After a subpar week of lumbering last week, I was glad to get back to some normal mileage and picture taking. At least until I couldn’t today.
The first four days were OK, and I got 23.94 miles in, but I needed to skip Friday morning for some outpatient lipoma removal at Doctor Bob’s office, to which I have just returned.
The procedure was way easier than I imagined, and I never felt a thing as he extracted a lima bean-sized lump of rubbery fatty tissue that had been irritating my back ribs for three years or more whenever sleeping on my side or sitting in certain chairs. Finally, it’s out! (There was much rejoicing)
As I typed the first hunk of this, my back was still filled with local anesthesia, and I took my doctor-recommended dose of Tylenol, so I really don’t know how much pain I might be in as the day goes on. So, as much as I wanted to grab my gear and head out for a lumber, I settled for a short Macro Photo Creep at the Sylvan preserve. That way, if shit got painful, I would be close to the car and home.
***
—POINTLESS ANECDOTAL INTERLUDE—
Before the procedure, I was nervous as fuck and was treated to 20 minutes of waiting room hell, sharing it with the most brain-dead couple that I have ever seen.
The woman had purple hair and was pushing three bills. The dude used a walker, jacket hood up, thick glasses, a stud in his lip, and looked like he weighed about 120; both talked like they had stopped at The House of Dank before the appointment.
As they sat together, they were watching two different NSFW Reels, TikToks, or something else stupid with their phones on speaker at max volume. The cacophony of noise was maddening! The receptionist was attempting to talk over them on her work phone as the sounds of Internet Karen’s screaming, dropping F-Bombs, and talk of someone needing their “Booty power washed” rang out. On top of that, the dude kept getting texts, and his alert was the sound of a gun cocking and shooting *Click-Click, BANG!* *Click-Click, BANG!*
This was all after hearing him struggling to talk to his little girl’s school receptionist for 5 minutes, again on speaker with the volume up to max, to let them know she was taking a different bus home with a friend today. I could only hope that the poor girl was planning on running away and ditching these two freaking morons! There was also talk of a friend named Ambria (AMBRIA???), which is a name that, now, three hours later, I am still trying to figure the fuck out. Unless it’s your name, then, “Oh, how pretty.”
I had been in no way eager to get into the office to have my fat back cut open, but I was *this close* to begging the receptionist to just let me have one scalpel to end it all.
Oh well, it took my mind off the procedure AND gave me something to laugh about. It also gave me something to cheer me up on days when I get down on myself for “being a loser.”
—END—
***
Not sure what the weekend holds, but I hope it’s pain-free.
Photo Notes: The photo of the raccoon is from Thursday morning’s lumber. I heard some splashing in a trailside swampy area as I lumbered along. I looked up to see a chubby raccoon jumping out of the water and scurrying up a tree to get away from me. I’ve never seen a raccoon climb a tree so well. Nor did I know that raccoons’ front paws kinda look like a man’s hands up close, which is pretty freaking weird.
The rest of the pics are from my short, post-op Macro Creep.
Later.