Not a Great Start for the New Year :-(
January/02/2009
You know how they tell you not to drive or use equipment after you’ve taken certain medications? Well I never thought the equipment warning extended to an electric mixer. As I learned on New Year’s Day it most certainly does.
After a year in which I’ve spent a lot of time uncomfortably seated on cramped commuter airplanes, and having recently finished a five-week stint at the computer where I was writing a book that Marathon will publish this month, my back was pretty miserable. I’d been putting off seeing the doc until the book was finished, so I was delighted to get the last appointment on New Year’s Eve afternoon. The doc said I need some physical therapy. Not a problem. I’ll get that started after Imaging USA. Then he gave me prescriptions for a painkiller and a muscle relaxant. I took them as directed on New Year’s Day, and relax me they did . . . so much so that I wound up with my right hand stuck in the mixer beaters, along with the mashed potatoes. By the time Jim got the plug pulled and my hand extracted, it was pretty nasty, so we ended up in the ER on New Year’s Day, which if my mother were still living, she would gleefully point out that whatever happens on New Year’s Day is an omen for the rest of the year. I didn’t believe her then, and fortunately I don’t believe her now. In fact, I was pretty darn lucky: because the mixer was very powerful, it pulled my entire hand in, not just my fingers, so it did most of its damage on the top of my hand and my index finger. I have a splint on my hand, and it’s still pretty swollen, but it’s going to be fine. I’m also very lucky that I had installed voice recognition software on my Mac before I started on the book. I certainly couldn’t be writing this without it. For Mac folks, it’s MacSpeech Dictate, and it works beautifully. Startup takes about 10 minutes.
The rest of the good news is that I’ve been banned from the kitchen in the interest of my health and the sanity of my family, several of whom witnessed the debaucle. After years of skiing, riding motorcycles, riding horses, being thrown from horses, going over jumps on horses (in some cases without the horse), I’ve landed in the ER only twice: once when I ruptured a tendon in my little finger while making a bed, and this time due to an altercation with a kitchen appliance. So no more cooking for me, and I think I’ll stick to a glass of wine to provide any necessary relaxation.
So watch out for those dangerous kitchen appliances, and Cheers to you all!
After a year in which I’ve spent a lot of time uncomfortably seated on cramped commuter airplanes, and having recently finished a five-week stint at the computer where I was writing a book that Marathon will publish this month, my back was pretty miserable. I’d been putting off seeing the doc until the book was finished, so I was delighted to get the last appointment on New Year’s Eve afternoon. The doc said I need some physical therapy. Not a problem. I’ll get that started after Imaging USA. Then he gave me prescriptions for a painkiller and a muscle relaxant. I took them as directed on New Year’s Day, and relax me they did . . . so much so that I wound up with my right hand stuck in the mixer beaters, along with the mashed potatoes. By the time Jim got the plug pulled and my hand extracted, it was pretty nasty, so we ended up in the ER on New Year’s Day, which if my mother were still living, she would gleefully point out that whatever happens on New Year’s Day is an omen for the rest of the year. I didn’t believe her then, and fortunately I don’t believe her now. In fact, I was pretty darn lucky: because the mixer was very powerful, it pulled my entire hand in, not just my fingers, so it did most of its damage on the top of my hand and my index finger. I have a splint on my hand, and it’s still pretty swollen, but it’s going to be fine. I’m also very lucky that I had installed voice recognition software on my Mac before I started on the book. I certainly couldn’t be writing this without it. For Mac folks, it’s MacSpeech Dictate, and it works beautifully. Startup takes about 10 minutes.
The rest of the good news is that I’ve been banned from the kitchen in the interest of my health and the sanity of my family, several of whom witnessed the debaucle. After years of skiing, riding motorcycles, riding horses, being thrown from horses, going over jumps on horses (in some cases without the horse), I’ve landed in the ER only twice: once when I ruptured a tendon in my little finger while making a bed, and this time due to an altercation with a kitchen appliance. So no more cooking for me, and I think I’ll stick to a glass of wine to provide any necessary relaxation.
So watch out for those dangerous kitchen appliances, and Cheers to you all!