{"id":22625,"date":"2018-08-21T12:21:56","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T19:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22625"},"modified":"2018-08-21T12:28:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T19:28:16","slug":"another-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=22625","title":{"rendered":"Another Milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14405057103_ddd075e3b3_o<\/a>In my previous post<\/a> I waxed enthusiastic about getting back on\u00a0the motorcycle after a long break and a new knee. Not so fast, said the moto gods. When your bike sits in a\u00a0hot garage\u00a0all summer, the\u00a0battery croaks.\u00a0Fortunately I have a trickle charger and this morning, after applying a heating pad to my knee\u00a0to loosen it up, I\u00a0swung a leg over the Wing\u00a0and rode to the gym for a workout on the stationary bike and the leg machines. All of which\u00a0was great.<\/p>\n

So I’m back on two wheels, if you don’t count real bicycles. I probably could have pumped up\u00a0the mountain bike and taken it for a spin when I got home this morning, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to try that.<\/p>\n

My\u00a0final hospital physical therapy session is tomorrow, followed by a\u00a0last visit with the orthopedic surgeon’s PA. Then I’m on my own, which is where the local gym membership comes in … I’ll be\u00a0following the same exercise routine that worked for me after my first knee replacement, 5 1\/2 years ago.<\/p>\n

Did I mention how happy I am to be\u00a0counting down these milestones? Yes!<\/p>\n

But now we have to deal with ticks. Mr. B has always been a tick magnet, and I just assumed he was picking them up outdoors. I have observed that boy dogs rub up against the bushes they pee on. Girl dogs don’t. Mr. B,\u00a0our boy dog,\u00a0gets ticks. Maxie, our girl dog, never does. So you can see how I\u00a0came up with that theory about boy dogs and ticks, right?<\/p>\n

Turns out I was wrong. Maxie started getting ticks too. This morning Donna called an exterminator company she’d done some work for (she embroidered their company uniform shirts), and they told us what’s really going on\u2014Mr. B brought ticks home with him from the dachshund rescue place and they laid eggs. One of their guys is coming over this morning to look our house over. We already know we’ll have to wash all the bedding, dog toys and beds, and the afghans and blankets the\u00a0pups like to curl up on. Checking each dog over at least once a day\u00a0will be our new routine. It’s a good thing we love ’em.<\/p>\n

My Knuckledragger<\/a> buds, Jim and Ed, had\u00a0a fraught journey\u00a0home after their weekend\u00a0in southern Arizona. They rode back to our house from Bisbee Sunday morning, meaning to load the bikes on Jim’s trailer and head home. Jim would be dropping Ed and his bike off in Kingman, then driving the rest of the way to his own house in Las Vegas, an 8-hour drive plus the delay in Kingman.<\/p>\n

The moto gods\u00a0weighed in once again. One of the trailer tires\u00a0had gone flat over the weekend.\u00a0Jim and Ed mounted the spare and pulled out of our driveway at 11:30 AM. My phone buzzed five minutes later\u2014the spare blew\u00a0just down the road\u00a0from our house. I\u00a0got in my truck and drove to where they sat\u00a0on the shoulder of Catalina Highway. Ed stayed with the bikes while Jim and I went looking for a tire shop open on Sunday. None were, but Jim remembered that Wal-Mart sells utility trailer tires already mounted on wheels, so we\u00a0made a beeline for the old super center, where indeed Jim found two mounted tires.<\/p>\n

\"2018-08-19<\/a>
Jim with the new Wal-Mart wheels<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When we got back to Ed and the trailer, though, it turned out the wheels the new tires were mounted on were just slightly different in depth, with the result that the new tire rubbed against the inside of the trailer’s fender struts. Fortunately,\u00a0Jim\u00a0had the right tools, and they were able to take the fender off and shim it inward with washers to the point where the tire didn’t rub. I wasn’t able to kneel down with them to wrestle with nuts and bolts, what with my stiff knee, but I was able to make a run to Ace Hardware for extra washers.\u00a0By 2:30 PM\u00a0the job was done and they were ready to drive home.<\/p>\n

\"2018-08-19<\/a>
Ed & Jim working on the trailer fender<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I joked about following them at least as far as Phoenix just in case, but in the end they made it home with no additional problems. Quite late, but at least it was still technically Sunday. You know, if I’m not careful, word’s going to get\u00a0around\u00a0my part-time hobby is\u00a0rescuing stranded motorcyclists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One quick update before I sign off: the exterminator came. He doesn’t think we have an infestation, just a few ticks here and there. He told us what to do and we’re off on a tick-killing mission, and you know what? I think the pups know what’s going on and will be happy to hold still while we check them over every day. They are good citizens, after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my previous post I waxed enthusiastic about getting back on\u00a0the motorcycle after a long break and a new knee. Not so fast, said the moto gods. When your bike sits in a\u00a0hot garage\u00a0all summer, the\u00a0battery croaks.\u00a0Fortunately I have a trickle charger and this morning, after applying a heating pad to my knee\u00a0to loosen it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,5,2],"tags":[1146,1158,2589,2588],"class_list":["post-22625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-motorcycling","category-personal","tag-knee-replacement","tag-physical-therapy","tag-stranded-motorcyclists","tag-ticks-and-dogs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22625"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22636,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22625\/revisions\/22636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}