State of the household entry

Before the home therapist stopped coming, he asked me, "Do you plan to have your other knee done?"  
"Not unless it gets worse than it is right now," I answered.  
"Well, if you ever do, don't expect it to go this smoothly."  
It seems I've done everything ahead of schedule, starting with my getting out of the hospital after only two nights.  
At this point twenty-three days after surgery, I don't have much pain.  I haven't taken a hydrocodone for two days, and don't plan to take another until a couple hours before I go to therapy on Friday.  Then I'll take two, because those therapists are brutal.  
Now that I'm much more active, muscles all over my body are starting to wake up and squawk; they all thought I retired them three weeks ago.  For that muscle pain, I take ordinary, over-the-counter, generic Tylenol.    
Up until yesterday I couldn't become enthusiastic about fixing meals.  I searched for any and every excuse to either eat out or have sandwiches, and I wasn't all that excited about eating, either.  Oh, I cooked, but it was a half-hearted effort.  Poor Cliff didn't complain.  I developed a craving for peanut-butter-on-whole-wheat-bread sandwiches over the past couple of weeks, and that was a frequent supper for me.  
Yesterday afternoon something stirred in me that headed me back to a more normal state of mind.  I went out and pounded four steel fence-posts in the ground for some tomato cages; I walked back on the point to see if the river bottom was flooded (it isn't... crops are growing there).  I made some Jello for Cliff (I'm not a fan of Jello), and put some pinto beans to soak overnight.  Today we had corn bread and beans for dinner.  
Yes, folks, I do believe I'm back... it's really me!  I still tire easily; there's still swelling in my knee.  But my walking speed has picked up until it's almost normal.  I even slept pretty well last night.  


Cliff, meanwhile, is anxiously awaiting retirement.  After this week, he has four weeks left to work.  We've had temperatures in the mid-nineties, and his place of employment isn't air-conditioned.  Not only that, there are ovens going that super-heat the building even more.  When Cliff had open-heart surgery, the doctors told him he wasn't to expose himself to temperatures over eighty-five degrees, but he really had no choice if he was going to work.  It will be so great for him not to have to go into that fierce heat again during the summer.  
I've been checking and double-checking our budget; we finally got the official word that Cliff will receive his first Social Security check in July, and I will get an increase in mine at that time.  Several people have told Cliff that the hardest part of living on Social Security is getting used to one payday a month.  Since I'm already using the envelope system for groceries, clothing, pet expenses and prescriptions, I don't see that anything will change that much.  When the envelope is empty, I don't buy any more until the next month.  Of course, the doctor-and-prescription envelope might have to have some help in emergencies, but we have a fund for that.  
Before my surgery, I debated whether I should ride the motorcycle again; my doctor, of course, is against it.  I've almost decided now that I probably will ride again.  When old folks buy a motorcycle, they're taking a risk every time they get on the thing, so what's one more risk?  A busted knee replacement would probably be the least of my worries.  That's where I stand on the situation today; who knows how I'll feel tomorrow.  

Motorcycle safety class

Our instructors. Can you guess which one rides a Honda Gold Wing and which one rides a Harley? You gotta love the Harley persona!

Cliff bought his first motorcycle, an old Harley hog, at the tender age of 18.

When our kids were small, we had a 350 Honda. Then we moved up to a 750 Honda. I considered Cliff to be a skilled rider, and he was pretty confident of his ability, too.

With two small children, we couldn't ride often together; Cliff rode his Honda to work sometimes, but it got less and less use, and he finally sold it.

Around the age of sixty, he started getting a far-away look in his eye every time he'd see a Honda Gold Wing on the roadways. We went to a Harley-Davidson open house, he went on a few trial rides, and I could see we were going to buy another motorcycle; the bug had bitten my husband.

We found what we considered to be a good buy on a used Gold Wing, and we were soon on the road with it, with no little children to hinder us from riding now.

The man from whom we bought that motorcycle suggested we take the Rolling Wheels safety course, since Cliff hadn't ridden in years. Cliff wanted to, but we just couldn't see spending $130 on motorcycle school when Cliff had done so much riding in the past.

Cliff admits his reflexes aren't what they used to be, so after two years of riding a Gold Wing, I signed us up for the course.

There were, I believe, eight bikes in the class. The class was not easy. Not one of the students was as skilled as he thought he was. Motorcycles, especially the bigger ones, were laid over on tight turns; cones on the course were run over. Many people failed to stay in the lines.


Each rider was individually critiqued on his riding. I was critiqued on my co-ridering. I learned what to do if Cliff sees he's going to have to brake quickly. I also found out that when he's going around a curve, I am to turn my head and look ahead to where he's going. This helps him, for some reason. And he learned that if he's going around the curve he's supposed to watch ahead where he's going, rather than looking directly in front of the bike.

Honestly, by the time it was over we were both on information overload. We have a lot of things to put into practice

You're never too old to learn. I'm including a video of the beginning of first exercise the bikes did, the only event in which I wasn't sitting behind Cliff on the motorcycle. He's the one on the white Gold Wing. Don't ask what they were doing, because I don't remember; and I didn't record the whole event.

We were both drained by the time we rode home. Hopefully, we'll be safer riders as a result of the course.

Some things we heard repeatedly yesterday:
"Become one with your bike."
"Scan ahead aggressively."
"What if?"

Guess what we did today?

Yep, since the forecast says our good weather is leaving after today, Cliff took off work and we RODE!

A Tale of Three Motorcycles

The past year has been a good one for us, all things considered.

We did learn this valuable lesson: don't sell your motorcycle unless you're sure you're done riding.

Last summer, Cliff got to thinking about the dangers of riding a motorcycle; then he started having some peculiar "light-headed" spells, and began to imagine what might happen if he had such an incident while on the motorcycle. He told me more than once his biggest fear was that he'd end up hurting or killing me in a wreck.

So he put our lovely blue Gold Wing up for sale on Craigslist, where it sat for a month without our receiving a single inquiry. Then out of the blue, we got a call from an interested party. He bought our bike. Cliff let him have all the extras that went with it: luggage, cover, the ice chest he'd rigged up to go on the back... everything.

The next weekend, Memorial Day weekend, Cliff and I sat brooding in the living room listening to motorcycles roar by on 224 highway. We knew we'd made a mistake. Oh, and the "spells" Cliff was having? Whatever the cause, a little pill prescribed by the doctor put an end to them.

I suggested we buy an older Gold Wing, so there wouldn't be so much money invested and we could ride. We found one, and were on the road again. Picnics, museums, all the stuff we'd been doing on our other Honda. I noticed that on this 1100 cc model, my knee bothered me more if we rode very long. But at least we could ride.

Cliff's cousin had purchased a 1998 Gold Wing earlier in the summer and found out he couldn't handle it, so he'd put it up for sale almost as soon as he bought it. The older Gold Wing we now had wasn't as comfortable a ride as the one we'd sold, nor did it have the power to which we'd been accustomed. It was noisy by comparison, too. And Cliff's cousin sure did need to sell his white motorcycle.

So we now own two Honda Gold Wings.

Since I was the one who strongly urged Cliff to get back into the motorcycle business, he says he no longer worries so much about hurting me. It's like, if something happens, I practically forced him to get another motorcycle... so it isn't all on his head. It was my decision. Sounds silly, I know. But whatever it takes to let him enjoy riding, I'm all for it. Am I sorry we sold the blue bike? In many ways, yes. Had we kept it, we'd have saved a small fortune. But it was a good thing, too. People really don't appreciate what they have until they've lost it, and it took that holiday weekend of sitting helplessly at home for us to realize how much fun we'd been having. I've had several people say, "You can get in the car and go for long drives, just like you do on the motorcycle."

I guess you have to be a biker to understand why that doesn't work.