duck-shaped pain

A couple of weeks back, I tripped and fell on the stairs, and landed on my right leg, the one that I broke earlier this year. It made it a little sore for awhile, but nothing really unbearable.

Then, last Sunday, I helped my mom move and, while I didn't move any furniture or lift any incredibly heavy boxes, I still overdid it a bit, mainly out of guilt that I wasn't doing enough to help (I live in fear of being called a slacker, even though, deep down, it's the thing I'm really best at).

So, this whole week, The Leg has been really out whack. It keeps reminding me that despite the numerous rods and screws in it, it's still hasn't healed completely. It's been very tender and achy, and parts of my leg have been slightly swollen.

All of this was enough to make me call my doctor this morning to make an appointment. I can't get into see him in person until October 16!, but I managed to get his assistant on the line. All he could tell me was that I had probably overdoing any physical activities, and I should take it easy until my appointment, and ice and elevate the leg if it starts to swell again.

Which is more or less the advice I expected. I'm sure it's nothing major, but deep in the dark recesses of my brain, I keep thinking that there's something very dire wrong with The Leg, like it's rejecting the steel rod and screws and it's going to be infected and I'm going to have to have surgery again and they're going to have to put a cast on it or amputate it or get me a replacement leg from some teenage car crash victim, and the leg will be cursed, and my new leg will drive me to stalk and get revenge on the teenage car crash victim's best friend who stole her boyfriend/drunk driver killer/speech teacher who embarrassed her in front of the class/grandma or something horrible like that. You could say my mind tends to wander a bit when it's faced with medical uncertainty.

So, The Leg is resting right now. I got to go home early from work because of it, which was a relief. Today, I was put in charge of purchasing our new digital camera, which turned out to be a much bigger hassle than purchasing something should be. First, the cheapest online places to buy the camera either has completely astronomical shipping prices (come on, it doesn't cost YOU $55 to ship that damn camera) or were completely unwilling to disclose their shipping costs before you actually bought from them. Which is a big warning sign not to give them your credit card information, I must say. Finally, we decided on a place that had reasonable prices, most of the accessories we wanted, and decent shipping costs and options. Then we found that they were out of stock of most of what we wanted. Since they were -- tentatively -- supposed to get most of the stuff in at the beginning of next week, we decided to order from there. Still, we're going to get receive the camera ensemble in parts -- they're shipping the AC adapter today, but we won't get anything to plug it in to until next week, maybe.

Sometimes I am still glad to be a carnivore. I try to not eat very much meat, unless it is avoidable, but once in awhile, a meal comes along that makes you happy to eat it. Like my dad's famous breakfast burritos.

Eggs, potatoes, onions, the spiciest sausage you can find, and gobs of cheese, all wrapped up in a soft tortilla. Originally, the breakfast burritos were camping food only (you'd need to take an all-day hike just to burn one of them off), but as the family camping trips got less and less frequent (no one could take the rain, the bugs and the endless array of wet shoes anymore), the recipe had to be adapted for home use.

They're delicious, yet incapacitating. One burrito is enough to make you sit motionless in front of the TV for hours while your stomach takes over all your bodily functions. Two will knock you out completely. Three -- almost impossible. My dad usually makes a lot of them, so he can wrap them in plastic and keep them in the freezer and fridge for future reference. I just had one for lunch and all I can think of now is how much I want to take a nap or watch golf or something like that. They have an evil, evil power.

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