Frustration island

My dad asked me tonight if I had been blogging about my experiences having a broken leg. I told him, “There’s not a lot to say. It hurts, I can barely get around, I’m confined to the second floor of our house, and I fall down every time I try to practice walking with crutches.” I think I’ve covered all those topics so far. If not, there you go; you’re up to date.

My friends who know I’m a frustrat(ing) novelist all ask, “How is work on your great American masterpiece coming along?” I know how much they mean well, but, honestly, it stings a bit. I am frittering away my bed-ridden hours watching endless movies, back to back. I’m up to at least 20 movies, over the course of exactly 8 days (as of writing this, not as of posting). Does that tell you how uninspiring having a broken leg is for me? I can’t even read, and god knows that has always been my refuge. No, TV is my snuggle blankie now.

I tried to act out the movie Rear Window and spy from the window right by my pillow. All I can tell you is that the three palm trees need their dead branches trimmed and the back fence neighbors do a very poor job of taking care of their yard. I quit looking after two attempts and no changes. Matthew told me he keeps expecting to come home and find me sitting at the window with a pair of binoculars and ask him to come quick and look. Nope. It’s nothing like Chicago here, where I could have seen a million things from my window (if I had one to look out of), but, here, it’s just pretty quiet and slow. No crime to spy on and investigate.

This did just give me a thought, though. Maybe I’ll start a photo project. If I can get the screen up on my rear window, maybe I can document my three palm trees at different times of day and over the course of the season or something. Or maybe that’s mega dull. Do palm trees ever change? Are they evergreen? I’m too new to Florida to understand nature’s intricacies. I always thought I was a good Southern girl, but then I moved really south and discovered how Midwestern I actually was.

I did have one nature surprise two nights ago. Three times, several minutes apart, around three a.m., I thought I heard an owl. But I thought I must be nuts—are there such things as palm tree owls? I thought owls were like an endangered Pacific Northwest anti-logging campaign or something. Today, Matthew confirmed my observation. He came back from the evening dog walk and told me “Two interesting things just happened on our walk.” The first was irrelevant and involved a near-fight with our neighbor’s cat, who smartly retreated rather than take on her majesty, hunter supreme, Blanche DuBois Wy. The second was relevant: “I just heard two hooty-owls,” he said, with his eyes wide in his silly way.

I told him, “You mean there really are owls? I thought I heard one the other night, and I thought I must be going nuts.”

“No, it was real.”

Then I admitted I thought owls were Pacific Northwest etc, etc. He assured me that owls are everywhere.

“So, what are they? Are they Palm Tree Owls?”

He didn’t think so.

In truth, I recognize that there are also an abundance of large, ancient, delightfully crusty live oaks here in St. Augustine. They are probably Delightfully Crusty Live Oak Owls. I also imagine that, like the squirrels here, they have adapted to have smaller bodies because of some sort of heat ratio aspect thing. Thermo-dynamics, you know.

I guess I should turn the blog’s attention to matters of laughing at the injured Ms. Wy. O, if only our heroine’s misadventures were more humorous, instead of calamitous.

Whenever I decide to test walk my crutches for the fifteen feet from my sick bed in the cat’s room to the bathroom, I make sure Matthew is here, and I make sure I’m feeling mightily strong. Without fail, I get exactly half-way between destinations and lose my balance. I fall flat, splat on the floor. Since the crutches actually slow my descent, I have time to swing my right bad leg out of the way, and I generally land on my back, which I assure hurts much less than landing on my front. Matthew comes running up the stairs, poor guy, and I lay like a frier hen laughing hysterically on the floor. “I’m not hurt, Matthew; I just can’t get up.”

The carefully executed maneuver necessary to lift me off the ground is difficult and awkward, you know, whole right-foot-can’t-touch-the-ground thing. I like to push off the floor with my right arm, and have Matthew pull me from the left arm while I push up with my left leg. I swear my left leg has done more in the past eight days than it has since I was in high school and I liked to rock climb.

The other confluence of Special Christine Circumstances is that I have combined forgetfulness with my injury and become more illogical than usual. I can’t walk five feet on crutches, but I promised my boss I’d be back to work at the end of ten days (I reneged on that promise today). I carefully devised an excellent plan to use the night librarian’s designated parking spot as my handicapped spot so that I could be right by the door, then remembered it was my right leg that is broken and I can’t drive anyway (I hatch this plan anew every two days.). I also think how fun it would be to sew since I have all this time off, then I remember that I use my right foot for the machine controller, and I have no ability to press with my right foot (I also think of this one every two days or so.). Then I thought that maybe I could get my library friend who lives in a retirement community to see if any of her neighbors could loan me a wheelchair for a few weeks, then I realized I’m a germaphobe, and I hate touching things other people have touched, and it would take a lot of sani-wipe-downs before I’d be able to touch it without rubber gloves. It’s a difficult, circular logical place to live in Christine’s mind. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had the brilliant plan to drive to get Oreo cookies only to remember half-way off the bed that I can’t drive (or walk).

I actually had a painful stumble today, which was weird because it was absolutely the least dramatic of my broken-leg-fall-downs yet. I was getting off the bed, pulling myself up with my old lady walker. This requires getting the left foot firmly on the floor to push, and all four legs of the walker squared up on the floor and perpendicular to my body. As I push/pull up, I then have to swing my right leg behind me for safety, ballast, protection, what have you. Critical failure achieved at push/pull moment. I didn’t have my left foot down properly and it gave out on me. Since my right foot wasn’t behind me yet, this meant I pitched forward onto the walker and wrenched my right foot. Ouch. How does a person bend her leg out of whack again when it’s already in a cast? Easy answer: That person is Christine Wy There you go, I’ve just written a riddle for you. Feel free to use it at cocktail parties; everyone will love it.

So there I am. Day seven feeling like one day I’ll walk again, despite my continued failure with crutches, day eight feeling like I’ve just re-injured all those sore tendons and muscles. I count my blessings that it doesn’t feel anything like when I first broke my leg, so I’m praying I haven’t done damage to the bone healing process.

I guess there really is more to my story, like Dad thought. I can actually think of a million things more I’d like to say, but I feel like I’ve said enough for now.

Not to end on a downer, but I’m lonely. If you have my number, call me during the day, just for a quick chat. If you don’t have my number, you know how to e-mail me to get it. Of course if you call while I’m taking Tylenol 3, it’s a toss-up whether you’ll get fun, wacky Christine, or whether you’ll get “I’m a zombie let me sleep now” Christine. The choice is yours, if you’re up to the challenge.

Also, let me know in comments or by e-mail if you’re interested in all the movie reviews I’ve been writing. I’ve tried to keep them short and sweet, and I’ll publish them here if anyone cares.

Ta-ta Christine lovers.