Halfway through writing this, I feel compelled to add this preamble, explaining that much of what follows is excessive in detail that does not contribute to a tolerable, much less entertaining, narrative.
I have fallen down three times in the past week or so. This is considerably more frequent than usual.
There has been a late resurgence of winter weather recently. "Resurgence" is not the right word. Winter had been mild until it suddenly wasn't in mid/late February. It might yet not be done.
Fall One:
I was out in the most extreme of the snow, at about 5AM, trying to get a large round segment of tree from my side yard into my house, to burn in the fireplace. Our heat pump has been out of service for a few years, and in any case, even using electrical heat is dodgy, and expensive, because the heat exchanger is rather clogged with pet hair and such.
So, I was out in the extreme cold trying, as I was too weak and lazy to simply pick it up and carry it, to roll a large chunk of wood towards the front door. It accumulated snow as I rolled it, much like a snowball in a cartoon or when children are building a snowman. I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I think I was pushing on it with my foot and lost my balance. In any case, I ended up face down in a little more than a foot of cold powder snow, with no gloves and no obvious way to get back on my feet.
The snow was so cold on my bare hands that it felt, paradoxically, like they were on fire. White hot needles of ice tore through my bare hands as I crawled towards my car.
Fortunately, I had the forethought to bring my car keys with me in case I wanted to use it as a warming shelter.
Eventually I made it to my car, started it up, and waited for it, and subsequently my hands, to warm up.
The pain was amazing. The time immeasurable. Eventually, I was able to get back in the house, but without my burnable prize snowball.
I would eventually find that I had somehow scraped off a large patch of skin from below my right knee. Diabetes slows healing, especially in my legs, so regrowing this skin is a long-term work-in-progress, but infection has been avoided.
Fall Two:
This was during the cold weather, but doesn't really count as a weather-related fall. I was leaving a small room in my garage. A space I had created for myself after the demise of my recording studio, intended to be a smaller studio for smaller projects. It is extremely well insulated regarding light, sound and heat, so a very small heater keeps it almost too warm in the coldest of weather. I can't imagine physically constructing this space, from the scraps of my old studio, with the body I have now. I am glad I did it back in 2004.
I had a sudden notion that there was something I left behind that I wanted to go back and get. An attempted turn on the cluttered floor of my garage and I was suddenly on my back, painfully lying on the metal edge of a discarded, inoperative, 24-channel mixer. Not much more to that story.
Fall Three:
I ventured out into the world, one of my least favorite things to do as of late, to secure supplies which had proven difficult to acquire through delivery services. In a Fred Meyer parking lot, I failed to notice a patch of ice near where I had parked, and down I went. The bizarre aspect of this experience is that I found myself once again crawling towards a place where I could pull myself up, but this time it was in a public place in what passed for full daylight at the time. There were people all around going about their own business as if there wasn't a 60 year old weakling trying to find a way to make right his figurative capsized tortoise shell. In retrospect, I think people rushing to help would have been more horrifying than being left to my own limited devices.
In any case, I obviously solved the problem and completed my errand with only a smaller patch of missing skin next to my left elbow.
In Conclusion:
I think writing this all out was a strange and pointless thing to do. What do I want? Pity? Empathy? None of the above. I just have an inexplicable urge, occasionally, to document the mundane events of my decaying life.
Perhaps my mundane documentation, along with those of others, may eventually help some future archeologist form some marginally realistic understanding of common life in this era.
I also like to feed birds that don't really need me to feed them, and one very old feral cat who very much needs me to feed her if she is to continue becoming older. I also do the laundry and take care of my two indoor cats. Life could be worse, and it will be.