Forty is the new seventy

Two weekends.  Two lakes.  Two very different outcomes.

The first, I was leaping from rocks, flying through the air with the grace of a young Greg Louganis, the first time his mother threw him into the pool and told him to swim or die.  (What?  It obviously worked out OK.) 

The second was much more sinister, much more sobering.  It is the second I want to focus on today.

I had just woken up from my second nap of the day.  It was a hard nap, where you wake up feeling like someone must have walloped you in the face with an iron skillet.  So I was admittedly a bit groggy as I made my way down the pier to the mini-catamaran of which I've become so fond.

There is a 3-to-4-foot step from the edge of the pier to the watercraft.  I've made it several times with no problem.  But on this day, something went horribly wrong.

A misstep, or a slip, or maybe someone pulled the watercraft slightly away at the last second.  We may never know for certain.  But in an instant, I was in the water.

My life flashed.  This couldn't be the real end, could it?  I mean, I had so much left to do.  I still haven't gotten to experience my full-on mid-life crisis!  That was undoubtedly going to spawn some killer blog entries, not to mention some great prescription meds! 

Clinging to the edge of the vessel for dear life, I began to take inventory of my faculties.  Silently, I cursed myself for so foolishly throwing away all those Scooter Store mail-outs.

So many questions ran through my head. Who would take care of me?  Could I still play Words With Friends?   What was my last Facebook status?  The latter is important because whenever someone dies tragically the news story always includes the line, "He had just posted on Facebook two days ago.... blah blah blah."

(If you're curious, my last Facebook status would have been: "Had a conversation with the neighbor earlier this evening about gout.  I think I may need to scale back.  My life is getting a little too exciting."  OK, so that actually works quite well as a final post.)

Oh, and was I injured?  Yes, yes, there was definite pain emanating from my left hand.  I looked at my hand, one of only two that I have, and there I saw it:  blood.

I could have drowned!  Thankfully, I had already strapped on my life vest.  Also, the water was about four feet deep.  But still, according to the internet it only takes two inches of water to drown a person, so... I could have drowned!  Or worse.

Becoming more aware of my surroundings, I began to hear cries of "Bone!  Bone!  Are you OK???"

I pondered my next move.

Should I boost myself up onto the pier, get up and pretend everything is fine?  Um hello?  Do you think you're watching some movie right now?   I'm not Rambo, or the Bionic Guy.  Also, did I mention I was bleeding???

Plus, if I hop right up it becomes a funny story, with everybody laughing at Bone.  Been there, done that.  If I'm injured, it becomes a sad story.  All I wanted was three or four days of pity, to be waited on hand and foot, and to be regarded by some as a hero.  Is that too much to ask?

Summoning strength uncommon for a person in my situation (and age), I crawled up on the pier and laid on my back, as someone who had just been saved from drowning might be expected to do.  Then waited for someone to come administer first aid.

My feet were hurting.  More specifically, my big toes.  They must have taken the brunt of the force from my one hundred and ninety-, er, eighty-five pounds.

They would wind up purple and blue.  And I'm pretty sure my left big toe is broken.  I must have really banged myself up on the underpinnings of the pier because at one point, I was bleeding out of five different portals of my body.  But those bruises are nothing compared to the deep-tissue contusion suffered by my pride.  For that, my friends, like so many of my emotional scars, will never heal.

How did this happen to me???  I'm Bone!  I once scored 26 points in a church league basketball game!  I keep telling myself 39-year-old me never would have fallen.  But 40-year-old me.... well, apparently he needs to get together a rudimentary last will and testament.

As you might expect, I look at life a little differently these days.  You young whippersnappers who want to go the speed limit, you go right ahead.  I'll be in my over-sized (read: safe) vehicle, cruising into the September of my life at no faster than 35 miles per hour.  In the left-hand lane.  With a perpetual turn signal on.

When you see me, I likely will have just come from the Walgreens where I purchased some hand-grips and no-slip shower mats for the bathroom.

At my age, you can't be too careful.

"People my age / Are showing some wear / There's holes where their teeth was / And their heads have gone bare / Their brains are shrinking / Faces sinking into fat / And as for the mirror / We won't be looking into that..."

Lakeside revelations

I've discovered that I now divide the nation/world into regions by bloggers that I know. For instance, my dad is in North Carolina this week. North Carolina is (a) Sage's old stomping grounds and (b) near Pia. I refer to this as Geoblography. And that is the end of the Geoblography part of this post.

In other keeping-tabs-on-my-parents-until-God-help-us-all-they-start-tweeting-someday news, we got Mom moved into a house a couple of weekends ago. It's funny, had I typed "home" there in place of "house" that would have had a whole other connotation, even though it is her home. Anyway, we had five men of the Bone extended family on hand for the proceedings.

There was my cousin's husband and me; my sister's husband, who'd just received a cortisone shot in his back the previous day; my uncle R, who had back surgery earlier this year; and my fave aunt's 72-year-old husband, which I know makes him my uncle, but as it's her second husband I guess I'm slow to acclimate, even though they've been married for fifteen years. With a crew like that, who needs Two Men & A Truck?

After all that heavy lifting, plus the added pressure of Blogust and the general stress of just being me, I decided to take a three-day weekend this past week. And I spent much of it near, on, or in the lake. Which makes me think of a joke I heard on the radio recently:

What's the difference between a pond and a lake?

If cattle relieve themselves in it, then it's a pond.

So this was definitely a lake. I hope.

One highlight of the weekend was getting to drive/ride around on this little two-seater motorized mini-catamaran-like watercraft. I had never seen anything like it, and apparently a lot of other people hadn't either, as it seemed to be the talk of the lake. We got a "That's pretty cool!" and a "What is that thing?" or two.

At one point Saturday, this pontoon boat slowed down and waved us by, then one of the guys yelled, "Where do you buy something like that?" At first, I thought they were talking about my trusty gray Gilligan hat, but no. Later, when we docked to have lunch at a lakeside restaurant, one guy quipped, "That's all motor, no boat." There's no comeback for that. I spent a good ten to fifteen minutes trying to decide if "all motor, no boat" could possibly be a euphemism, but was unable to come up with anything.

Recounting other less exciting events, I managed to not roll the jet ski, and I may or may not have fallen asleep on the boat, but most likely did. You put me in the sun and stop talking for about twelve seconds, I'm gone.

There were a couple of points where the lake houses and noisy jet skis gave way to quiet, narrow channels. These no-wake zones were lined with trees, wildflowers and more lily pads than I have ever seen. We also were fortunate enough to see a couple of blue herons perched along the banks. I thought of the oil spill.

All in all, it was a super relaxing weekend, letting nature fill my senses and having no other place in the world to be. I'm pretty sure my blood pressure dropped about fifty points, if blood pressure is even measured in points.

I'm also pretty sure I realized that a sparrow and a robin are the only two birds I can identify for 100% certain. (I thought the blue heron was a crane.) Maybe a cardinal, unless that's different from a redbird.

The lake isn't quite the beach. (It also isn't a pond, but that's neither here nor there.) But it's still water, and there's still a breeze. Sitting on the pier in the evening, watching the sun reflecting across the water until the very last sliver dips below the horizon, there's nothing quite like that.

After all, we only get so many sunsets.



"Stars are dancin' on the water here tonight. It's good for the soul and there's not a soul in sight. This boat has caught its wind and brought me back to life. Now I'm alive, and well..."