The Yankee found it strange to hear Christmas music, outside at a florist in short sleeves.
I told her the leaves were turning …
November, 2012
18
Nov 12
Catching up
The place where we add extra pictures to make it through the weekend. Dive on in.
The Yankee said “That guy was wondering what you were doing, taking his picture.”
“Oh he knows,” I said.
Some genius set fire to Toomer’s Corner early this morning. The media have been using the expression “caught fire” which suggests that the trees spontaneously combusted. I submit that no blaze would have been created without the presence of an arsonist with low mental acuity.
It has become difficult to go down there and not be disgusted with people in general. But we drove by last night. At the red light I rolled down the window and took this picture blindly. Managed to get Samford, the old eagle and the tree all in one frame. If I never get to do it again, that isn’t a bad one:
Said the same thing the last time I rolled it, after the national championship.
Great light at the homestead:
I see this poster every so often. I want to own a copy of it, but you can’t find it for sale. Ah well:
So we’re at Bed, Bath and Beyond, because we like to buy multi-dimensional things. Also, they have a good kettle corn we like. We were there to pick up a few bags, but we found that it was all — gasp! — beyond the “Best by” date. And not just barely beyond the date, but four whole days beyond.
I point this out as a joke to the young cashier. She is mortified.
“I can’t sell you this!”
Yes you can. And I want to buy it.
She calls her manager, who is quickly brought up to speed and is equally chagrined. I insist on buying it. I’d only mentioned it to make a pretend scene, not a real one. And now, for the first time ever, the act of scene making has actually done something.
The manager calls in her regional distributor. And he conducts a straw poll of Bed, Bath and Beyond shareholders and spectral bodies. They finally decide they can sell me the popcorn. But they will only do it for half price:
We opened the bag that had aged beyond the “Best by” stamp. It was merely sufficient.
These were all the movies we could have watched instead of Twilight:
Note that the debuting film isn’t even on the marquee. I think the theater was embarrassed by the act of showing the movie. Not so embarrassed they wouldn’t take your money, though.
17
Nov 12
Alabama A&M at Auburn
Likely the last football victory Auburn will see this year. Definitely the last they’ll see at home. Alabama A&M put on their “Just happy to be here” smiles and had a great day under a warm sun and beautiful skies. The A&M players were excited to run out onto the field and put on a good show, but they were overmatched from the start, despite Auburn coming into the game 2 and disappointing 8.
Everyone wanted to see the Bulldogs get a feel-good score. Everyone wanted to see the Maroon and White march. And the Showband of the South was the best show we’ve seen at Jordan-Hare in years. It should happen more often.
Freshman Jonathan Wallace made his third start at quarterback. Seems he’s running the show from here:
Just out of Sammie Coates’ reach. This happens to Coates too often:
Between the true freshman QB, the redshirt freshman Coates and sophomore C.J. Uzomah, the youth movement is on:
Then you add in the young line, two starting corners who are freshmen and so on and so forth and you wonder … where are the juniors? Everyone, on this senior day, was already reminded how small the senior class is. There are 13 of them. And even fewer of them are starters or real contributors. There’s Onterio McCalebb, of course, and some of those statistical photographs I like to make:
Not bad for a guy that everyone thought was too small. And his numbers should be far, far higher: he was misused this year and everyone knows it.
There’s also Emory Blake, who’ll go on to a nice low round draft pick or a great free agent deal somewhere next year:
The last rolling of Toomer’s Corner:
The trees will be coming out soon as they’re all but gone. We’ll all be doomed to something put in place by a committee. There’s just no winning sometime
A few more pictures tomorrow.
16
Nov 12
And now a medical update
I once sat in a doctor’s office while everyone went to lunch. Seems everyone thought someone else had dismissed me. Boy were they embarassed!
It went back to the orthopedic surgeon for a checkup on my collarbone today. I waited for 45 minutes, most of it in the exam room.
And so I read things. Caught up on Twitter, skimmed some emails and so on. If you think about it too much it feels like you’ve been forgotten in the examination room. Fortunately there is that one painting, that one miserable print, for you to contemplate. That’s the one way they’ve left you to pass the time.*
I shot, edited and produced this little video while waiting on the doctor. Still had time to spare. If I’d known I had this kind of time I would have re-shot this to steady it up somehow. I would have brought in a tripod from the car. That wouldn’t have looked odd at all.
They took an X-ray. The doctor spent about five minutes with me. Showed me the X-ray. He pronounced my bones as healing nicely. He said the six screws are hexadecimals. I’ll be sure to pack a hexa-multitool if I ever want to do self-maintenance.
He blew off my muscle spasm issues. I could write paragraphs about them. They are in my left back and shoulder, in the teres minor/infraspinatus facia area. Sometimes it reaches all the way across to the right shoulder. Once or twice it has gotten into my neck. Two weekends ago it somehow got in my head. There is not much up there, but certainly no muscle! I wish this experience on no one.
I blame too much time in the car and not understanding how little exertion I can actually perform. It should seem, though, that after this many months muscle spasms would get better. The doctor has alternately told me six months or a year or Christmas, depending on his mood. A family friend promises this will continue on for some time. These are not the prognoses for which I am looking.
Also, as my mother reminds me: I am not under 30 anymore.
Anyway, the X-rays look good. The doctor says the bones are healing nicely. The heavy wet wool blanket feeling on the front and top of my shoulder has improved recently. I’m pleased with the collarbone.
Nearly — and sometimes entirely debilitating — muscle spasms are a drag. Don’t fall off your bike, kids.
*Also the doctor’s stool on which you can perform wheelies.
For dinner The Yankee and I celebrated with Cheeburger Cheeburger. We read each other trivia questions over our cheeseburgers, laughing and giggling and surely making The Yankee’s student, who was dining a few tables away, think we were perfectly silly.
We walked up the block, where the city had blocked off one of the roads for a downtown festive event. A band was playing. People were dancing, mostly the older folks. All the college kids have skipped town for Thanksgiving, so a special town feels no less special, but a bit less vibrant. It is a great place to be, and so we walked on the sidewalks on a cool November night, looking to harass friends that we might run into.
Finally we walked through one of the town’s two alleys, found the car and headed home. We’re going to watch movies all night. Great night.
