Stayin’ Alive

Yesterday I had tea with my nextdoor neighbor. She recently had some surgery on her eyes to repair the ravages of time. She looks good and can see better already. I sat with my operated leg forward because I’m always aware of what you (dear readers) may not be aware of, and that is the 90 degree rule. I’m not going to explain it. If you get there and have to learn about it, you will enter a world of new awkwardness. A week ago as I took my walk, another neighbor came out of her house to join me. We talked about our friend’s upcoming eye surgery and that led, of course to the subject of cataracts. It’s a small town and we all have the same eye doctor. “He said maybe next year,” she said, “but I’m not doing it until I have to.”

We’re just a bunch of high-mileage cars at this point.

Meanwhile, almost every waking moment of my life is directed toward regaining my physical strength and coordination so I can go hiking. My physical therapist is on my team, and yesterday we did different exercises to teach my hip joint what its job is.

At physical therapy was what my uncle Hank would call an “old boy.” He was riding “my” bike though it’s not my bike any more since I can get on my bike here at home. When he was finished, he started flirting with me. I thought, “Wow. Old people hook up at physical therapy.” You have to remember we’re from the Hey babe, what’s your sign?” Generation. It’s surreal.

“I used to be a DJ in Denver; I did the news in the 70s,” he said.

“What station?” I asked.

He mentioned a station I vaguely remembered, then said, “I moved on to KIMN.”

“I listed to that, in my car, until my radio broke.”

“People today don’t think of the Carpenters as rock, but everything was rock,” he said.

“It was a big genre back then,” I said.

The conversation went on, and then he told a joke. The joke is the reason I’m writing this blog post.

A turtle came out of a bar, a sheet or two to the wind. It had been raining and the sidewalk was slippery. The turtle tripped and flipped over on his back. It wasn’t long until the snails had come out and started crawling on him. He was helpless. Then a cop came along, saw the situation and righted the turtle. “What happened,” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said the turtle. “It all happened so fast.”

 

 

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/cataract/