My old, decrepit body has finally recovered from my waterskiing "accident." In fact, the only time I really complain about my sore ribs is when I'm trying to get out of some sort of physical competition with Jay or want some sympathy from Kim. Unfortunately for me, both of them are too smart to fall for that.
So, since my ribs no longer really hurt that much, I'm back to running. This morning, I headed out for a short, leisurely Sunday morning run. It's been just over a week since the big storm came through and knocked out our power. While the power's been back on for a while, the damage that the storm created is still quite visible on our street. Winds from the storm damaged several dozen of the sycamores that line the street. While a couple trees sustained pretty significant damage, with their entire tops snapping right off, most of the damage consisted of large limbs being downed.
Technically, the sycamores are owned and maintained by the County. So, there appears to be some uncertainty about how to dispose of the fallen limbs. Some homeowners have hauled them back to the woods behind their homes. Others have organized them into piles next to the street. The third group has left the limbs right where they fell.
Today, I decided it was my civic duty to help out that third group of homeowners. You see, I like order. Seeing those random limbs just laying all over the place was starting to drive me a bit crazy. So, as I ran down the street, I decided to organize them. Whenever I found a stray limb on the ground, I stopped running, grabbed the limb by one end, and dragged it to the nearest pile. After placing it on top of the pile, I started off again.
By the time I got to the end of the street, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. One entire side of the street now had no stray branches. Instead, it had nice, neat, organized piles of branches. Progress!
After getting to the end of the street, I ran up Howard Road for a bit, and then turned around to head home. As I approached Big Branch Drive again, I was looking forward to cleaning up the other side of the street.
As you enter our street, there are no homes on the right hand side for one hundred yards or so. On this right hand side, the County had the developer build a retaining area to handle run-off water from heavy rains. In typical bureaucratic fashion, even though this retaining area never has water in it for more than a couple hours per year, the County also mandated that a guard rail be placed there.
Some of the sycamores behind this guard rail had lost limbs, as well. At first, I was just going to leave them where they'd fallen as they weren't that visible. But, you know me. Once I start a job (particularly a completely ridiculous one like this street clean-up operation), I have to finish it. So, I hopped the guard rail and started dragging limbs into piles. It didn't take long. I surveyed my work. It looked splendid. I was so proud of myself for being such a responsible neighbor. With my job done, it was time to get back to running. I approached the guard rail and began to hop over it.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, we had a family tennis tournament. We were playing doubles. I was up at the net. A couple of times, shots were hit that required me to leave my feet to hit a return volley. Unfortunately, I can't jump. The best I can do is get about 2 inches off the ground. Everyone who saw me trying to play at the net that morning got a real kick out of watching my pathetic attempts at jumping.
I wish I had remembered those howls of derision when I tried to jump the guard rail this morning. If I had, I probably wouldn't be sitting here two hours later with my left knee still throbbing in pain. That's right. I have replaced my sore ribs with a bruised knee. I've iced it and elevated it but it's just getting worse. When will I learn?