Pink platypus bike wreck therapy

So about that pink platypus...

Looking back over this blog, I see that I never posted about S's bike wreck last November. The first day of last fall's Durham County Pottery Tour, while I was busy selling pots, S decided to go for a nice long bike ride. About half an hour after he left, he phoned to say "I'm fine, but I got hit by a car and I need a ride home."

Potter P was also showing at my studio, so he held down the fort and I left with E to pick up S. The very apologetic driver who had hit him was there, and the EMTs were there, and S was there still in one piece. "I used the judo moves I learned [38 years ago]," he said, "and curled into a ball, so all the impact went into the [totalled] windshield and I just rolled over the car." The EMTs said "he's refused an ambulance ride to the ER, but you should take him there anyway." E and S spent the next several hours in the ER, while I went back to the pottery sale. S had a shoulder injury that would take a few months to heal. His bike was totaled.

Bent wheels

Cracked carbon frame

Trashed seat

Cracked helmet

Miraculously intact S

This is all to explain that last month, when S phoned about 30 minutes after setting off for a Tuesday evening ride, and he said "I'm fine, but somehow I wrecked my bike and I need a ride home," E and I were pretty sure we'd be heading to the ER with him again, even though S said "nah, I don't need to go."

We knew this not only from November's accident, but also from a wreck S had had in Oregon in 1992. That time, I was waiting for him to pick me up after a rehearsal. He was chronically late, so I wasn't surprised when he didn't show up--until our next door neighbors arrived and said "S had an accident and we're taking you to the ER." They didn't say "S is OK, but he had an accident and we're taking you to the ER," which was a valuable lesson in how not to convey information after an accident. I was deeply relieved, when we arrived, to find him conscious instead of dead. Turns out he had crashed while speeding down a hill outside of town. He hitched a ride home and wanted to take a shower to clean himself up, but he didn't have any Band-Aids, so he went next door to borrow some, and they took one look at him and took him to the ER, where the doctor spent an hour plucking impacted gravel out of his bloody arms and knees and face before sending him into a shower ("you won't be able to move tomorrow, so you should shower now") and bandaging him up. They wouldn't send him home until I promised to wake him up at 4am and check his pupils.

So on that Tuesday evening this past July, it was off to the ER once again.

Here are some things we learned: (1) if you're dehydrated after a bike ride but the ER folks don't want you to eat or drink until the doctor says it's OK, then your blood will be hard to draw, and what they manage to get out of your veins will be gummy and will probably clot before they can run the blood tests, so they'll have to draw blood a second time. You will need to explain to the nurses that bicyclists need to drink and eat after riding. (2) Folks who are in the ER with blood dripping down their legs will stand out to the non-dripping patients, but not to the staff; you have to wait your turn just like everyone else, but at least you'll give the non-dripping folks something to watch and talk about. (3) If the triage nurse is also a biker jock, he might give you different--i.e. less informed--i.e. wrong--advice about treating abrasions than, say, your knowledgeable dermatologist would. Your dermatologist would tell you to cover wounds with petroleum jelly (no need for antibiotics unless the wound is infected) and a bandage; ER biker jock nurses might tell you to keep the wound uncovered so it dries out faster (and the scab cracks every time you bend your knee).

Helmets save lives. Note that S's instinct to smile for a photo was still intact.

Drip drip drip. S wanted us to save his shredded bloody bike gloves, but we threw them out.

On the plus side, S's cat-scan looked great. On the minus side, the reason his arms hurt so much was that he fractured the radial heads of both elbows. The ER doc referred S to an orthopedist and sent us home.

I called Ortho the next day to make an appointment. "Our next available appointment is August 12," said the cheerful Ortho scheduler. "That's not going to work for us," I said. The Ortho scheduler actually sounded surprised and asked why. "Because today is July 18, and he has two broken elbows, and he needs to know what to do" I said. Ortho scheduler said, "Well, you've been referred to Dr. X, and that's the soonest Dr. X is available." "Can we see someone else?" I asked. Really. I had to ask that. And Ortho scheduler had to check with the doctor first and then get back to us. Thus it was that S saw a physician's assistant the next day.

On the plus side, S's fractures were the best of all possible elbow fractures. No surgery, no casts, not even splints. He was to wear his slings in public to deter hugs and handshakes, until he no longer needed to deter them, and beyond that, elbow and arm movement were encouraged.

So you can see why, ten days later, when we arrived in the Truckee Safeway, and S came across the stuffed pink platypus at 50% off, he bought it and spent a few hours every day squeezing it to build his hand strength back up.

And that is the story of how a stuffed pink platypus ended up on a log watching the ocean on Point Reyes.

Honey, I'm home!

I finally finished The Odyssey. After some slow spots midway through, the pace picked up again, but not without the occasional boring interjection.

An Example of a Boring Bit

My favorite example of a boring plot interruption comes in chapter XV (although I suppose if it's my "favorite," it isn't maximally boring). Here we meet a new minor character, the wanderer Theoclymenus. It takes one long paragraph and then some to introduce him before we finally learn his name, and the introduction goes something like this:

So as Telemachus and his crew are about to sail away, this guy comes up to the boat. His great great grandfather Mumblyjumblius lived on the island Whatchamacallit way back when, but for some crazy reason moved to Yaddayadda, where they held him hostage and took all his stuff, and he was harassed by the lordship's mean daughter, but he finally escaped, and to get revenge, he took the mean daughter home with him and made her marry his brother. Anyway, he eventually moved to Thatotherisland and got hitched and had a couple kids, and they also had kids, but the one kid's kids didn't live to adulthood, and one of the other kid's kids didn't either, but the surviving kid did; but oy, he argued with his dad too much and moved away. Anyway, it was that kid's kid's kid who comes up now to Telemachus's boat and says, "Friend, I entreat you! Tell me, and hold nothing back: who are you?" (Paraphrase of Homer, The Odyssey, ca. 8th c. BCE, trans. George Herbert Palmer, 1891, rev. 1912; Dover Thrift Editions: 1999, Chapter XV, p. 147.)

The study group question for this chapter should be, "at what point in this paragraph did you fall asleep?" Of course, I suppose if Homer had been trying to score points by dropping my family's names, I would have hung on every word.

Blood and Gore

The later chapters include descriptive gore on par with the cyclops' eye-pokering. Highlights include Odysseus contemplating whether to punch someone hard enough to kill him or just hard enough to make a point; he decides on the latter, therefore,

he struck Irus on the neck below the ear and crushed the bones within. Forthwith from out his mouth the red blood ran, and down in the dust he fell with a moan, gnashing his teeth and kicking on the ground....Odysseus caught Irus by the foot and dragged him through the doorway... (Ch. XVIII, p. 176.)

All the suitors who are looking on think it is hilarious to see an old man beggar beat up an obnoxious young beggar. I'm not sure if the listener/reader is also supposed to think it's funny; after all, the suitors are boors, so they aren't great role models. Odysseus, however, seems pretty pleased with himself, since successfully beating up a beggar bodes well for eventually massacring 108 aristrocratic boors. So two points for the home team, rah rah!

Two more gory descriptions of mutilation and death stood out to me. First: need to teach a traitorous goatherd a lesson? Here's how!

...tie his feet and hands and drag him within the chamber; there fasten boards upon his back, and lashing a twisted rope around him hoist him aloft, up the tall pillar, and bring him to the beams, that he may keep alive there long and suffer grievous torment. (Ch. XXII, p. 215.)

It is worth noting that I read this chapter out of a different edition, since I was visiting my mom in Illinois and it was really cold outside and my Dover edition was locked in the car trunk, so I read from another prose translation that we had on a bookshelf in the study. That one said that the goatherd's hands and feet were to be tied behind his back, which makes things sound more uncomfortable; but it also said he was to be tied around the waist to the board, which makes it sound a little less uncomfortable.

Perhaps Homer was aware of the potential confusion, or at least aware that some of his listeners might not have caught the details the first time around, because he repeats the description a few 
paragraphs later, when two of Odysseus's loyal servants carry out the deed (although the boards are omitted):

...then on him sprang the two and dragged him by the hair within the door, threw him all horror-stricken to the ground, bound hands and feet together with a galling cord, which tight and fast they tied, as they were ordered by Laertes' son, long-tried royal Odysseus; then they lashed a twisted rope around and hoisted him aloft, up the tall pillar, and brought him to the beams [and mocked him...] (ibid.)

Poor Melanthius.

The second really notable description of vengeful execution pertains to the ladies. When you're as mighty as Odysseus, you have a houseful of servants; and as long as they are in your household's employ, they really shouldn't get cozy with your wife's boorish suitors. Out of the fifty women servants, Odysseus's dear nurse Eurycleia identifies "twelve in all [who] have gone the way of shame."

The way of shame! The way of shame! Odysseus punishes the women by making them clear away the dead bodies, sponge down the hall, and cart out the blood-soaked flooring. Then his son Telemachus locks them into a narrow, inescapable space while he rigs up their death machine:

He...tied the cable of a dark-bowed ship to a great pillar, then lashed it to the round-house, stretching it high across, too high for one to touch the feet upon the ground. And as the wide-winged thrushes or the doves strike on a net set in the bushes; and when they think to go to roost a cruel bed receives them; even so the women held their heads in line, and around every neck a noose was laid, that they might die most vilely. They twitched their feet a little, but not long. (p. 221)

Let that be a lesson, ladies, on going the way of shame. The men then bring out Melanthius, the goatherd who has been watching the slaughter from the rafters. They cut off his nose and ears, disembowel him, and let the dogs eat his still-warm guts, and--because they're still very very angry--they cut off his hands and feet. He presumably dies somewhere along the way, but Homer doesn't tell us when.

Apparently traitorous employees and women are worse than boorish suitors, since the suitors pretty much all enjoy clean, swift deaths.

Forgiveness and Love

But the end of The Odyssey is not all blood and gore, no no! Odysseus has a gentle side too. During the massacre, two people beg for mercy: the seer Leiodes and the bard Phemius. Odysseus feels that Leiodes should have known better, so he drives a sword through the seer's neck and cuts off his head; but Telemachus puts in a good word for the bard and another man, the page Medon. Generous Odysseus, smiling, spares them both. We love our bards.

Odysseus scores some points for realizing that brutally killing the best and the noblest youths of Ithaca is not going to go over so well with the neighbors. He and Telemachus hatch a plan appropriate to their nobility: they will get the servants to create a diversion and will sneak out of town the next morning to their well-wooded farm, where they can hide until the gods show them a way out of this mess (Ch. XXIII, p. 224). Fortunately, the gods decide they've had enough entertainment. Athene intervenes with an angry mob, calling, "Hold, men of Ithaca, from cruel combat, and without bloodshed straightway part!" This scares the bejeezus out of everyone and peace settles upon Ithaca.

Homer also tells us that Odysseus and Penelope, once reunited, "came gladly to their old bed's rites," where they "joyed in happy love" before joying in talking (p. 227). The lovey-dovey stuff is kept to a bare minimum, because mushy love stuff is harder to speak of than head-lopping bone-crushing liver-stabbing slaughtering.

The Final Grade

I give The Odyssey an A-. The A is for being the ur-roadtrip narrative; the - is for the boring bits and name dropping. Good job, Homer! Like The Scarlet Letter, I think high schoolers might appreciate this book more in a history class or a world literature class than in an English class. (When I was in high school, we read The Odyssey in an English class, even though The Odyssey has nothing to do with English per se. Today, such classes are called Language Arts, and The Odyssey would fit in just fine.)

Kiln bottom free fall

I am the proud owner of a spankin' new L&L e23T-3 Easy Fire electric kiln. All 310 pounds of this baby plus 150 pounds of accompanying parts were unloaded on a wooden pallet into the street in front of our house this evening.

I expect, thirty years from now, after we have hundreds of firings behind us and the kiln is running better than I am, I will look back on this evening and laugh--ha ha--about how it wasn't until after someone started opening the lid that we noticed, for shipping, the kiln bottom was packed atop the kiln top, and the bottom began its free fall toward the pavement.

We might have had an easier time avoiding calamity had the UPS guy come between 4-6pm, as scheduled, rather than at 6:45, well after sunset (and, as I predicted to the friends who came over for dinner, exactly when the oven timer dinged to let us know the popovers were done).

Fortunately, kiln triage conducted on the front porch suggests the damage is nothing that a spankin' new L&L Brick Repair Kit can't fix (assuming the injured patient survives the critical first night).

Thirty years from now, we'll also have learned whether launching vital kiln parts onto the street brings good luck, like christening an airplane; and whether, having survived its harrowing maiden flight, the kiln will choose a quiet life (bisquing greenware, cone 6 glazing) over an exciting one (igniting the front porch and burning down the house).