21 July 2012

I do not want to talk about politics, and it seems that all there is to do is talk about politics, or the politics of tragedy, or the other way around. I am going to stay away from it.

There was a tantalizing story out of troubled Syria. I don’t know how you process news such as this. I think that when I hear “bomb” and “Middle East” I shut off my hearing. Seeing the kids at Walter Reed who have been blown up fills me with sadness and regret, and I guess tuning out the key words is a means of denial that it is all still going on.

But this was no horrific but banal attack on civilians in a market far away, or an IED strike inflicted on an Army patrol. This one was a singular bit of focused savagery, and there was nothing random about it.

At a location only ten minutes from the Presidential Palace, bombers managed to kill Syria’s Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, Intelligence Minister Hisham Ikhtyar, Former Minister of Defense Hassan Turkmani and Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, President Assad’s brother-in-law. Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar (who commands  the internal security apparatus) was badly wounded.

That is the regional equivalent of the loss of Leon Panetta, Bob Gates, Jim Clapper and Ash Carter, while wounding Janet Napolitano.

It is mind-boggling.

Russian President Putin must be taken aback, since he is backing Assad. Regional politics being what they are, naturally it is not the Rebels who are being blamed for the attack, but rather the CIA. Then there is the matter of Syrian weapons of mass destruction, and the rising concern of adjacent nations: Turkey, Jordan and Israel, all with their own calculus and calculations to make.

Crap, that is politics, and I said I was going to try to stay away from it.

There was a little discussion about it at The Amen Corner at Willow, where the discussion focused more on Tracy O’Grady’s Friday special next week, and whether we should publicize it or keep it quiet and save more for ourselves.

I took solace at Willow from the smack-down I got at the hands of my physical therapist in the morning.

I told you about Christina-the-torturer-in-chief. She is a curvy blonde woman with a curvy figure and a diabolical means of inflicting pain.

I told you about the initial visit. It was in the manner of an assessment of the post-op healing, and then about making the limb functional again. It was a watershed at the time: “Come on,” she said. “You are not fragile. Get strong.”

That was an interesting perspective. The second visit was a visit to a brand new vista. I thought we might be doing exercises, so I wore running shorts and a t-shirt. She had me remove the brace, and then commanded me to walk over and mount an exercise bike.

“Um,” I said. “I am not sure I can do that.”

Christina shrugged and handed me a cane, and pointed at the machine.

More revelations. She placed a digital timer on the handlebars and told me to start peddling. I put my feet on the pedals and tentatively pushed. The pedals rotated to a position with my left leg near the top of the circle and came to a stop against the tightness of the tendons. “Um,” I said again, lamely. “I don’t think this works.”

“Just try,” she said. “Ten minutes.” Then she bustled off to assist some other people with joint problems.

Well, suffice it to say that I eventually managed to get the knee bent far enough that I could slowly start to pedal, and then increase the rate. I was pretty aggressive, though the pain was remarkable as I got to maximum degree of flex.

What I didn’t know was how much more we were going to do after the bike. I might have paced myself better, since the accursed machine was just the first of many. Forty-five minutes later, bathed in a sheen of sweat after a thoroughly pedestrian set of exercises, Christina asked me how I felt.

I considered it for a moment. Then I said “It hurts really good.” Then I decided to walk from my car to Willow without a cane that evening and see how it was working out.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com