It's my turn

I'm taking a sick day today, just like Walt did yesterday. He's still sleeping at this hour, so I don't know what he'll be able to do today. I think he feels a little better, but he'll have to confirm that. I don't have full-blown cold symptoms, but my nose is stopped up and my nasal passages and sinuses are tender and irritated. I don't seem to have any fever, though, and I'm sleeping okay. Temperatures are still near, at, or above freezing every day.

The worst thing is that I seem to have twisted my right knee. I think it must have happened when I put my foot down on the road that runs through the hamlet Saturday morning, which was a sheet of invisible black ice. My foot slipped but luckily I didn't fall. I was walking with Tasha, and I've been doing two walks a day with her since Saturday morning, when Walt realized he had come down with a cold.

Our back yard and garden path are icy but not slippery. The ground is very treacherous though, since we had an invasion of moles and other burrowing animals out there in the October and November.

My right knee was giving me trouble earlier this winter. I was having to do a kind of two-step to get up the stairs. Left foot on step, then right foot on the same step. Then do it again, 30 times, several times a day. I couldn't do the steps alternately, one foot going up at a time; it was too painful. After three or four days of two-stepping, the pain suddenly went away. What a relief that was!

On Saturday afternoon, I realized that my right knee was bothering me again. This time, it doesn't just hurt when I climb the stairs. This time, it hurts the most when I an walking on flat surfaces. The pain is not excruciating. I just have to be careful. Maybe I need a knee replacement. Or an elevator. Or a new house — one without staircases.