HBO has a 3-episode documentary series called The Mortician. Episode 1 has some horrifying events and you think you know the basic shape of how things will get worse and who's involved. Episode 2? Mwahahaha. Surprise! I'm curious to see how the final episode goes.

Otherwise, I'm enjoying today's birthday gifts: a top, 3 CDs (Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism and Plans, and Jack's Mannequin's The Glass Passenger) and this keychain.

My right leg is killing me today far more than my sprained and fractured left ankle, because of the boot. Lots of new places hurt today as a result of the boot making me move and handle weights differently. Also, parts of my left leg hurt from the top and struts of the boot.



Around the house, I just tight-wrap the foot for compression and use a cane, because that way it's not too heavy for me to elevate it somewhat as I sit. I have the cane from a prior ankle injury.

Remember what my roommate said? Ha.

I have a sprain and a fracture. I walked around with no support for two miles on that yesterday before I could get home to ice and tight-wrap it for compression. Just tightened my shoe. It felt like usual low-grade sprain pain to me.

Glad I went to the podiatrist for X-rays today because I thought sensation in my toes was a bit off. I've sprained both ankles so many times I have actually lost count. Sometimes I don't even go to the doctor for it anymore.

I've had my ankles and feet X-rayed many times during a sprain situation, but this is the first time they found something. At the doctor's office I went right to the X-ray machine, without needing directions, from being such a veteran.

(In my near 52 years, this is my second fracture. Never had a full break. My first fracture was when a Volvo door closed on my thumb while I was in high school. That was agonizing. It didn't help that it tore off the fingernail and left a long wound that had to be stitched up.)

Today, I walked around with a big podiatric boot on my left foot for a while, and now my right calf is also killing me for compensating. They gave me a smaller boot this time, so it's a little lighter and it doesn't make life even harder by going all the way up to the bottom of my knee like my original did. Soooo, I have to spend four weeks in the boot.

I was dumb enough to tell someone last night that my ankles have been good for over a year. Today, walking to the train for that GEICO doctor appointment, I twisted my left ankle. Since that appointment was such a pain in the ass and was only one hour from that moment, I did all the walking to and from the trains to get there, then did the same back.

It's currently swollen and painful, so I'm RICEing it. I see my podiatrist tomorrow morning. Hope I don't need to go back to the podiatric boot because then I can't bring my own laundry up and down stairs. The boot goes up to my knee, so I have to do stairs carefully step by step while holding on to the railing.

This GEICO appointment was bs. They had me fill out two pages of stuff, wait for an hour, then the actual doctor saw me for three minutes. I could've stayed home and not hurt my ankle.

Roommate: "It must be mostly okay if you could walk on it."
Me: "You'd be amazed what I'm able to walk on."

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Sunday, I stumbled upon Juniper Valley Park's Italian National Day, which I didn't know gets held there annually, and wandered it in search of free food like a hungry stray cat. I waited in a long line for an Italian sausage sandwich, part of that wait being when I finally reached the table and they didn't have any cooked sausage left and I had to wait for them to finish grilling some more. I wonder what the people on line way behind me thought was going on.

Later, I saw a truck near the park for German bratwurst, which supplied the Grill King who made my sandwich. Scandal!

I tried to have my phone Shazam some of the music but it didn't have a clue, and I don't know if it's because some of it was in Italian or because a lot of it was sung to a prerecorded dance track. The electronica backing "Sweet Caroline" was really something.

Alas, I was too old for the bouncy castle-type stuff and the lines were long.

I’m only ¼ Italian and don’t know Italian, but my bits of French and Spanish were enough to let me understand some of the rudimentary stuff the Federazione Italo-Americana of Brooklyn and Queens folks said on the stage.

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Last week while I was driving the streets of Queens I heard loud music. Then a funeral procession pulls up, the front car with its back hatch open to reveal a wall of speakers blasting out that "I'll be missing you" song that's set to "Every Breath You Take." I saw passengers in two cars behind it with their arms out the open windows recording on their cellphones.