We went out to eat. His roommates were working, so we had the house to ourselves when we got back.
We chatted for a bit, and had a couple of beers. We started watching a movie. He went and took a shower, and then we turned the movie off about half-way and went upstairs to bed.
Where he turned on the Simpsons, put a pillow over his head, and went to sleep.
"Not enough, but never too much...leave a trail of busted stuff..."
I am busted stuff.
I went to Chicago to see DMB in September. After the first night's show, Dave threw a guitar pick. It landed in front of me, but over the rail between the people and the stage. A man, I don't know if he was a photographer or security, picked it up and handed it over the rail.
I reached for it, and the girl to my right, the one with the big LoVE sign, reached for it.
Except she then, with my fingers still in her hand, yanked. Hard.
When I got my hand back, my ring finger was on top of my hand, and bent 90 degrees counterclockwise.
I turned to the girl, held my hand up to her and said, "Oh my god, you broke my finger!"
When I turned to the people on my left, people I had spent all day with, and asked them to try to find some help, my finger flopped off the top of my hand and started dangling around. No free will, just gravity.
I'm pretty sure that was when I freaked out.
Girl that broke my finger said, "Sorry." And kept the pick.
Security took me through the crowd, to a medic, who took some information, and then gave me a wad of gauze to bite down on while the doctor put my finger kind-of back where it was supposed to be.
The doctor wrapped my whole hand in gauze and said I needed to go to the emergency room.
So the ambulance took me to the emergency room. I had three rounds of X-rays, some anti-anxiety medicine, and walked out six hours later with three prescriptions to be filled, a CD with my xrays on it, and a cast covered in two inches of padding going halfway up my right arm.
(Oh, had I not mentioned this was my right hand? My bad.)
Note: I didn't put the arrow on the xray but I did laugh at seeing it. I'm pretty sure even without the arrow a doctor could pinpoint, with some speed, the finger that needed attention.
I took a cab back to my hotel, made a few critical pone calls, put the do not disturb sign on my door, and slept for a few hours.
When I woke up, I put the hotel laundry bag over my arm, showered the best I could, got some coffee, and headed to Wrigley. I found a CVS near there, got my pills filled, and caught up with friends at Bernie's.
T'was there that Busted Stuff got her name.
But not before I found out that the guitar pick that Dave threw out was a Taylor Swift pick he had in his pocket. (Presumably from when they played the NFL show in New Orleans.)
(Yeah, I got broken for a Taylor Swift pick. Which is rather embarrassing.)
On the other hand, (ar ar), I found true compassion and care (and good humor) in the folks I spent that second afternoon and evening with. They know who they are. And they know that I am forever grateful.
The show was awesome, as expected. I took the train back to my hotel, got a decent night's sleep, packed up in the morning, went to the airport, and came home Sunday.
Tuesday I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. He took a look at my X-rays and said it was a very bad break. And he wasn't comfortable fixing it, he'd prefer I see someone that only does hands.
So Wednesday I went to see another doctor. He said the bones in the knuckle were "pulverized." He'd do surgery the next day. Possibly with external pins, but the authorization form I signed said he could put hardware inside if that was what it took.
Well, that was what it took. A T-shaped plate, extra bone, and six tiny screws.
I came home with another cast half way up my right arm.
He did leave my index finger and thumb out of the cast. I could get my index finger to the keyboard if I turned my hand, so I was able to type with left hand, plus a finger.
A week after surgery the cast came off and I got a splint.
And started therapy. Which made me cry. Not because it hurt, but because up to that point I guess I didn't have any idea just how severe this injury was. Yes, there was only one "break" per se, but my middle finger and pinky finger had both sustained quite a bit of trauma as well.
I had been prepared to have one finger that wasn't working properly, but wasn't prepared to see three fingers refusing to bend when I told them to.
Right after that first round of therapy, I had a follow-up with the doctor.
"This was one of the worst breaks I've seen." (I'm number one, or two!")
He explained that I was looking at months of rehab, and a lot of hard work to get my hand right.
He also said that I should expect him to take the plate and screws out in a few months. Yes, they are meant to be left in, but because there is so little room on top of one's knucke and finger, he'd take the plate out, and also would be able to address any scar tissue problems at the same time.
I asked about work, and he said I'd be out for three months, maybe less depending on my progress.
And that's where I'm at today. I've got another physical therapy appointment this afternoon. I'm excited to have the therapist put the little measuring thing on my fingers to see how much further I can bend them today, from the baseline measurements last week.
And whatever it is, I'll take it.
Could I have been lost somewhere in Paris?
Not with Nuvi, no. (My ex updated it for me about a month ago, and when he gave it back to me he had changed the vehicle on the display. He said he first considered the wood-paneled station wagon, but in the end decided on the short bus.)
I finished my class in St. Louis today about 3:00 and headed to the airport pondring perhaps getting an earlier flight. I turned in my rental car, got on the bus, got off at the terminal, went inside and checked the boards to find both the 3:00 hour and the 4:00 hour flights to Atlanta cancelled. I tried to check in for my flight at the kiosk and got a message saying that there was some problem with my flight.
So I got in line, and while waiting got on the phone to the travel agent.
Weather in Atlanta, it seems. The travel agent says there is a flight on American through Chicago that would get me home at ten something. Except it left in 45 minutes. Not enough time to make that one.
Everything else headed the right direction is sold out. I tell her I'll continue to wait in line and see what the agent said.
My flight is delayed over two hours. I'd miss my connection in Atlanta, but could drive home from there. I did the math lightening fast in my head and figured I'd be home by about 3 AM.
But there was more math to be done, of the probability variety.
There was the chance that I'd wait around until 8:45 PM, and that flight wouldn't leave at all. Then I'd be stuck in STL for the night, and considering I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow night, that thought didn't appeal to me at all.
I walked away from the agent without checking in or making any decisions and went outside to ponder.
While reaching in my bag for my phone charger, Nuvi jumped out at me and told me that if I drove home (yes from St. Louis), that I'd get here at 4:13 AM.
So I went to the rental car counter, booked a car, and when the guy printed my receipt he said, "wow you got a good deal. Hey, Steve, guess how much her rental is for a one way drop in Greenville?"
Steve didn't venture a guess. I didn't either, but had I, I would have been WAY off.
Fifty six bucks for a mid-size car.
I ask, "does it have tires?"
He says yes, four of them.
"And an engine?"
"Yep. And air conditioning. Can you believe that Steve?"
I really don't think Steve cared. Nor did I. Delta refunded me 400 dollars for the flight I wasn't going to take. Anything less than that for the car was a bonus.
So I got in the car and drove home. Stopped once for gas and two Red Bulls at about midnight, found a great radio station in Nashville, and apart from the fact that I couldn't see the Great Smoky Mountains as I drove through them, it wasn't a bad drive.
I pulled into the rental car return spot in Greenville at 4:14 AM. (Nuvi is like magic sometimes.)
I filled out the little rental return thing, and as I walked toward the terminal noticed an unusual volume of people inside.
As the sliding doors opened, a guy was walking out with a checked bag in his hand. And I could see behind him many people still waiting at baggage claim. I asked him where he had just come from.
"American flight from Chicago. Should have been here at ten something."
I said thanks, dropped my keys off at the counter, found Jalenpeno right where I left her, paid the parking machine, and headed south once more.
When I pulled in my driveway there was standing water on it, and I could see in the headlights that the mulch in the front yard was almost black. Involuntarily my mind went back to the moment at the ticket counter in St. Louis almost exactly 12 hours previous and it played the drive home.
When I opened the door, had any creatures been watching or listening, they would have seen me smile largely and say out loud, "yeah, but we had RAIN."
And everything was okay.
La la la hey.
Hey my friend it seems your eyes are troubled. Care to share your time with me? Would you say you're feeling low? And so a good idea would be to get it off your mind.
Dave, Dave, Dave. A prelude to an entire evening in a verse.
I love you, man.
So I did. I got it off my mind.
And he said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Then before I could shake my head he asked again, more slowly, and if possible, with even more disbelief in his voice, “are…you…fucking…kidding…me. Who does that?”
And now that some time has passed, I can tell the story.
The he in question asking me this was a story all by himself. Many years younger than me, obscenely good looking, single, professional, and a very stylish dresser.
We were leaning on the railing of an outdoor balcony in a really nice hotel. How we got to be there was a story all by itself too. (He and I leaning – not the physics of getting to the hotel.) My girlfriends, sisters from different mothers, had been with me earlier in the evening (along with about 200 of our closest coworkers and managers) to see my long-term relationship with a man (one of the 200 present) implode. Maybe it was explode. Either way, there was a plode involved. (And that word is now (C) 2008 Me.)
And it would just be an understatement to say that it (the aforementioned plode, you're going to have to pay attention here) caught me off guard.
So my girlfriends rallied around me, deciding I need some distraction. And chose one of the single guys from the crowd as my date for the evening.
No half measures there.
First he should look like a GQ model. Check.
And be totally single and unattached. Check.
And be dressed to the nines, in that model-way. Check.
And be half my age, or there about, please and thank you.
Check. And you’re welcome.
I’ll tell you what I was telepathing to my BFFs and it just about rhymes with are you fucking kidding me: I’m 40, and have just been unceremoniously dismissed by a short, fat, bald man, and you taunt me with the eye candy.
And of course my potential date had an entire arsenal of responses which I’m sure in his young life he has used countless times to fend off ladies: he had plans; it was packing night; he had gone out the night before and wanted an early evening; not no but hell no you’re old; and the now infamous, AYFKM.
Did he use a one of them? Nope, he declared me and my outfit amazing, and took my hand for the rest of the evening.
This thusly began for us on the balcony. Where I got it off my mind. He learned why my girlfriends figured I might need some distraction and general looking-after at that particular moment in history.
And you already know his response.
Was there anything that could be done? No. Then make the best of what’s around.
Let’s see, short fat bald guy avoiding me like Dengue fever, or, um totally the opposite of that standing right there with me holding my hand.
You may already expect that Dave’s got the resolution.
Well she ran up into the light surprised
Her arms are open
Her mind's eye is
Seeing things from a
Better side than most can dream
On a clearer road I feel
Oh you could say she's safe
Whatever tears at her
Whatever holds her down
And if nothing can be done
She'll make the best of what's around.
Hey, la la la.
Dare you to leave a comment now.
That it is.
I, the people of pondring in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty for myself, and for posterity, do hereby ordain and establish this 384th pondring post and its concomitant new category.
Excuse the language, but it is absolutely necessary, as you will see.
