Part Viking

I rode down Linden to the steep downhill slide, braked as I went down, saw no cars, and rolled through a stop sign onto the seldom used Seaside Ln. A few minutes before noon, and traffic was light as I headed west along Seaside. There was a large delivery truck dropping off supplies to the back side entrance to the Long Beach Convention Center, and for some reason, the light was green at Pine and I turned left, from Seaside onto Pine, without incident.

Heading down Pine I was coming to Shoreline, the block being the distance of the Convention Center. The only car at the intersection was turning left onto Shoreline, and as that was the basic direction I was going to go, as always, I got over into the left-turn lane. I know these lights, and I've done this maneuver before. The left-turn light flashes first, and the turners get to turn and the bikers like me usually scoot off out of the way and make a wide arc to the left and head up onto a wide sidewalk and slowly head over to the bike path.

That was the plan, as I've done it dozens of times before. Still headed over to get a few close up shots of that huge class of cruise ships, the Oasis Class. Only this time when I got out into the intersection, the chain popped off the sprockets.

This has happened before, and had caused more irritation than injury. It's just a shitty bicycle. DON'T BUY A MICARGI!

The chain popping off phenomenon has also altered the way I ride this bike, as in I don't pump hard like I used to with my cruiser, Dino.

Even so, at this point I was traveling with some speed. The second the chain came off, my legs lost all connection with the bike. My groin hit the seat as my hand fought to hold on to the bars. The bike careened wildly as drivers gawked and gasped. My left leg came down instinctually and tried to add some stability. It caved painfully but more or less righted the ship.

I wasn't sure how badly it was injured, or even that. At first, as I coasted to the side, I thought I might have just wrenched it. As my left foot hit the ground again it became clear that it was a little worse off. I got to a grassy area next to a sidewalk on the right side of a restaurant complex in front of which I originally was turning left. I tried to ignore the look; the angle that my calf was extending from my knee wasn't natural. As I sat on the grass, sweating and in a blinding type of pain, I pushed my leg back to a normal look. Here's a picture:

I contemplated what to do, how could I make it home, would I be sitting here all day, will this pain just sorta go away, I remembered that my phone was on it's charger at home, so I was mostly stuck with figuring out how to get somewhere without an un-affordable ambulance ride. After maybe ten or fifteen minutes, I figured I could get my bike going again, and maybe use it to get to the Urgent Care on the way to the house, or maybe all the way to the house.

Yeah...yeah, so that was the plan.

Sitting on the grass I pulled the bike close by, propped it up and forced the chain on. Then I somehow pulled myself up to a standing position, used my left hip to swing my damaged leg over the center bar, and pushed myself along with my right foot, sometimes like a skateboard and sometimes pedaling a half-circle.

Past halfway to the Urgent Care (which was pretty much halfway to my apartment) I needed to take a break. I paused on my bike, gritting my teeth through the pain, and then I lost my balance. I came down on my left leg and crashed on the sidewalk.

A holler erupted involuntary from inside. A rolly-poly looking guy reluctantly came over and asked if I was okay. I pulled the bike off and grunted, and a young brunette also came over. I said I was heading to the Urgent Care, not more than two blocks away and that I'd lost my balance. I went on to explain the situation, and the girl offered to run down and check the Urgent Care for a wheel chair, and the guy was going to help me get to one of the bus benches. Then he left. I could see the girl returning without the chair, apology written on her face for a pair of blocks.

They didn't have a wheel chair; I'd figured as much. I got back on my bike, thanked her, and as she went on her merry way, the corpulent guy returned and offered to help me walk on over to the clinic.

At the clinic I told them my story, that I didn't have insurance, and that I was in barely tolerable pain. The doctor gave me a few tests: pushing and pulling at different ways on my leg. One way wasn't too bad, one way had me yelling that "YES That way causes PAIN!"

They said that if they were to do some initial tests, like X-rays and then possibly MRIs, I wouldn't be able to be eligible for the cheap-to-free services available to low-income and uninsured patients. They said of my choices, if I wanted to utilize the uninsured hospital, I should either take a cab to that hospital or call for a ride to that hospital. I called Corrie's cell-phone from their phone, but it wasn't turned on, as is sometimes the case at work. Since my phone was still on the charger, I decided to buy crutches and hobble the rest of the way home.

That half-mile trek took maybe twenty minutes. I took many breaks.

When I got home I hopped up the stairs one at a time, and eventually collapsed into bed, soaking my shirts through with sweat (I'd dressed up for the Friday at the coffee shop--was wearing a wife-beater and a button up short sleeve shirt). That's where the phone charger was, and my phone, fully charged, was sitting.

I called Corrie, and in the clearest, calmest voice I could muster, I told her that I was pretty sure I needed a ride to the Harbor UCLA in Torrance, that uninsured hospital.

Then I went basically dozed off, and drifted in and out of twilight until Corrie got home.

That my femur could be broken was still not even a possibility in my brain. Not even an inkling.

View of the Oasis

The Blue Ray player we have has all sorts of very cool features. One being that it has an ever growing range of channels. The better known channels you have to pay for, of course, and we do pay for the Netflix channel, but there are plenty that have free content. One has golf tips that looked like they could actually help. Another has a set of entertaining histories about the video game industry.

One that Corrie and I came across was a twenty-two minute show about the history of the Queen Mary--the ship that's permanently moored here in Long Beach. That sounded cool, and it was filmed as if there were to be commercials, but we learned a few things: it's bigger than the Titanic--I didn't know that. It holds the record for most human beings transported by water ever in the history of the world:16,005, when it was repainted and moving would-be soldiers for WWII. Even the history of the name of the ship was a neat anecdote: the ship builders came to the King of England and told them they were going to christen and name it after the "most beloved queen in England's history". The king smiled and said, "Oh, Mary will be so happy," indicating his wife, who may not have been the choice they had in mind, but they couldn't very well change it at that point.

Now, the claim that it was bigger than the Titanic I had to look up. What they actually said was that they could put two Titanics inside of the Queen Mary, which is demonstrably false. That was the claim, and it was wrong, but the Queen Mary is bigger, er, was bigger. If you were in a helicopter, high in the air above a fully restored and resurrected Titanic and the Queen Mary side by side, after saying "Holy shit, those are the biggest fucking ships I've ever seen," you'd be able to tell that the QM is bigger.

Well, dang. Occasionally when I walk down to the coffee shop I've been going to to work on the notes for my novel, down Linden Street I can see giant vessels, cruise ships of the largest sort, making a striking silhouette off in the distant waters. They seem so massive, like they'd dwarf the Queen Mary, and hence the Titanic, so what's up with them?

Well, after doing a little research, the largest class of Carnival cruise vessels are called Oasis Class, and whether or not these are the ships I see occasionally at the end of the street on Linden remains to be seen, but at this point I'd like to think they are. Whatever the case may be, it doesn't matter.

On Friday, while I was making my walk down to the coffee shop to have a good day of notes--I was really get someplace good--I told myself, for a laugh, that the next time I made the turn and looked down the street and saw one of those ships, I turn around and get my bike and camera, and go take some pictures of it.

I smiled to myself at the thought. Then, as I made the turn, of course one of the ships should be there.

Dammit, I thought, I really need to get these notes down...another ship will be there another time. I made it to the coffee house and started working. Or trying to work.

I started to get distracted. It was early enough, right? I should be able to bike over to get the shots I wanted for a post, right? And be able to get back to the novel notes without wasting any part of the day. Half-hour at most.

By now I was totally distracted, and needed to just go get my camera and get some pictures. So, I would need a few shots from up the street, and a few closer up, just to let people understand how friggin' huge these things are.

This is what it looks like from Linden:

Linden has a steep down-hill section and dead ends into the tiny Seaside Way, a road used during the Grand Prix, but rarely otherwise. Then there's a large parking lot for the Long Beach Arena. This ship could be anywhere from a half-mile to a mile away from where I'm taking this picture, and you can see that it has a water slide.

The close up pictures would be in just a few minutes, as I rode on over that side of Shoreline Blvd.

So...I Broke My Leg

They were calling it a distal femur fracture, or "distal femur fx" as it was written on the scant shards of paperwork that I got to see.

I was getting ready to head out to my little sequestered camp site to knock out the first draft of the novel I'm working on. Things were going swimmingly. A conversation after a little video seen on our special DVD player had me thinking, and then had me distracted and acting.

And then I learned I'm part Viking.

But all that will be made clear in the next series of posts. Like my unfinished Wednesday in Los Angeles project I had designs on this maybe being something more, something mixing humor and wide eyed nerves with veteran head knowledge and pain tolerance.

So...here's a picture, showing how the leg ended up looking in a CT Scan picture:

The top bone, coming down from out of the frame, shouldn't have a broken piece floating in its vicinity. The five days covered from Friday, when it happened, and Tuesday, when I made it home will be covered in the following posts, and you'll get an idea of how the first few minutes after transpired, why I was in that particular space, how I made it home, then the hospital, learning about it, and the surgery itself. It's been a fast five days.

And I'm all about recovery, baby!

Wedding Aside: More Natural Art

While up north for my brother's wedding, I had a pair of opportunities to do some art projects, natural art projects, very much in the recent Shire at Long Beach vein.

The first I call "Vivisection in Fruitless Mulberry":

The next are a trio of self supported rock sculptures, balanced river cobbles:

Now, almost invisible, all three are visible below, along with Norm catching a drink of water:

Eh, maybe "Vivisection in Fruitless Mulberry" isn't a good name...

Our World Trade Center

The largest building in our skyline here in Long Beach is seen up close below. I finally went over to find out what you could call it, if you were so inclined.

You might be able to guess, by the title of the post, it's simply a World Trade Center. There's another plaza in town that has that name, or collection of buildings, but I think it's almost fitting...

...This is the first building you see when you're on a bicycle riding along the LA River back to Long Beach. It's the biggest and one of the more recognizable parts of our vista and it's a World Trade Center.

Here's the first glimpse that you're getting close to Long Beach, the dark tower right of center, the first sign Long Beach still exists.

(And I was tired of that beard picture still leading on the site.)

Beard Studies, Part 2

I know I was planning to leave my beard mostly untouched until my brother's wedding, but I couldn't resist. Here's a picture from the "ax murderer" collection:

It also looks like I should be tutoring youngsters Russian. This is the least menacing picture from that whole folder; the rest...yeesh.

It was about here that I started trimming the sides while leaving the chin/goatee part nice and full. I do have a picture from that time, but I'll wait until it shows up in a post about the wedding shenanigans. It was hard to take myself seriously at that point.

I was in a conversation with Dan and Lupita before going to bed early that evening--I was getting u0p early the next day to go on the fishing/hiking trip with Norm--and I excused myself for a moment. I went into the bathroom and shaved the whole red woolen thing off. It took a few minutes, and they thought I'd left to make a deposit in the Banco de Toilette.

Nope, just happily shearing the growth from my face. Awesome...

(With my eyes shut, talking to Chris)

Finally Figured It Out...

I've pretty much figured out how I want to proceed with my brother's wedding posts, but am chosing to start a bit later in the day, since Corrie and I are heading to Carlsbad this evening to see her cousin Josh, the gentleman we lived with in Upstate for six weeks while we looked for a place and work in the City. Its always fun chilling with Josh.

Also...a game...

Who Am I?

This is one of those, "Unhhh huhhhhhs" you see occasionally.