A snippet from the journal - incident in Berkeley

Overslept on this slightly cool, unexpectedly clouded, September morning. Driving to the bay area and back, and not arriving home ‘till eightish, throws off my inner clock, and besides I’d arrived home hungry, after only having had appetizers there at the Hotel Durant instead of a full fledged dinner, though I also indulged, riskily for a driver and setting a poor example for my daughter, in a pair of yummy draft IPA’s (Racer 5’s, for you hopaphiles) which seem to have quickly settled into the jiggly pluff growing above my belt buckle where there was once muscle mass as my Knee Problem continues persistently and disconcertingly. I’d actually told myself, quite convincingly, that the knee was Getting Better, and was even starting to believe it, feeling just the slightest of twinges and getting in and out of my car normally and even following Elsie up and down hills and stairs as she led me across campus to see her office and meet her work mates. But alas, my freshly-fledged optimism evaporated when instinctively I made my usual move as a pedestrian (an alpha-male pedestrian, that is) to scurry across the street in front of traffic with the light changing and I got about half-way across the street when I pushed with my bad leg and felt something in the knee stretch and pull, and felt a white-hot burn and suddenly there I was stranded in the middle of the street as engines were revving with only one good leg and the other which was suddenly limp and hurting like hell and I wanted to call a time out but that didn’t seem to be an option so I hobbled with as much dignity, and alacrity, as I could, hopping on my good leg and dragging my virtually useless left leg behind me like a recalcitrant child, with the crowd of vastly more sensible pedestrians I left on the curb behind me no doubt wondering what on earth that crippled-up old fart had been thinking. And also on the curb behind me the clear tones of my sweet younger daughter, laughing.