Another head hit and no it isn't just me perceiving things oddly

I find the name amusing-and kind of appropriate

I have been distinctly out of touch for the last two months for various issues, mostly just getting caught up from Christmas and all the things I put off doing before Christmas as I was recovering from a head injury (biking) at the end of November, but at the end of January, on another, rare to us this winter, decent riding day, I got brushed by a trailer being pulled by a pick up and went down again. So far it has not been a good year riding wise.


Since I was knocked unconscious in November and again this time, there are several weeks when life has been mostly hallucenogenic. Between drifting in and out of consciousness in and being on some pretty heavy doses of vicodin, which although good for the pain, leaves me dead asleep and disconnected when I am awake, there are large patches of time missing. It has been a distinctly "Alice and the White Queen " sort of period.


Finally however the road scrapes are all healed, the bruising is almost gone, the last of the stitches came out late last week and I am now held together with steristrips and I am off of the vicodin and down to just an occassional aspirin for the sprained, cracked or broken ribs.


The bike has been checked out and I plan to go get a new helmet later this week, now all I need to do is start back to the gym, gradually at first and then with Roy the trainer. Fortunately the weather is cold and rainy so I am not tempted to ride but I also don't plan to do too much solo riding for awhile.


The damage survey from the most recent accident was a subdural hematoma on the left side just above my ear, a badly bruised and possibly sprained left shoulder and shoulder joint, some sort of rib damage, a 6" gash in my left forearm which required stitches, a black and blue area on my left hip and some general gravel scrapes on my left leg. At least this time I hit or got hit on the left, rather than on the right so at least the injuries are fairly balanced.


The driver never even stopped, he obviously didn't realize he had brushed me so that will teach me not to take the lane more assertively but I was lucky in that cars behind were keeping their distance and did stop. I also owe a big shout out to the Texas State Highway Patrol Officer Olive, who rescued my bike, garmin, glasses, bottles and various miscellania from the scene, followed me to the ER, made sure that I understood that he had them and that he would return them to me in two days. In fact everyone I remember was deeply professional and kind so a shout out to whatever Richmond EMR group scraped me up, the crew at the ER room, the NIMU at Memorial Hermann downtown who kept me overnight for observation. Yes, I do know my name, where I am, the date more or less and how many fingers you are holding up, but as for the rest of it, I'm not sure.


I will recover, I will ride again, and the Texas drivers are just as crazy as ever.


But I see from headlines in the news that it isn't just the Texas drivers these days. Just after we moved to Texas I remember commenting on the trend of " Christian Wrestling- Body Slamming for Jesus." Things have been ramped up for 2010. Now we have "Flocking- total cage fighting for Christ". Many Evangelical Christina Churches, in an attempt to "inject irrestible machismo" into their programs and make their activitiesmore appealing to young men have started including total cage fighting in mixed martial arts to their activities. The fight teams are referred to as Flocks and promote the image of Christ as a fighter, a street dude who hung out with prostitues, drunks and tax collectors. Many Pastors say they fear that the church is becoming too feminized and passive with it's teachings of peace and harmony.


One wag remarked that "instead of trying to trick men into coming to church by beating the crap out of their friends, they might consider refocusing their ideology around some feistier diety such as Odin and revert to "Cage fighting a la Odin"."


It's a thought- then instead of RAK (Random Acts of Kindness)they can promote RARVAP (Random Acts of Raping, Vandalism and Pillaging.)


It could work.