bithead redux

As is the custom for any blog post that happens after an extended period away, I apologize for the absence. I’ve been writing, but just not posting, for the writing is about the sorts of things that I do not write about on the blog.

But here I am now.

I guess the most momentous thing that happened to me while I wasn’t posting was that I managed to break both of my arms. At the same time. I fell, tried to catch myself, and managed to cause what the doctor called “bilateral radial head fractures.” I crushed the radial head on the left side, and merely caused a hairline fracture on the right side. This is a nasty kind of fracture, and about 70% of the time the kind of injury I had on my left arm requires a radial head replacement. Luckily the doctors took a “wait and see” approach, and I healed in a way that meant I didn’t need surgery. I probably will eventually, but not for about 15 years or so.

Yes, it hurt, a lot. It still hurts. It probably will for a long time. I’ll get over it.

The fracture happened the weekend after I got back from my first-ever cruise. My wife and I had been wanting to try a cruise, and we got a great deal on one that left from downtown Seattle and cruised the Inside Passage. It was gorgeous. We had a lot of fun, and contrary to what we’d been worried about, we neither got sick or gained weight. I highly recommend going on a cruise sometime.

Two years back, my wife and I decided to try snowshoeing. We loved it. It’s simple to just drive up to one of the Snow Parks near the pass and just tromp around in the back country. This year, wanting to expand our repertoire of winter sports, and wanting to return to something we’d tried in the past, we went crazy and bought ourselves some cross-country skis, and the other accoutrements that go along with them.

Things have really improved around cross-country skis in the last decade. They look and feel a lot different now. Hell, I wore the boots for hours, just walking around. They were that comfortable.

One of the reasons we decided to try XC skiing again is because it is easier on the wife’s knees (she blew out her knee downhill skiing in the early 90’s). The other reason was that everywhere we went to go snowshoeing, there were also many XC skiers sliding by, looking like they were having a great time.

Hope for snow this weekend, we want to head for the hills.