This didn’t scan well, but it’s one of many MRI views I have of my right ankle. As mentioned here, I have a running injury. My first in 33 years of pounding the pavement. Frankly, I started blogging because I couldn’t go running every evening, as was my habit for many years.
Initially I was told it was tendonitis, and I went through six weeks of physical therapy. It still hurt, so a second doctor ordered the MRI. He said it looked fine. But the truth is, it isn’t fine, it still hurts, I can’t run on it, and it isn’t getting better.
Friday afternoon I’m taking the MRI films to a podiatrist surgeon who comes highly recommended. If I’m going to run the Boston Marathon, the week between Christmas and New Year’s I must start 16 weeks of hard training. I need to know if I can do it. Indeed, I need to know if I’ll ever run again.
If you happen to come across the calendar view of this blog, you’ll notice that nothing was posted on Sunday. It’s easy to explain. We — me, son Eric and friend Dennis — went to a fanboy convention in Springfield, MA to meet actress Jewel Staite. Actually, Dennis went to meet Monkee Peter Tork, but I don’t think he minded meeting Jewel.
Blame it on my friend Bill! It’s his fault. He got us into watching DVD’s of the short-lived 2002 TV show Firefly, which is best described as an outer space western. Staite played the character Kaylee, the space ship’s mechanic. It’s like this, see? The ship’s engine has a glowing yellow tail, that’s supposed to make it look like a firefly and the significance of that is, well, uh …. never mind. There is no significance. But anyway, that’s where we were on Sunday.
Next weekend we get to meet Morena Baccarin, another cast member from the show, at yet another geeky fanboy-filled event. Hey, somebody’s gotta do the tough job of showing these struggling actors that their hard work is appreciated!
Eric has, at last, experienced the eagerly-anticipated Nintendo Wii! At a demo kiosk in the Natick Mall.
It’s been a long wait for the Wii, which was originally going to be called the Revolution. Here’s hoping Santa does a good job making sure they’re in ample supply for the Holidays Christmas! No! Wait! I got that backwards. Holidays Christmas. *Whew* There, that’s better.
There’s another Eric who’s anxious to play the Nintendo Wii. The foul-mouthed kid on South Park. Well, every kid on South Park is foul-mouthed. The language on the video above has been reasonably cleaned up with some judicious editing.
I’m not particularly a fan of the show, in part because of the needlessly gratuitous profanity. I made a point of watching the Scientology show, however, and it was quite good. I’m not saying the writers don’t score points against their targets, but for me the swearing muddies the message.
LIFE Magazine photo of American soldiers in Hürtgen Forest, Germany, September 1944.
I didn’t want to let Veterans Day pass without sharing something special. I have in my possession an original paperback book, printed in Italy at the end of World War II. It’s a collection of cartoons by Bill Mauldin.
Click here or on the picture of Willie and Joe to go to the gallery to see selected cartoons from the book. I found this book for a dollar at a used book store many years ago. The inscription is fascinating in itself. Who was Grace? Who was Eugene? Were they just friends, or were they in love? Did they marry?
What immediately catches my eye in Mauldin’s cartooning is his superbly confident and slap-dash brushwork. Keep the photo above in mind when browsing the gallery, and you’ll see that Mauldin’s depiction of ragged and weary soldiers was no exaggeration! Below is a LIFE Magazine photo of Bill Mauldin with his infant son Bruce at the end of the war, probably taken around the time the book was published. More WWII cartoons by Mauldin, posted by Stars and Stripes, can be seen by clicking here.
My wife Carol gets a lot of clothing catalogs in the mail. One of them is title nine. The company is undoubtedly named after the legislation that gave girls and women parity in competitive sports programs with boys and men.
Title nine’s Web site seems to be missing the captions for the pictures of the women that are in the print catalog. Carol thinks the captions are very amusing, and she wonders how many of title nine’s prospective customers match this profile of athletic, professional super mom?
So let’s meet the self-actualized ladies of the title nine catalog! I bet that together these women have less body fat than a can of tuna.
Emma! Bear! Heidi! Isabel! Erin B! Erin not B! Penny!
There’s a woman named … Bear?? I saved Penny for last. She’s a PhD student with 13(!) siblings.
I had never listened this band before! I l love it!!!!!!
