avoided the dogs again

Today’s back treatment was even better– I was allowed to use weirder machines, and even had the chance to lie for half an hour on something resembling quasi-molten brown wax. Since they overdid it with the shoulder exercises last time and I could hardly pick up a pen for three days, they slacked off on it this time. But I remain shocked by how easy this has been to fix so far.

It seems absurd that I put up with that pain for 13 months– which wasn’t constant misery, but did make me walk a bit like an old man for the past year. And I couldn’t have run at all, except in an emergency. But I didn’t exactly wait a whole year to deal with it. I’ve actually been trying to solve the problem since March, but they tried all the wrong specialists at first, for some reason: neurologist, hematologist, etc. But finally it was the orthopedist (the TV celebrity) who knew exactly what the problem was, knew it was minor, and knew where to send me for the instant miracle cure. I may as well do the remaining 6 or 7 weeks just to make doubly sure, but it feels like this problem is solved. Nice to know that nagging problems can be solved rather quickly when the right people are in charge.

Those two mean dogs were there again today, in that vacant lot on my route to the hospital. (And the nearest alternate route is about 10 blocks longer, thanks to a branch of the Nile in the wrong place.) I’m getting the sense that they’re not strays, but are deliberately stationed guard dogs for the building that’s under construction. But there’s no barrier across the driveway to that site, and their sense of territory often extends unfairly to the sidewalk. Today they were grooming themselves as I passed and didn’t feel like stopping it to chase me. On my way back they were nowhere to be seen, but it’s a big piece of property.

The peasant gentleman who oversees the site doesn’t have a lamb tethered on the second floor of the building as I originally reported: it’s three goats. What a weird life, to be a goat and spend most of your existence tethered on the second floor of the skeleton of a new high-rise in Cairo.