (not a typo) Romney, Paul Ryan, Sarah Palin.........ugly people spouting idiocies and blasphemies.........I am having trouble finding a reason to go on living and that's the truth and I feel like taking a few of the worst offenders with me when I depart. 


I had a lot of marvelous insights and adventures during my 2 weeks of pain and torture and I will do my best to reveal them to you soon, but not in this blog.  This blog is for bitching and complaining.

Imagine me standing on the peak of the highest mountain screaming  my mantra, "SHITPISSFUCK" alternating with a piercing but plaintive "what the hell is it all about?".  I am in a state of befuddlement about this life we lead.  Is there really a purpose amid all this madness?

The other Lois, if she reappears, will be back at this spot shortly uttering saner thoughts.   Or not.  You gotta take your chances folks.




























Fed

Oy ! I Can't Find My Groove

To all my beloveds out there, I want you to know that I am doing amazingly well......am gamboling around with just a cane (whenever I rouse myself from my favorite horizontal position).  Having very little pain and not even too much discomfort.  The best word to describe my state would be languid, I think.  Cossetted in mounds of pillows and surrounded by various footstools (one for Gussie who must have her own right beside me lest she tromp on my sore leg,  one for the computer and one for my own feet and legs which prefer to be elevated just so.)    I am, in many ways, the luckiest dumbshit in the world;  and yet, I am not ready to snatch up the gauntlet and go on with the struggle.   I think I am just going to lie here for a while, if you don't mind.

Also, unluckily for you, I have just discovered that it is Pre Football Season, so all hopes of my tapping out a brilliant piece on my adventure and my condition are out of the question...........unless   I have an ounce of energy left over when the games are off later.


I have counted all the various parts......arms., legs, fingers, toes......and except for a few errant pints of blood which accidentally leaked into my right thigh I seem to be all here, but I just can't seem to get going.  I am beginning to suspect that they did some undocumented things while in the hospital.....perhaps replaced my brain with someone else's, or excised all my gumption.
My chief skill seems to be lying prone in the lounge chair ringing a little brass bell for service.   I am not complaining, you understand, just explaining and apologizing why news from this front has been so sparse.

Please stick with me folks and I will tap out a few cryptic messages as the ability returns.  Meanwhile, know that I am well and well cared for............except for that Gussie.....

Ha Ha, Mephisto....You Thought You Had Me,,,,,,,,,,,,

A quickie.........I am doing fine and felling fine..........no.....I am also feeling fine.,,,just tryping poorly as usual.....hmmmm....tryping.....that word has possibilities.....I willl have to invent an appropriate meaning........

Will write soon. I promise.

Love ya.