Thanksgiven: Sunday musings…11/27/22
1 Thanksgiven. What you’ve accomplished over the Thanksgiving weekend if you’ve done it right. Should be a word.
2 Hurt Locker. One of the things I am thankful for is that my IT band appears to have forgiven me, and my surgeon, for initially making my right leg almost an inch longer. My IT band and all of the muscles that reside in the vicinity of the Tensor Fascia Lata (TFL), the muscle that tenses the IT band, have been in full revolt since post-op day 9. That would be 10+ weeks ago for those of you keeping score at home (or suffering along with me).
What turned the tide? Beats me. Might be stopping all of the traditional PT I’d been doing, all of which was particularly vexing to that rat bastard, the TFL. Perhaps it was my dedication to using the very space age red-light laser gifted to me by research partners at the time of my left hip replacement in 2019, or the professional grade ultrasound unit I’ve been using on the daily for a couple of weeks. Beth has continued to lend her elbow for some (VERY) deep tissue massage each night.
More than likely it’s the fact that my right leg is now at least a quarter of an inch shorter than it was right out of the gate after surgery. Less lengthy seems to equate to less cranky. All I know is that it only takes 5 minutes for the “wake up pain” to subside now, and I can walk all of my required daily distances without pain.
Now if the pesky groin muscle I pulled while putting on my socks would just let me get on with my life…
3 Ritual. Another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone for the White family. By most measures it was quite a nice weekend, thank you very much. We had our entire little family together for a couple of hours on Thanksgiving Day, complete with all of the grandchildren, and even our “extra son” Alex. There were lots of opportunities to spend time with smaller groups over the weekend as well. Beth timed everything perfectly, and the amount of food was so dialed in that we will be through all of the leftovers by the end of dinner tonight.
Pretty much crushing the post-Thanksgiving dining rituals of days on end of turkey, stuffing, and pie.
As I wrote in the “Thanksgiving musings…” we are a family of rituals. Do something twice and it’s a tradition; once more and it’s as much a ritual as anything you see on the altar at Sunday mass. Many of the White Family rituals were observed at my brother’s house this year as he hosted my Mom and one of my sisters and her family.
Here? Bit of a mixed bag to be honest. Change is the order of the day as our children and their families grow. However, the one ritual that remains in place is the ritual of coming together in real life. Being together in “reach out and hug” distance as much as possible over the weekend. For all of the wonders of our modern modes of communication, assembling as a family on this Holiday of thanks remains, for now, the essential ritual of Thanksgiving.
May we always have Thanksgiven for this.
I’ll see you next week…
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