the great thing about injuries

Last night, I had the grace and fortune during Zumba class to roll my ankle pretty badly. As in, I visibly stumbled over (and I was in the front row, so everyone got to witness it and gasp) and it immediately hurt like crap (but I finished the song and class, because I'm stupid strong like that), but I knew it wasn't broken (because hello, I could sort of limp on it), so...self-diagnosed with a "roll." I know. Scientific of me. Anyways. As soon as I got home, I did the 20 minutes of ice-20 minutes of no ice routine for the rest of the night, and it's been slowly feeling better all day, despite being on my feet for the first half of the day at work. This is definitely not a serious injury, and I'm confident things will be back to normal by Saturday probably (although I anticipate having vicious pain aftershocks for at least another week, whenever I don't feel like doing something). So this is not a "woe is me, send me your pity" blog (just FYI)...but I tell you this to preface the following story.

Hobbling around for the day gave me many flashbacks to my life post-knee surgery, wherein I spent many months hobbling around with a totally legit knee-brace. And then, as luck would have it, on our way home from work we needed to grab a few things from Publix. Which naturally made me think of this:

Because seriously, it is almost worth being injured...just to have the great privilege of driving a motorized cart around the grocery store. IT IS SO FUN. Man. Proof that it is super fun? A few years after my surgery, my friend Dustin and I whipped out my old knee brace and did a brief Tour de Grocery Stores, taking turns wearing the brace, just to experience the variety of motorized carts.

Trust me, it was awesome.

And so this afternoon, despite the fact that I was perfectly capable of hobbling around the store with not too much pain...I still had a long mental (and out-loud with Matt) debate about grasping hold of the opportunity to use a motorized cart whilst shopping. Seize the moment!!! the fun-loving part of my brain was urging. People will look at you funny!, the self-conscious part of my brain reminded me.

I ended up opting to hobble instead of ride, and it was a good call since approximately one second after entering the store, I ran into someone I knew (Mollyanne's mother-in-law and nephews, actually). That could have been awkward, explaining my motorized cart-with-minimal-injury...so I'm really glad I had chosen to walk.

But anyway. So basically this whole story has no point, except to say that if you can reasonably justify using the motorized cart, you should go for it (and take pictures, and blog about it). There aren't many high points to being sick and/or injured, so take what you can get. It has occurred to me that maybe after my upcoming surgery I will have reason to use the motorized carts again-- and that certainly seems like a silver lining if I've ever seen one.

And with that, I'm off to watch my spaghetti pie (new recipe courtesy of a co-worker...my mouth was watering as she described it/I prepared it; can't wait to see how it actually tastes!) bake in the oven and make similes about the food baking in the oven and how our bodies are going to be baking in the heat this weekend when the forecast looks like this:

 And don't forget-- our humidity hovers around 90% or something every day, making the "feels like" temperature closer to...I don't know, infinity. Yippee!!!! See you at the pool!!