Injury and Insult

If I write a post that is not so happy, but just as spirited, will my audience be all right? Well, here goes: a little therapeutic exposition of my recent past.
Injury: About 6 weeks ago, I was heading out to a friend's boyfriend's band's performance. They were great! Happy, happy bluegrass! Ok, back to not-so-happy.
As per my usual, I was a little late heading out to the venue, and so, as I turned left out of my building's driveway, I broke into a quick trot to make up some time. Bad move, Indy.

The sidewalk is none too even in my neighborhood and I tripped so fast over a botchy job at even-ing out the sidewalk that I was sprawled out on elbows and knees before I even knew I'd fallen. Impact fell mostly on my knees and left elbow.  These two were taken about a week after the incident, after the initial swelling went down and the bruising got all pretty. Good thing I wasn't going to a ball that month, eh?
While it was painful to hold ice to it while listening to the bluegrass all that night, I'm glad I went. I may never get to lean with my elbows on the table again, but ... well, that would be hard. But at least they still bend!

And these two were taken a day or two later, for comparison.

There you have it, my ghoulish/ proud-of-injuries side. It's a sleeper, so don't blink or you might miss it!

And no, of course I didn't see a doctor about this. I'm terrified of navigating health care waters. But I did make a baby step in the right direction by asking a coworker about help understanding it! (Go, me!)

Part II of this post is about Insult. I live in an apartment which faces out onto an alley, which affords me the occasion of hearing many sorts of human interaction, almost all of them from people passing through on their way hither and thither in this metropolis we call Washington, DC. But this summer, and now this fall, I have been plagued by two pests that set up camp and persist for a time like wasps: a neighbor, and a construction crew. Listen:

That is what I heard, of a sudden, on Wednesday, November 2nd, at 630 AM. Notice the super-strong lights necessary, because it was not yet light out when they started drilling, beeping, and jack-hammering. This went on for most of a few weeks, and it made me want to get out of my apartment as fast as I could in the morning, which is my usual quiet-time, devoid of obnoxious lunkhead neighbors who yell during the evenings (to whom I have just composed a strongly-worded letter, as they are at it again!).

But there is happy ending to this post: the city construction is done and now we have a nice red-brick alley and the convenience store on the other end of the alley has nice parking spaces (that we of course can't use). And my elbow no longer show any traces of the fall; I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to lean on tables with my elbows again.
There: now it's out of my system. I hope to post a lot this week to catch up with all the other fun activities I've been up to (and keep my promise to the Food Blogger Cookie Swap peeps, as well!), so stay tuned!