Finally fell, Ring wrecked, solo, No Air, wide left, wet

Saturday morning Cindy helped me get started on the somber job of putting away the exterior Christmas decorations, an annual depressing project.  Cindy helped me get most off the lights off the trees out front before she had to go inside to get ready to leave for a seminar.  I moved to the entryway to the house where I had my “smart” app controlled icicles hanging.

I had my smaller ladder out so I could reach the lights that were maybe 10-11 feet high.  I had the ladder haphazardly placed unevenly.  One leg was on the concrete landing  and the other on the stone covered landscape strip.  The ladder was against the high wall of the house with only one leg touching as a result.  I figured I could just use my cat-like balance to quickly unclip the lights from the gutter.

So I have a long and dangerous history of ladder stunts.  During my adult life I have put myself in precarious positions on them repeatedly, often a couple stories up in the air.  Every single time I was able to survive the situation unscathed, since I was only a few feet off the ground I used even less caution than I normally do.

Well there was no warning this time. As I reached to unclip the farthest point the ladder was under me one moment and falling down the next.  I instinctively reached for something to break my fall, which happened to be the gutter.  In a quick symphony of banging, crashing and creaking I was back down on the ground with a nice contusion/gash across my left shin which of course immediately started to seep blood.  The one plant out front was a little smushed from the ladder and some stones were thrown out in the yard.  The gutter I grabbed was bent as well, luckily I was able to push it more or less back into shape.

I ignored my injury and kept working.  I couldn’t believe Cindy didn’t hear it.  When she came out and was ready to leave she was horrified to see my bloody shin.  She quickly cleaned and bandaged my gash.  She felt guilty, feeling like if she wasn’t inside I wouldn’t have hurt myself.  I assured her this was 100% due to my stupidity. I wished her a safe trip to Bradenton where the seminar was being held.

I later discovered there was an additional, much more concerning casualty to my ladder stupidity, my Ring smart doorbell.  Cindy had sent me a text saying I needed to wipe the camera lens off, she said it looked like it had condensation on it.  I poked my head out the door and saw the damage.  It looks like somehow one of the legs of the ladder smashed right into the doorbell, breaking a plastic casing above the camera and bending the metal casing around the button.  Although I did not see any visible damage to the camera itself obviously the impact somehow fcked it up as well.  I fruitlessly tried futzing with the Ring a bit, hoping a couple Fonzie like smacks would undo whatever damage was done.  I was so frustrated with myself that my leg injury wasn’t enough of a lesson to practice better ladder safety, I now had to pay a financial penalty as well as a new Ring was ordered that afternoon.

As I said, removing all of the holiday lights outside was depressing, but the set I hated removing the most was the big bulbed, colorful led lights we bought for the chicken coop.  I gave serious consideration to just leaving the those lights up but I decided I wouldn’t be the weird neighbor that leaves Xmas lights for months on end.  The chickens huddled around me as I removed the lights.  I don’t think they were happy about it either.

So like I said, Cindy was gone for most of the day, leaving me a rare weekend day left to my own devices.  It seemed like I immediately flipped into my old routine when I was living solo.  Of course I buzzed around the house tending to a number of items but I also found the time to do a random physical challenge on video and even pose for a stupid selfie wearing the George Washinguns tank top Patrick sent me for Christmas.  For whatever reason this sort of behavior happens most frequently when I am alone.

Late in the afternoon I had another first, loading Sadie into the SSR for her first ever ride in the vehicle, despite me owning the truck for over four years.  I had an edict that no dogs were allowed in the SSR due to my wanting to keep it as pristine as possible.  For whatever reason, that edict expired and after putting a seat cover and towel over the passenger seat, I had Sadie jump in for her first convertible experience.

It took awhile for Sadie to find her optimal position but once she did she seemed to enjoy having a total open air driving experience.  The SSR had not been driven by me for a bet closing in on two months.  The clutch still felt like it had some air in it, releasing closer to the floor than I was used to.  It still felt good to hear the exhaust note rumbling behind us as we did a coffee run to help me kill my appetite so I could wait until Cindy got home later to eat dinner.

Cindy’s drive home was treacherous, taking her through a severe storm that actually resulted in a tornado touching down in the Cape Coral area.  It was the sort of storm you get in the middle of summer, not January.  When she got home we ate dinner while watching our latest Netflix rental, Air, that starred Darryl from The Walking Dead.  The premise for the movie seemed interesting, the Earth’s atmosphere is toxic, forcing mankind to retreat underground, but both Cindy and I found the movie very hard to follow.  Darryl’s co-star was a black guy with an accent that I have seen in other films.  For some reason the director didn’t think it was important for the audience to be able to understand much of the dialogue.  Despite my having the volume up quite loud,  we found ourselves looking at each other saying “what did he say” repeatedly.  It was very annoying and detracted from what was already an average at best flick. I’d give it a B.

On Sunday morning we originally hoped to get out on our new mountain bikes but the rainy weather made us redirect those plans.  Instead we got shit done around the house and did our normal weekend run to Rural King and Home Depot.  The rainy, cool weather made the entire day feel sort of blah.

I found myself watching the final half of the Vikings/Seahawks playoff game.  It is a rare thing for me to watch NFL playoff football if the Eagles are not involved in it.  The one exception is if the game is played in bad weather, I LOVE bad weather games.  In this particular case the weather was clear but it was freeze your ass off cold.  At the start of the game the temperature was -6 degrees.  The artic cold made for an odd visual as the players lined up for each play.  You would see their breath freezing as it exited, making it look like there were 22 angry bulls on the field.    As you would expect the cold weather kept the score low.  The Vikings were in position to win the game with 30 seconds left when they drove down to chip shot field goal distance.  The Viking kicker, who already made three much longer field goals, choked hard, pulling the 27 yard field goal left, handing the Vikings a crushing defeat.  Wow I can only begin to imagine how low he feels today.

Cindy and I tended to various things throughout the day.  I began getting my ducks lined up for the half marathon that goes down this upcoming Sunday.  I have a pretty solid mental game plan of how it will all go down but two of the last three years I have run into some huge unexpected issues on race day.  I am taking more precautions this year to ensure my last year of timing this event goes as smoothly as possible.