1.2.26
- Mike Dickey
- 39 minutes ago
- 3 min read
"The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses."
Cloudy and fourteen degrees outside, after a surprising amount of sunshine New Year's Day.
I'm feeling pretty good about this new year, after two devastating gridiron losses over the holiday.
You see, I've observed over the decades that my personal fortunes seem to travel in opposition to my sports teams. When the Bulldogs and the Trojans have seemed unstoppable, my life has been punctuated with disasters of one sort or another. The last year SC won the national championship I got sued. See what I mean?
So this bowl season we've seen the Men of Troy fall in overtime to TCU after a slew of missed tackles led to a touchdown. Last night I went to bed at halftime thinking the Dawgs were getting the better of Ole Miss, only to awaken this morning to see that the Rebs came back and won the game after I retired.
Things are definitely looking up.
Peg has her own superstition about the new year, which I also happen to share, that requires the consumption of black eyed peas, collard greens, and some sort of pork on New Year's Day. A lot of Southerners maintain the same tradition. The only year we violated it during our time together was in 2023, when we were in Dublin and couldn't find the ingredients anywhere. The remainder of the trip was darkened when I fell deathly ill, ending up in a doctor's office in Cork because Peg was convinced I was becoming septic. My mother died that August, and a little over three weeks later the first major hurricane in decades flattened Taylor County and substantially damaged Wyldswood.
With this history, there was a moment of panic when we arrived at a potluck brunch yesterday with the required New Year's offerings, and realized P had left the collards at home. We ultimately figured we would be okay--once we returned home we'd eat our collards, and I'm not aware of a rule that requires all three ingredients be consumed in one sitting. But what of the luck this year for all of the other guests, who'd only get peas and ham? They were all Yankees and didn't know any better, and we made it a point to omit any mention of the issue of the missing greens.
One bit of bad luck already coloring my Friday is this torn meniscus in my left knee. It hurts like hell, all the time, and I'm having trouble getting the local orthopedic group to take my money and debride the damned thing. We travel to Manhattan in exactly two weeks, and the place we selected as our temporary home there made the cut in part because it allowed me to walk to campus. That plan seems less tenable with this Quasimodo leg drag I've developed.
The problem here is a distortion of the medical profession caused by insurance. First, I went to my "gatekeeper" GP to get an orthopedic referral. He ordered an x-ray, which of course showed nothing, and dutifully referred me to the ortho group. As it turns out, their team has its own gatekeeper, a sports medicine doc who's not a surgeon. He diagnosed the tear with a simple twist of my knee and accompanying yelp from the patient, then told me my options were PT, an MRI, or surgery. Why not just confirm the tear with an MRI, and schedule the surgery? Insurance might push back if we don't try to fix the problem without surgery, which makes about as much sense as sending someone to PT for a compound fracture. The meniscus is torn--stretching and strengthening exercises aren't going to repair that.
And the doc wouldn't suggest a course of action, even when I asked him directly what he'd do if he were me. All this means for me is more pain, more delay, and more unfortunate collateral effects like this extra twenty pounds I've gained since I quit running in late August as the problem first began to manifest itself, and blood pressure that's higher than ever.
All very frustrating, indeed.
In other news, two nights ago Trump auctioned off Jesus, one of the most apt metaphors seen to date for this shitty political moment.
And of course the thing was painted in ten minutes, an artistic version of the slop that's flooded our digital spaces.
I really need to write an appellate brief today, or at least get a few pages on paper. Time to get at it.