Synopsis: (The first two are primarily housekeeping) *Movies *Kefir *Events

Body: I've was in a habit of watching movies almost every day before the wreck. The key here is filling in my cultural literacy deficiencies, so I'm not necessarily looking for good movies. I've gone by genres so far, namely war and horror (fine, I repeat myself.) Briefly: *Of war movies, I have Platoon winning on points, though it didn't really stick with me, either. Full Metal Jacket was biggest dissapointment: Kubrick's war masterpiece was Paths of Glory. *Horror: for the franchise slasher flicks, I have, in order: Halloween, Nightmare, Friday 13th.

I'm not sure what's next. Maybe sci-fi or westerns, but I don't see myself sitting through much bad sci-fi. (I turned Gravity off 20 minutes in because it was too stupid.)

Kefir Not much too report. The milk kefir has gone mostly unattended, but the cider kefir is now my usual alcoholic drink. A kefir cider facebook page of others who don't know what they're doing either has been created, if anyone would like to join.

**Events I spent the morning doing company sponsored volunteer work at a nature trail, mostly clearing Japanese privet, our worst invasive species. I went to a show (Daedelus) downtown that evening. Driving back, I thought "This has been a really nice day. I hope this becomes a normal thing." A sentiment so rare from me that it seemed defiant, a dare to the universe. The light changes; I go.

I don't recall what alerted me. If I saw anything, it was blind sight. Maybe someone honked, or tires squealed. But he didn't slow down much. The weird thing: I had less than a second from awareness to impact. In that time, my train of thought took the following path: I'm about to in a serious car crash. Not fatal, but it's going to hurt really bad and there will be broken bones. And in that flash of time, I could accept that fate and physically relax. The vehicles hit on their front corners. I ricocheted off as if making a left turn; he as a right. My initial reaction was as if hitting my thumb with a hammer-- anger, obscenities... But the shock set in after a few seconds. I looked over to see that the Silverado had decided to keep going. I focused on the plate, but started blacking out. He was never caught. A quick self-assessment showed a badly broken wrist and questionable knee. Mercifully, no blood. I opted to have EMR cut me out of the jeans, just to spare me anymore ghastly sights. It looked fine, but I couldn't put weight on it. I haven't checked how many thousands the two block ambulance ride to the hospital ran, especially opting for the fentanyl on route. Heart fibrillations set back the surgery a day, for which the surgeon later apologized, acknowledging the pain of that injury. (Seriously, what did we do before morphine?) I felt much better after the surgery. The recovery has been better than I would have thought, but there's just so much to take care of. My heroic '91 Volvo 240 wagon, having spared me much worse, was totalled. No reimbursement from insurance. As a replacement, I went with a 2013 Audi A4 wagon. So there. Medical bills so far exceed $70,000. I don't think I owe anything since I always max out my out of pocket maximum in late February. I shudder to think how that would have gone a few years back when I couldn't get health insurance. When I went back to work later at the end of the week, the typical response was, "You really don't have to be here. Go home and heal up. Come back when you're ready".) But after the second week, the cast on my arm was already off, and other than some soreness, I could type again. Still not sure about my knee. I'm at a plateau stage of recovery where progress in imperceptible. I feel like I should be able to do a lot, but then I hit a wall and have to admit defeat. Frustrating. I think anyone who's been in a serious car crash has found themselves ruminating on the events, sometimes more than they'd like. Details of the scene pop up. The what-ifs: that Silverado hits me at a different angle, or I'm driving a different car, and I'm not sure I'd have made it. And my injuries were never close to life-threating. I was telling a relative this and the response was to ask if writing about it would help. (A better response might have been, since I'm talking about it, maybe you could listen.) But I thought I'd give it a shot.