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Friday, March 26, 2021

Trainride Looks Smaller Farther Back

This is back by where it began. I'm about 5, riding a little train pulled by puffer-engine through Golden Gate Park. I am sitting behind sisters, between big brother and our father

It is about to choo-choo us through the woods to Fleishhacker Zoo, where I intended to apply for residence in the Gorilla Preserve. I admired their agility and wanted to learn.

Admittedly, I have gleaned some athletic competence despite my failure to qualify. Last month I fell backwards off the pumphouse roof and rolled a couple times in search of my feet, found them and stood on them. Quite relieved until the bruised muscle pain kicked in. Then, last week, our slippery shower sent me on a leap across the bathroom,  included a flying tackle of the toilet, which I brought down, and spent several days bringing back up. I blame that on highschool football, not gorillas.

I can only fault our Universe's entropic confluence with temporal and gravitational continua, not the personal miscalculation and indignity of age.  Just remember, there's no protective net around roofs and no teamwork in the bathroom.

 

35 comments:

  1. From the descriptions of your latest sporting activities - abseiling on the pumphouse roof, and rugby football tackles in the bathroom - I assume you are searching for a lost youth. BUT, as it said in a detective series I was accustomed to watching, lost youth is supposed to be just that...Lost! Take care Geo.

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    1. Oh Dear Tom, have we truly lost our youth? How CARELESS of us! Inexcusable. You take care too. Deal?

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    2. P.S.: Doesn't abseiling involve ropes now? I've never thought of ropes on roofs or in the loo, much less swinging on them, but maybe --like automotive inflatable impact bags-- its time has come!

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  2. Oh no, stay safe. I remember those old trains. There was one in Greenfield Park in Wilmington, NC.

    https://fromarockyhillside.com

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    1. Dear Reverend Jeff, there are lots of "oh no" moments in life but mama-photo doesn't reflect one. We were all in our faces with bright shiny places --an entire family afflicted with Ulotrichy due to the Moors invading Portugal and deciding they liked it better than going back home. Go figure.

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  3. Geeze, I'm sorry to hear this. It's a terrible feeling to fall and no fun to pull muscles(or worse). It seems to take much longer to heal these days.

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    1. True, all true dear Margaret! Norma made me walk with a cane for 2 weeks, and I have yet to repair damage to the pumphouse roof. She suggests we hire it done, even though I did a fine job 35 years ago. My ego has trouble admitting we can afford help now but I know she's correct.

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  4. Ouch, Geo - I can truly feel your pain...and hope you are mending quickly. Some of my very worst falls happened when I was much younger - - including the one that destroyed my spine (a nasty tumble down a staircase).
    The train photo is a priceless journey into the past...

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    1. Indeed dear Jon, big ouch! I mend about as quickly as I ever have, but incurring these aerobic calamities too often has made me mentally over-cautious --in psychological parlance, "Apeshit."

      Thanks for photo-compliment. It was taken by our mother and left unseen by me from deep in another century until my kind brother emailed it to me.

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  5. You poor thing. I have to be careful. I slipped once while getting out or the shower. I ripped the towel rack off the wall trying to catch myself. I have managed to save serious injury by implementing a tuck and roll. It is sad and comical watching me trying to recover after a fall.

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    1. Dear Emma, we ALL have to be careful. In my case, I flew past the towel rack to tackle the poor commode. One must be especially discerning while flying naked and I was not. I was stopped by the bathroom door, bloody and stupid, then found by my wife who asked if I was alright. I said, "You should see the other guy."

      Let's ALL be more careful! Deal?

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  6. I fear at my advanced age that any fall is likely to be my last, regardless of my inability to "tuck and roll" as one of your commenters said. Please, please, take care Geo., as we do not want you banged up.

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    1. Dear caring Bruce, I will concentrate henceforth on preventative caution: survey all challenges to compare with my caducity here in my 70s. In other words, hire everything done except bathroom activities --but will obey Norma's order that I take my cane in there. Sincere thanks for your concern and likewise trust you'll be careful too.

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  7. Oh my good man, I'm sorry to hear of these "incidents," but am pleased that your sense of humor was uninjured. All I can suggest is tethering, helmets, suction pods on your feet, slow movement, avoiding heights, and Captain America armor.

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    1. Dear Tom, So far I've only tried suction pods on my feet. Tomorrow I'll try something else when I get down from the ceiling.

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  8. Funny how the bathroom takes on an ominous vibe as I get older. I can almost see the shower stall walls pulsing, just waiting for me to trip, bring down the shower curtain, which will do it’s best to strangle me and finish the job as I lay unconscious from hitting the ledge on the way down, while ice cold water rains down relentlessly on my blue-tinted, goose bumply flesh. I stay away from the roof so it doesn’t scare me as much as the bathroom. I’m glad you are on the mend and took that toilet down. You win.

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    1. Certainly a double-gainer across the loo should never include porcelain fixtures or asphyxiative shower curtains. Let's face it, bathrooms are necessary but they don't especially like us.

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  9. And also, you were an adorable five-year-old. Almost as irresistible as now. I”m glad the gorillas didn’t keep you-we all would have missed out

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    1. Dear Consigliere, Thank you for your support and roof-advice. In my 70s, I should not tempt fate from such altitudes. Even when I was 5, when we reached their preserve, the gorillas denied me residence, citing Brachiation-impairment. Considering their skill at swinging through trees, I cannot blame them

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  10. I have made frequent contact with the floor. Never ended well.

    What a time you all must have had. It is a memory and a story to pass onto bloggers and family.

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    1. Dear Susan, I enthusiastically agree. Why would anybody build a planet with no local E=MC2 adjustments? I'd complain to our Municipal Utility Co. but they'd just come shut my gravity off all together.

      However, as you point out, proximity to a city that is more than memory; a place of reliably happy experiences--San Francisco,is also a state of mind-- at least provides a place I can gravitate toward.

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  11. Hello, you dear man, you. Thanks so much for leaving a note on my blog. You kinda shamed me into writing a post. :)

    I'm sorry to hear about your falls. You gave them a humorous twist, but I can almost feel your pain. Not funny! Please be careful. I hope you have a bar in your shower... um, the kind ya can grab, not the ones that can get ya sloshed. Sloshed in the shower... hmmm, that could work, too. Might not stop you from falling, but it might ease the pain.

    Seriously, dude, be careful. I hope you guys have been able to get vaccinated. I get my second shot on Tuesday. I was never so sincerely happy to get a shot as I was the first one. By golly, there just may be a light at the end of that thar tunnel. (And NO! It is NOT an oncoming train!) Big hugs to you and Norma.

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    1. Dear Susan, Thanks for update and advice, but mainly for letting me know you're senses of humor and positive outlook are intact. Norma's covid shots are scheduled with Kaiser, mine with Medicare. We've both had our 1st vaccination and my 2nd is scheduled for 4/19 at a nearby pharmacy. As to bathroom toilet-tackling, damage to commode was confined to porcelain tank and tank-top lid. I recommend Gorilla Glue, amazing stuff. Doesn't work on my body but thought I'd mention it. Hugs appreciated --they work real good.

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    2. I'm glad to hear you guys are set to get your second shots. Good to know the Gorilla glue did the trick for you, too. I didn't even think about trying to glue the tank top back together when Mike fell into it and broke it in half. Since the toilet was nearly 50 years old, I decided to just replace the whole thing. I did use some nifty Gorilla two-sided tape, though, to hang a three-paneled painting of the aurora borealis, and it works great. (I figured my odds of ever seeing my bucket-list aurora borealis in person are pretty slim, so at least I can see it every day hanging on my wall.)

      Take care, sweet dude. (And dudette.)

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    3. Who knew gorillas made such great adhesives? We live in sobering times! You take care too, Susan. You're important to me.

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  12. Oh Geo. you must have got such a fright when you fell. May I suggest anti slip shower shoes and perhaps swing bars for the ceiling.. :-) Hopefully the muscle pains have eased off.

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    1. Ma Chérie, decidedly the pain recedes. I like the idea of shower-shoes, but am hesitant regarding swing-bars.

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  13. Your experiences have been mutually shared by many others it seems from the previous comments. To add my own, I have experienced a bathtub slip and we now have safety trends on the tub floor so it's not a recurrence. Glad to read you have healed and I'm sure you do not plan for any future bathroom excursions.

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    1. Dear Beatrice, I like the idea of safety strips on the bathtub bottom. Bathroom is the scariest room in our house and ought to be considered for dramatic effect in the next Olympic Games.

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  14. Last fall I had was in '05, bare wet feet on a hardwood floor. Compound fracture left ankle, 6 ripped ligaments. 8 hours of surgery, 6 months of cast and hobbling around, enough metal in my ankle to set off alarms in airports. Since then I have been extremely leery of falling. Glad you're ok.

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    1. Oh dear Mike! As one who already has bionic bits that set off alarms when I ENTER and EXIT the local Rite Aid pharmacy, I pay special attention to your cautionary example. Right now it's mainly your ankle and my pacemaker but more steel implants might qualify us as Cyborgs --and they're usually the bad guys in Sci-fi, with crazy mechanical voices. Yes, let's be leery and careful!

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  15. damn, be careful...I find the older I get the more careful I become. Dammed if I'll go out that way.

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    1. I try to be careful, JACKIESUE. Really I do.
      Today and late last night, I argued with a big raccoon about how he oughtn't rip and twist our foundation vent off to get under our house. Sounded like somebody down there with a crowbar --met him around midnight. Where did I foolishly learn carpentry in the dark? Couldn't shoot him because raccoons are beautiful and spend their lives at risk, more than we do. Occasional carelessness makes me kinder to the damned things. Help!

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  16. I Hate Senior Falls, so much Humility involved. I remember my very first one, which was hilarious in hindsight. At the McManse, our front Yard was on a steep Slope incline. I stood Watering the Landscape with a Hose, tilted sideways due to the incline, gravity took a Toll on my Senior Balance being askew, I tipped over sideways and rolled all the way down the Hill, running Hose still in hand spewing Water in a rotation, all the way to the Sidewalk. I got up quickly, Dignity Bruised, but Thankfully nothing else, with Twigs and Leaves in my Dreadlocks. I don't know if anyone Witnessed it, I sure Hoped not. Roofs aren't for our Season of Life and Teamwork in the Bathroom... well, now there's a Visual. *Ha ha ha*

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    1. Dear Dawn, this is why I no longer visit one of my favorite National Parks, Yosemite. I respect but do not fear bears --they're usually pretty shy. I am wary of waterfalls: Yosemite Falls, Bridalveil Falls especially and hope they never name any drop "Senior Falls" after me.

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