One day blending into the next, punctuated by pain

Well. I see that it is Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day. We shall be dining at our favorite semi-local hotel, and coming home to read and nap. Heaven. Thanksgiving praises.

My knee hurts. My right knee. My left knee hurt for months, but stopped some weeks ago. Went to the doctor, got checked for osteoarthritis. "A little, not much." A prescription for pain medication and a caution not to use it unless absolutely necessary. It turns out that the stuff is nearly useless, and Tylenol works much better anyway. Still, that pain persisted. Day in, day out. And then it went away. 

Came the cozy Saturday evening that I was loading wood into the wood stove, barefoot, as always. Woodbox very full, wood very slippery. And so I enjoyed my annual Firewood-to-Toe event. Just as much fun as always at the instant of impact and for several minutes thereafter. OH. MY. That hurts. This time it was my poor innocent middle toe instead of the Great Toe. (Great Toe sounds so much more aristocratic than Big Toe, doesn't it?) It was still somewhat sandal weather, so no problem. Wrapped it up, let it heal. Put off the pedicure for two weeks until I was sure the pedicurist would not faint. And so, the toe is now fine.

While the toe was sore, however, it was necessary that I alter my routine of rising from a sitting position, so as to bear the majority of my considerable weight on my heel rather than rolling forward to the toe area. And that's how the right knee went bad.  

I haven't gone to the doctor again. Neither for the toe nor the knee. It would be like drinking myself into oblivion every evening and complaining to the doctor that every morning I woke up with a headache and woozy stomach. The remedy for this knee pain is that I either need to get lighter in weight or grow legs similar in structure to those of a young elephant. I'm not really sure which will (would?) be more likely, or easier.

Yes, Friko. 

Exercising the brain and body during retirement. You are so completely self-disciplined. I try to emulate your habits. Trying to figure out knitting stitches that I've never done before, which do not translate from the way most people knit to the way I was taught to knit. And tap dancing, with a knee that will bear no weight, across the icy yard to the car, grabbing the door handle with a death grip.