A Thousand Times No

It has been said that the mark of a civilized person is the ability to look at a column of numbers and weep.

A small mutiny was brewing among the ranks of the Philly Complaint Choir last week.  We were presented with some additional new lyrics, including the following line:

Bike riders don’t give a damn, hogging all the streets (and sidewalks)

We were not amused.  I’m sure it’s a complaint that was submitted by a vast number of people, but it’s neither legally accurate nor ecologically enlightened to grouse about bicyclists doing exactly what the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code states that they can — and Philadelphia Code mandates that they must — do when cycling: ride on the street at all times, bike lane or no.

Would someone set to music anyone’s objection to “coloreds” sitting in the front of the bus?  Didn’t think so.  (But bicyclists are different because…?)

Finally, one singer civilly yet disobediently shouted “Cars!” whenever we reached that portion of the song.   Brilliant!  Now it’s been woven into the fabric of the performance, sparing us from looking like a bunch of bass-ackwards, gas-guzzling cretins in our city’s contribution to a global art project.

One less thing to complain about.

See the Philly Complaint Choir live, this Saturday afternoon:

12:15 Rittenhouse Square - By the fountain in the center of the park
12:30 Rittenhouse Square - By the fountain in the center of the park
1:00  16th and Chestnut – NW corner outside Liberty Place
1:30  Broad and Locust Streets – corner near The Academy of Music

In the event of rain, Bud Selig will do his part to ensure that we catch pneumonia, and you do, too.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

The Curse of Billy Penn is finally put to rest.

I fell asleep this afternoon while at home (taking a sick day and getting some bedrest), and I think it was the first time since last Thursday that I didn’t wake up from breaking into a fever or a sweat.  It was only a nap, but it still counts as progress.  Given the option to forgo having my eyeballs feel like they’ve been dipped in sand, I’ll take it, thanks.

They’ve just pulled out the tarp at the ballpark here in Philly and effectively suspended Game 5 of the World Series.  It’s ridiculously chilly out (around 39°F / 4°C down on the field), with fast-moving winds and relentless rain.

Personally, I’m glad they’re pulling the players off the field under these conditions, which are a recipe for errors and injuries.  When the boys of summer started shoving their hands down their own pants on national television in a desperate effort to stay warm between pitches, it was really time to call it a night.

The bug I picked up several days ago has decided to pull up a chair and make itself at home.  I woke up this morning feeling slightly feverish, and stayed in bed for a bit until I seemed to gather more energy.  Then I conked out this afternoon, only be awakened by my own shivering while sleeping under a toasty down comforter.

It’s frustrating to go through long spells where everything seems fine, only to have my body temperature go berserk whenever I drift off to sleep.  It’s like a horror film scenario: if you lose consciousness, you will wake up to a most unfortunate outcome.  Like being a zombie, or finding yourself trying to pump gas in New Jersey.

[Shudder.]

It turns out that I must have contracted some sort of clearance-sale virus, since I got a 24-hour bug for a 75% discount yesterday.  About six hours after I started feeling under the weather, I was able to sit upright.  Shortly after that, I was able to stand up and walk down the block to make a desperate dash for extra cat food before the clock struck midnight.

Which meant that I was able to sleep soundly enough through the night to devote my full attention to the major competitive event taking place in town today…

Near the end of the day today I began to feel a little strange.  I first noticed that I felt a little dizzy when I quickly turned my head.  Within minutes, I found myself lying on the floor with sweat running down my forehead.

That was several hours ago.   Now I’m at home lying in bed, bundled up like a mountaineer, trying to lie very still so the the ceiling does not start to spin.

The evening has not been all for naught: I can finally say that I nearly passed out in a taxi on a Friday night.  (Oh, the decadent glamor of it!)  Can I just fast-forward directly to dropping out of rehab?  Thanks — at the moment, that would count as a definite step up.

As a member of “Team Fatty,” the loyal readership of the Fat Cyclist blog, I spent much of this week in full fret over Susan Nelson’s health.  Susan and Fatty just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary a few months ago, which is a major milestone by any measure, but all the greater when one of them has been battling metastatic breast cancer.

On Monday morning, Fatty briefly posted that Susan had been rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance the previous night after having trouble breathing.  On Monday evening, after Susan was resting at home again after returning from the hospital, Fatty recounted some of what had happened during the previous twenty-four hours.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t necessary for the dispatcher to send the police and fire department along with the ambulance. At one point, there were nine people in our bedroom.

By the time they loaded her into the ambulance, Susan was only semi-conscious.

Then we went to the hospital.

On Tuesday morning, Fatty updated his post to let us know that Susan was getting around the house on her own.  Yesterday morning, Fatty added a new post indicating that Susan was herself again, and that her respiratory issues appeared to be the result of tapering off her dosage of Decadron, a prescription steroid.  They were awaiting the results of some x-rays and scans to gain more information about the state of Susan’s health.

We’ve been talking, and both of us really wish we didn’t have to find out anything tomorrow. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that we’ve got good news in store for us, and since Susan’s about back to feeling OK, we’d both really like to put this behind us and skip the scan. Ignorance may not always be bliss, but by the same token, knowledge sometimes feels less like power than a kick in the stomach.

But Susan’s drinking her first pint of contrast solution right now, and taking a bunch of pills to combat her iodine allergy, so we’re doing it.

Why?

Mostly for one reason: if there’s something there that can be treated now, and in three months we find that it’s too late because we chose to stick our heads in the sand, I couldn’t live with myself. So Susan’s doing it for me.

Then Fatty got back onto the subject of bikes and linked to a set of handmade bicycles that were being auctioned for a breast cancer charity.  In a fit of irrational exuberance and superstitious behavior, I bid on one of the bikes — a gesture of both desperation and hope.

I was outbid several hours later, and then late last night, we heard the good news: Susan’s brain scan showed signs of dramatic improvement since her previous scan, and her abdominal tumor demonstrated no signs of growth.  It was something sweet to sleep on.

Oddly, while sitting in my office at work today, I saw several airborne vehicles passing my window.  There was not only a medical evacuation helicopter, which I see flying by on a regular basis, but also a small propeller plane towing an advertising banner, which is a less frequent sight.  Strangest of all was watching a huge blue dirigible floating around, making placid, lumbering, and slow circles over the central part of town, lending a dreamlike quality to the entire view.

Which just goes to show, you never know what each day will bring.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar

~ William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality”

Note to self: no more jogging in shorts when it’s hovering around 40°F (5°C) and windy outside.