Well that sure did go fast.
I'm still here in the Napa Valley. A nine day exile. A new rule: on days that I work a double shift (from 6:30 am til 11:00 pm) the shift work alone counts as a walk. That takes care of three of the last five days.
Walk#258: A double shift.
Walk #259: Work, a quick walk. And then a visit to Napa to visit with a friend whose recently ex-girlfriend passed away. My friend was a bit torn up by the experience...so a few of us gathered at his house for a barbecue and also to show some support. A mini wake. A sad day.
I threw my sleeping bag down in his backyard for the night. Up early for my next...
Walk #260: A double shift.
Walk #261: A double shift.
Which gets us to today:
Walk #262. This walk was after work. I had to go to the emergency room. Employee Surveillance---a nice program the hospital has which means that while working, I can stop in for medical care. I broke a tooth a few weeks ago and the thing has flared up. Incredible pain, exacerbated by an abscess. In case you've never had an abscess in your mouth before, imagine putting a multi-barbed cactus between your cheek and gums. That is what an abscess feels like.
I've been working all week with this bugger; been switching back and forth between ibuprofen and Tylenol every two hours. That hasn't been working. I can't chew. I can't sleep because of the pain. So I broke down and visited the Emergency Room to get some good pain medicine and an anti-biotic.
So my walk was after getting a prescription filled (paid out of my own pocket because my pharmacy, where my health insurance pays, is not open on the weekends). I took a quiet, tired, pain free walk around the hospital grounds under the influence of Vicodin.
Looks like I will finally have to break down and darken the doors of a dentist. Another sign of aging, which is fine with me. Baby Boomers have been resistant to this aging thing. They first announced it in The Who's "My Generation"...with the line " I hope I die before I get old".
Well, Baby Boomers have gotten old. So what do they do? Figure out a way to not appear to be getting old. Hence we have this Revolutionaries-In-Their-Own-Minds total obsession with cheating the Grim Reaper. This is a generation that refuses to grow up, or to age properly. Hence we have Dennis Hopper telling us how to save our money, not to retire, but to engage in some dream. No need to point out the mysteries of Viagra and the sudden development of Erectile Dysfunction: Baby Boomers figure they should screw like they are twenty years old. Baby Boomers want to cheat all aspects of aging: physiological, emotional, behavioral and spiritual.
Aging is about wisdom, something sorely lacking amongst most Baby Boomers.
For a Baby Boomer, to age and look like your parent is a sin. They want to be young forever. And they will be...this sad, sad, hopelessly vain generation.
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