I went to physical therapy today for my knee. I'm pretty sure that the insurance company isn't very happy with my sudden massive health failure with so many parts of my body. I figure, I've been saving it up for a while, finally decided to do something about it, and the POINT of insurance is to protect against bad outcomes with risks. Of course, medical insurance companies are actually collective bargaining middle men and not really designed to prevent financial ruin in case of catastrophic medical events, but hey, best to get something from the money the company throws at the insurance company.

That, and I'd rather pay a small amount in preventative health care. If I can't run or walk, most exercises are out for me. I'd like to be able to walk and run, really.

So, I've been going for a while now, with two weeks left in my prescription. The current theory, for which I'm in physical therapy, is that my knee cap doesn't track properly, too far away from the joint on the inside edge of my leg. The problem with this theory, I will comment, is that BOTH knees have the bad tracking, according to the x-rays, yet only one knee is having problems. The other issue I have with this theory is that it doesn't explain the locking I experience when something in my knee shifts and I'm suddenly unable to bend it.

Of course, the doctor knows all of this, and suggested physical therapy as a less invasive potential solution. I don't believe it's working, but hey, my legs are getting stronger. Stronger legs can't be a bad thing.

Despite all of this, today I learned how to tape my knee to bring my knee cap "back in line." I've had it taped before, without pain but with discomfort. I am, at this point, unclear if my new knowledge is both useful and good.

Heather arranged for a game night tonight. Andy came over early with six eggs, to bring our 30 eggs up to 36 eggs. Fortunately, we used up four of them immediately with our double crepe recipe, to feed the group who was heading over: Heather, Andy, Chookie, Doyle, me, maybe Shirley and maybe Kris after his geetar lesson.

We started the evening with tile rummy, when only Chookie, Andy, Heather and I were around. I think we spent more time explaining the tiles and the game than we actually spent playing. The game was close, with all of us having one tile until Andy had none.

Doyle showed up while we were playing tile rummy. Now, I'm very excited Doyle showed up. Last time we played, Kris beat Andy and I in all three games. I needed Doyle to show up and take Kris down a notch. That Doyle has won nine games in a row is of no consequence in my mind.

Our first game was much longer than I expected it to be. To my surprise, on the round before the end, I realized if I snagged the longest road (as Doyle says, "the false god") from Andy, and built a city, I could go from last place to 10 points and win. So I did.

Not only did Kris not win (since he wasn't playing, this was a given), but I did. WOW! Not bad for my fourth time playing. Though, I guess that's part of the charm of Catan: a lot of the game play is designed to level the playing field, so that even sucky-suck players can get lucky sometimes.

Turns out, egg 17 was softboiled. Andy laughed and said, yeah, he snuck one into our 30 eggs. Good thing I have 13 more!

Since returning from our second honeymoon, we've been cooking a lot. I think we've gone out for dinner (lunches excepted) maybe twice. It helps that we've had our box of food, a near unending supply of vegetables we don't really eat much and a sense of adventure.

I, for example, didn't realize that brazed and glazed cabbage actually tastes good. It does.

One of the problems Kris and I have with working out together is that he's faster, stronger and, let's admit it, far more motivated than I am. Track workouts generally work well for us, since he can run extra sets or just rest longer while I'm finishing up. Longer distance runs haven't worked as well, since both of us essentially run by ourselves, and meetup at the end.

Kris has been training to run the 10k part of his relay team's Wildflower Triathlon this weekend, and has been running some good distances. He's tapered this week, and asked if I wanted to use my new scooter and keep up with him as he runs. We talked about whether or not it would work, and decided to give it a try. I've been to his work only a few times since he's worked there, so it would also be a good chance to see the campus.

We ended up doing three loops around the campus. I, for the most part, kept up with Kris, except when I didn't. I came in too hot on one hairpin turn and ended up in the dirt, but still standing, at one point. I also had problems on the back side with the head wind in the parking lot being so bad I could have walked faster than I scooted.

In all, the experiment was a fine success. Especially when I started pew-pew-pewing the cars that tried to cut us off.