I did NOT sleep well last night: yesterday, I went for a bike ride in the morning, down the towpath next to the Raritan-- but after a few miles, the trail was washed out, muddy, rutted, and full of puddles . . . so I turned back, went home, and iced my sore knee-- and then I went to acupuncture and my knee was feeling good (perhaps because of the dry weather) and so I went to play some pickleball at Buccleuh Park-- perfect weather so we had a big group, over a dozen players, and though I was determined to take it easy and not strain my left knee-- last Monday I got a cortisone shot, which seems to have done absolutely nothing-- so I was limping around to some extent, but my friend Ann and I got into one of those endless matches against two very good players (Kevin and Jim) where you get so focused that you forget you're injured-- and thirty minutes later, we ended up winning, 12 to 10 . . . fantastic, but at what cost? at what cost? my knee stiffened up, and despite ingesting and smoking a fair amount of THC, my knee still hurt all night. I was rolling around, trying to find a comfortable position-- I got up at 2 AM and went downstairs and took some Advil and iced, and I think I fell asleep for a bit, but it looks like I'm going to need the HA gel shots in my left knee as well, so I'm trying to get that scheduled, but it seems I won't be playing any pickleball or basketball any time soon.
It Is STILL Ugly Out There!
The Method
One More Day (of classes) to Go!
OG!OG!OG! Hustling From the Inbound Pass!
I went out and had a couple of beers for the first half of the Knicks game last night-- 3 dollar Miller Lights at our local bar!-- then I walked home, morose and pessimistic, at halftime and fell asleep-- the Knicks were down 29 points, so I didn't think they had a chance in hell, and I was exhausted from watching all this late-night basketball-- luckily, my son woke me up when he got home from New Brunswick, and I watched the final minutes with him, his girlfriend, and his buddy Gary-- and when the Knicks completed the largest comeback in NBA playoff history, sealing the game with OG Anunoby's tip-in off a long Brunson three-point attempt, we all screamed so loudly we woke up my wife (and scared the dog) but the real issue here is this: what are we going to call this monumental, life-changing basket? . . . The Perfect Putback? The Hand of OG? The Timely Tip? . . . or just "The Tip" . . . scratch that one, that doesn't sound right . . . but it needs to be called something, I'm sure the internet will figure it out.
Dave Fully Commits
For the first time in months, I really hustled up and down the court at 6:30 AM basketball-- and my hamstring felt fine-- and not only did I really commit to running and getting back on D, but also (in true Nick fashion) I committed many fouls-- if they counted, I wouldn't have lasted past the first game.
Wait Up!
Made a semi-triumphant return to 6:30 AM basketball this morning-- basically the reverse of the Knicks last night-- nailed my first three-point attempt in months but then missed the next three . . . most importantly, my knee and hamstring held up, although I am moving slowly now-- I couldn't keep up with my wife and the dog when we took a walk in the park-- and I certainly couldn't keep up with the old man we saw running in the park, and not only was he running at a brisk clip, into the wind, but he was also holding an umbrella to block the sun-- you don't see that everyday.
I Thought Last Year Was Well Organized?
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My cousin Kim pronounced last year's Easter Pizza resurrection as "total chaos" with no "quality control," and so this year things were much more organized, and generally the experts did the delicate work of folding dough and making the "toes"-- so my wife had to work all afternoon (and so did some small children) while I only had to cut some sausage and then got to watch basketball and drink beer-- and this year's pizzagaina were notably more uniform and delicious than last year's batch-- and I am certainly better at eating them than making them.
If Only My Right Knee Felt as Mediocre as My Left Knee
Teenagers, They're (Coco) Nuts
Last Tuesday night, just before bed-- after a long day of fitness: I played basketball in the morning and then went to PT for my hamstring in the afternoon-- I suffered something new, a hamstring cramp-- I've had calf cramps in the night, but never a hamstring cramp-- it was a painful and frightening two minutes-- and when I told my senior English this news, two bros, Frankie and Nico-- a wrestler and a weight-lifter-- insisted that I needed to drink Vita Coco coconut water because it contains lots of potassium and keeps you from cramping-- and I always like to take the advice of teenagers, more for the humor than the sagacity, so I bought a bottle and drank some today before playing pickleball and I am going to give those two students a firm talking-to because Vita Coco is disgusting in both consistency and flavor (and I love coconut) so I guess I'll have to stick to eating bananas (and this incident, as zman cleverly pointed out, is nearly a mirror image of a previous, rather awkward moment of Dave).
Out of My Depth
After attending morning basketball for the first time in a few weeks (the steroid shot in my knee seems ot be working) I am covering a Senior Health class today-- a number of students and teachers are out of school because the service for the student that got shot and killed is in Paterson today-- and I'm not sure if I could actyually teach this class with a straight face: there's a handout on the teacher's desk and the first words on it are "fetus" and "semen" and the kids are doing some project about contraception-- my only advice was that children are very expensive, especially if they drive a car or go to college.
Dave Mans Up in Front of the Ladies
I'm hoping that this doesn't become more frequent than an annual tradition, but I once again went to the sports medicine doctor-- Dr. Navia-- and (once again) she said that the best way to fix my knee was to stick a giant needle in it, full of some kind of steroid (cortisone? I didn't ask) and once again, she had an intern with her-- and while Dr. Navia is young, her intern appeared much younger-- childlike, a female Doogie Howser-- and, on a positive note, things were better than last winter, when my knee was full of fluid and also needed to be drained-- this time, I was more proactive-- and (once again) because it was two young ladies diagnosing me, I agreed to let them stick a large needle in my knee (I didn't want to look like a coward in front of them, but I think if it were a dude, I would have passed) and then Dr. Navia asked if it would be okay for the intern to administer the giant needle, and while my brain was saying "NO!" my mouth said, "sure," and then they talked some shop about where to stick this big needle-- I'm not sure if the intern ever did this before-- and my hands were sweating, as I gripped the examination table, and I looked at the wall instead of at the big needle-- but they numbed me up pretty good, so all I felt was a bunch of pressure-- not all that much shooting pain-- and then it was over and I limped back to the car and went home and fell asleep early and then woke up in the middle of the night, totally amped and hyper-- that's one of the side effects of getting a steroid injection-- but miraculously, today my knee feels great and I can run again and I'll be playing pickleball this Friday and basketball next week . . . so it looks like a I won't need gel shots for a couple of years, unless I really fuck it up.
Like Old Times . . . But Older
Yesterday, Ian and I picked up Alex in New Brunswick, we ate some cheesesteaks, and then we all went to the YMCA and played some three-on-three hoops-- my two sons and I against some youngsters (one of whom was very tall and could dunk with ease)— and even though Ian was out of practice and cramping and I am old, Alex was able to pour in a bunch of three-pointers and mid-range jumpers and we beat the seventeen-year-old several games in a row (after I bested my children in a game of 21, due to some excellent free throw shooting) but today does not seem like old times for me . . . it just seems like I am old because my knee hurts (although the boys went back to the Y and played more basketball, but I had to lift weights and ride the bike . . . boo for old age).
If You're Getting Up Early, You Might As Well Shoot the Ball
While I normally avoid Route 18-- it has been under construction for years-- I will sometimes gamble and take it when I'm playing early morning basketball, as there's less traffic at 6:15 AM-- but today, instead of lane closures, the entire road was closed and so I arrived at basketball late and angry and had to sit the first game-- but this did give me time to warm up, and either the extra shooting practice or my road rage inspired me and I made my first five shots, all three pointers-- so five in a row for the fifty-five year old-- which made the youngsters very excited . . . but they also started switching off and covering me very tightly . . . so I took a couple more NBA range shots, which oddly, went long, perhaps because I've been ingesting creatine and I'm super jacked-- but whatever, it's quite fun to have the hot-hand once in a while.
Youth . . . It's Determined by When You Were Born
Today, one of the morning basketball players said to me: "You're a veteran teacher . . . when did you start teaching?" and I said, "1995? 1994?" and he said, "OK, that's two years before I was born-- so how has teaching changed since then?" and I gave him a rather long-winded answer, which involved living through the digital revolution, starting out with books and paper, ending with computers, on and on and on-- and by the end of my answer, I was ready to retire (but instead I went to my Music and the Arts Class and told them they needed to have more arguable points in their essays—they were being very hesitant to offer their opinions, so I told them, "look, we're not talking about abortion or politics, it's just music" and then we read Carl Wilson's essay "Celine Dion and Me" and I had all the students write some music on the board that would thoroughly embarrass them if other people heard them actively listening to this particular music-- like if they were blasting it out their car windows-- and we all had a good time . . . although several kids wrote 100 Gecs, and I love 100 Gecs—but I still wasn't offended because it's only music).
The Miracle of Hot Running Water (and Sanity)
Like most people, unforeseen expensive house repairs put me in a dark funk (although this particular repair was not exactly unforeseen, it was more imminent and inevitable . . . but still, replacing a tankless Navien hot water heater/boiler is not a particularly fun or anticipated purchase-- it's not like buying a dirt bike or a jet ski) and that funk obviously carried through the weekend-- because I went to early morning basketball (which is normally on Tuesday but because it is Thanksgiving Week, we had an unprecendented Monday game) and the main reason I went was so I could take a hot shower before school-- over the weekend, I showered at the gym-- and obviously I also wanted to play some basketball, but my knees and hamstring weren't especially excited about waking up early on a Monday, after playing a few hours of pickleball on Sunday, and I had some trouble getting moving and then when I got to school, I realized I had forgotten my school bag at home-- the very important bag with my school issued computer and my gradebook and all the items I needed to grade-- so I had a choice to make, I could either drive back home and get my bag, and miss basketball-- or I could play basketball, check out a loaner computer, and make the best of it . . . I decided on the latter, which was the right choice-- I had a good time playing basketball and though I had trouble getting the loner computer to do anything I needed, I still managed to print out some guided reading questions, right before class, and teach the bulk of Act IV of Hamlet . . . and show some movie clips-- but I didn't get any grading done-- and then when I got home, I received some good news-- the plumbers were able to install the tankless boiler/heater without any problems, improve the venting and draining, use the larger gas line, and fix everything else that needed fixing, without any additional cost-- and I did remind my students to appreciate the miracle of hot water in their homes and I also told them that I was proud that despite all the financial and cold-water related trauma over the weekend, I managed to hold my sanity together, unlike poor Ophelia.
Rutgers Basketball = Jets
My wife and I purchased some cheap Rutgers men's basketball tickets for the game last night-- $15 each for the second level-- and now we know why . . . I had assumed they would slaughter the realtively obscure Central Connecticut Blue Devils, but that was not the case: Central Connecticut played much better basketball than Rutgers-- they had a couple of excellent three-point shooters, they rolled and cut to the basket better than Rutgers, and they moved the ball and executed skip passes (setting up open threes) better than Rutgers . . . so even though Rutgers had more inside presence (Ogbole) and bigger, stronger athletes, it's apparent than Rutgers has NO pure shooters, no offensive rhythm, and no real team chemistry-- so they are going to truly get killed when they start playing Big 10 teams . . . the grouchy old guy in front of us appropriately summed up the situation, just before leaving (early) when he said, "I could have gone to a Jets game."
So Close to REAL Literary Perfection
I had a wicked headache today-- probably due to a combination of playing morning basketball, the drastic change in the weather, and not enough caffeine-- so I went to the nurse's office for some Tylenol; on the way out of the office, I nearly smacked a student with the door-- the door opens out into the hallway traffic . . . poor design-- and I said to the student, who luckily was not on his phone and dodged the heavy slab of wood, "I nearly sent you to the nurse's office . . . with the door of the nurse's office! Talk about irony!" and he laughed-- probably because the door did not hit him (and perhaps because of my briliant comment, even more brilliant because I delivered it while enduring a headache) and now there's a small part of me that actually wants to hit a kid with the nurse's office door, just hard enough that so the kid has to go to the nurse's office (but no harder, I'm not heartless) because it would be such a wonderful example of irony.
Some Things That Were Said Today
My team started off hot at morning basketball today, we won the first four games handily-- and we only had ten players, so there were no substitutes and the other team had Frank Nop, the venerable ex-AD who is 71 years young and jogs over for the camaraderie and usually just plays a couple of games-- and Frank told me he just had a virus and wasn't at 100 percent-- so after we won the fourth game, I said, with perfectly good intentions: "Why don't we mix up the teams?" to which Travis responded "fuck no!" and apparently that was "bulletin board material" and then our (motivated) opponents won the next four games, tying the series at 4-4 . . . so we had to play a quick game to three to settle the series (we won, but since we only played to three, there will be an "asterisk" next to this victory) and then during the school day, when I was pacing around, trying to keep my back loose-- which was tightening up because of morning basketball-- so I was stretching and pacing while the kids wrote a paragraph-- one of my students asked me: "Do you have ADHD? Because you always have to be moving or doing something," and I said, "I don't think I have ADHD because I'm pretty good at focusing but I do need to be doing something, unles I'm taking a nap, and I'm happiest when I'm playing some kind of sport or game that involves moving around because then I know what to do with myself" and she said, "So you're not the kind of person that can sleep real late and lie around in bed all day" and I said, "Nope, I'm up like a shot in the morning, doing stuff, until I get tired and go to sleep."