If my life was the game of Life ...

... I would be losing. Two weeks ago today, I ran into a weeks worth of setbacks.

After gaining some unwanted weight, I had been running for exercise in the morning, and I really started to feel the benefits. I decided that on this particular morning I would do some sprint intervals. It was the morning after a thunderstorm, and I quickly approached a tree branch that needed to be skirted. I skirted it, but in the process my foot hit the edge of the pavement. I then skidded along the ground writhing in agony because I knew I had sprained my ankle. Hoping up quickly, I decided to assess the damage while moving. While walking 1/3rd of a mile uphill to my house I realized it was a bad one. The x-rays and the doctor told me that I broke my 5th metatarsal and sprained two ligaments and one tendon. Bummer. This amounts to me wearing a boot that comes up to my knee to immobilize everything. What I really love though is the padding on the inside of the boot. It is essentially foam cushioning surrounded by flannel. I love it when it is 100 degrees outside. Setback Number 1.

Setback Number 2 is directly related to Number 1. We had a weekend vacation planned for the beach, and this last weekend we had another vacation planned for Universal Studios Theme parks in Orlando (rabbit trail ... the new Simpson's ride was a lot of fun). We opted to stay the course and go on both vacations. There is nothing quite like probing for treasures in the sand with crutches, and is there anything that epitomizes walking and standing more than going to a theme park.

Setback Number 3 is also related to Number 1. When we arrived at the beach, I thought it might be nice to elevate my swollen ugliness. Within 30 minutes I received a phone call from our dog sitter. To protect my dogs identity, I will call him Bonham. Bonham had escaped from the clutches of our dog sitter while she was on her way in the gate to play with him. He ran straight for the 6 lane highway and proceeded to get hit by the bumper, tagged by the front wheels, and run over by the rear wheels of a Ryder truck. Bonham is not one of the smartest dogs I have ever met, but I think he could be the strongest. He made it out alive, and only lost his tail. Plus the sitter and her friend still had to chase him down after that. (This is the second time he has been hit and run over by a car with no major problems.) Setback 4a was that her friend got hit by a car in the process. He is fine. Setback 4b ... I will just say that emergency vet care is damn expensive. Major piss off number 1 ... the people who ran over my dog didn't even slow down. The fu&kers just kept on driving.

I don't remember the game of Life much, but the next thing is like drawing a card that says you have to move back one more space on top of everything else. While at the beach feeling pretty useless and confused about the dog situation, I decided to take my daughter for a little swing in the hammock. Major piss off number 2 ... the hammock broke and we go plummeting to the ground where I bruised my back and rear-end pretty good. Thankfully she was okay.

Last major piss off is the fact that I am getting fat again and can't do things like this ...