Get ready to cringe!

I begin with an apology for the accompanying picture. I will also say right now that, while I do slack off shaving in the colder months, these are ALAN'S legs.

"What did he DO?!?" you ask. The best metaphor is this: imagine getting a tiny tear in your jeans, hardly noticeable. You wear the jeans for months, maybe years with that small tear or frayed spot. Then, one day, doing nothing out of the ordinary, you bend over to tie your shoe and the whole backside of your pants rips apart.

That's probably what happened to his knee. He's in a lot of pain, and in the past week has been to Patient First, an orthopedist, and has had an MRI. The orthopedist will read the MRI on Tuesday to give us the full scoop: how big the tear is, where exactly it is, and what kind of surgery (and when) to expect.

Until then? Well, let's just say Alan will be doing all his holiday shopping on line from the comfort of our living room couch. :) We've had some good laughs in spite of it, and when my in-laws heard what happened they jumped in their car and came to our rescue on Tuesday. We'd planned on hosting the Blackmans for Thanksgiving, and their help in cooking, cleaning, child care, and good, old-fashioned common sense (my mother-in-law encouraged me more than once to strike things from the "to do" list to save my sanity--and she was right!), made that possible. Alan had a gig Wednesday night, which he was able to do w/me as the chauffeur and roadie, and it was actually a nice, relaxing evening which my in-laws made possible.

So now I'm going to go to bed (after I've looked at that knee again and said "eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!" one more time!)