The Joint is a Pain

I don’t think I've told you that the The Man built the fence that was on my gulag list. It looks terrific. Check that off the list. The shrubs have been transplanted from my sunny perennial bed to in front of the new fence section. But our house was built in 1958. Like everything from that era, it’s falling apart. Remaining on the gulag list are: caulk the roof windows that have decided it’s time to leak when it rains, finish spreading huge, heavy rolls of insulation in the attic before winter, saw down an ugly crabapple tree and cut back the ugly lilacs. The Man Who Insists On Having A Lawn Regardless Of The Fact That We Live In A Woods also has mountains of leaves to blow, rake, mow and mulch.

And then there’s the annual fall bulb-planting project. Every spring I make a list of where some daffodils would look cool. We usually plant upwards of a hundred bulbs each fall. They don’t live forever, in case you didn’t know. Last spring was a great year for spring flowers. Maybe it was the mountains of snow that blanketed them all winter. I don’t know. But they bloomed forever and were spectacular. So when I made my list of what to plant this fall, I must have pictured a really amazing show. I found my notes this week. They say things like, “twelve yellow daffs S. of bench, W. of amalancher, eight red tulips in front bed, E of fence, S of bleeding hearts,” etc. I added up the number of bulbs to plant, and YIKES! It came to 372! That is insane.

I bought 6 dozen. The Man Who Digs My Holes (and I who fill those holes) would be cripples for the winter if we planted 31 dozen. This list is going to take years to complete, even if we can prevent further bodily deterioration.

For the moment, my knee is healing. On Tuesday I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon. On Thursday I cancelled it. On Friday, trick or treat eve in Brookfield, I set up my usual treat station out in our driveway, where I hand out M&Ms and homemade cut-out pumpkin cookies to kiddies and wine, spiced cider and cheese to the adults who walk the streets to prevent the kidnapping of Spiderman and Princess Di. The Man and I spent a few hours hanging out with them. Fine for The Man. His knees more-or-less function. (That means: he can play singles tennis for an hour and a half, but he cannot walk around the block with me, because of his knees, he says. He must think I’m an idiot.) Anyway, between having cancelled the appointment with the ortho doc for Monday and having stood for hours in the driveway on Friday, the knee is not so swell this weekend, but I insist it is improving.

(How many people do you know who’ve had a knee replacement and had problem with or after the surgery? Of our friends, I know of four. All had very serious problems that lasted for years after the surgery or are still a problem. I am not rushing to have my lousy joint repaired.)

Then this morning, The Man gets up from his breakfast, leans for a minute on one foot, and then hobbles off to the bathroom. “Whoa,” I say. “What’s with the limp?”

“It’s my big toe,” he replies. “It hurts when I bend it. Maybe I did something to it when I was mowing the leaves yesterday.”

It’s sunny and 55 degrees today. The man and I are sitting at our computers, ignoring The List. The rolls of insulation can stand in the front hall for another week. The ugly crabapple tree and lilac bushes have been ugly for years. They can be ugly a while longer. The Man has been known to dig holes through the snow in which to plant daffodil bulbs. And the roof window won't leak if it doesn't rain.

Stirring the Pot