Walking Slowly and with Difficulty

December 20, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  I wake up early and meet Moi standing at the door.  She says she’s taking Mway for a walk before heading out to some sort of store or other.  I tell her I can take Mway for a walk, so she says she’ll just take her out for a quick fetch in the back yard.  I still have a little trouble walking, especially up and down stairs, but on a level area I can almost swivel my legs like normal.  I haven’t taken Mway for a walk in two days, and I feel like getting out, although I’m not looking forward to stepping outside in the cold.  I have to work late tonight, and I don’t know yet if I have any work to do during the day.  Last night I visited my blog site and entered some matter in the title and description and “about me” sections.  I certainly don’t like the format and the strictures they impose, and I’m wondering if there’s some way I can fit the matter better on the page – maybe Moi knows her way better around the design controls.  And I’m still unable to view the introduction I supposedly posted the other night.  Well, I’ll take another look at the site when I come back from taking Mway for a walk.

State of the Path:   When I appear in the hallway in my walking clothes, Mway springs up from the floor where she was lying and rushes down the stairs.  After I slowly put on my snow suit and boots, I remember I left my wool cap and garden gloves in the car, and as I drag myself across the back porch, I realize I’ve overestimated how well I can walk.  I don’t find any sticks on the bench, so I limp back into the house and find four sticks in the music room, including the birch branch that I like to toss.  Holding onto the railing I carefully hobble down the back stoop, then seize my walking stick, and as I lumber down the sidewalk I see this is not going to be as easy going as I thought.  My hip swivels well enough, but when I lift my right leg or bend the right knee I feel a slight pain in a tendon or muscle in my calf, not enough to hurt a great deal, but enough to cut my usual walking speed in half.  By the time I’m at the pig pen, I see Mway running back down the path toward me to see if I’m still coming.  My foot seems to drag across every bump in the path, and I feel like I’m lopsided every time I swing my right leg forward.  Every goldenrod stalk I brush against remains flexed for several seconds until I move past it.  At the dip in the path just before bug land, I lose my balance slightly and sway a little into some blackberry briars.

State of the Creek:  I make several stops along the creek, more or less just to rest.  I don’t bother to lean over the bank to poke at any ice, lest I lose my balance.  There are some brown oak leaves lying on top of Moi’s green plants frozen in the ice, and I see the green underwater plants frozen rigid beneath the ice.  Before the locust trees, I stop again, and while I’m staring across the creek at nothing in particular, I hear a pecking sound like a woodpecker.  I look around on all the trunks but I see nothing, then I spot a black-capped chickadee, or a bird that closely resembles one, walking up and down one trunk of a tree.  It’s nipping at the wood, but it doesn’t seem that that could be making the pecking sound.  Then further down the trunk, I spot a smaller chickadee, nipping away at twice the speed of the other, but it doesn’t seem that the pecking sound is coming from that either.  At the narrows, I have to lift my legs over the branches lying in the path, and I nearly stumble.  But I hear the pecking sound growing louder.  I start keeping my eye on one tree and as I sidle down the path eventually a bird comes into view in a crook high in the tree.  Its pecking motions readily align with the sound of the pecking I hear.  This woodpecker, or flicker, or tree-clinging bird, has white-flecked wings, and I look for, but don’t see any, red on its head.  In the Audubon bird book, it looks like every kind of woodpecker has white-flecked wings.

The Fetch:  Over the ice along the ridge I move very cautiously, stepping onto grass as much as possible.  As I hobble up the slope toward the clearing, I see Mway watching me coming.  Over the past couple days I’ve had to bend over many times to set up equipment, so I know I can bend over okay, but I’m not looking forward to Mway trying to rush me.  It seems with every fetch she’s able to get in a few more barks or an extra spin as I’m bending down to pick up the stick.  We go a few pitches into a second round when Mway brings the stick back without dropping it, and as soon as that happens, I tell her “that’s enough.”