Several degrees of...separation

So I stopped by my brother's place last night. We usually train with weights when we get together, a productive way to spend time together (instead of gorging on buffalo wings and gulping down beer at some bar). It turned out to be a rather eventful evening actually!

I hadn't done towel chins in a while. So we started with those. After about 3 sets of only 5 reps each, my fingers were screaming in pain. But the fact that I had gotten 15 reps out of the movement after not having done it in ages was reassuring (guess grip power acquired through rock climbing doesn't die hard).


Towel Chins. No, that ain't me...

We proceeded to Romanian Deadlifts next. I started by warming up with Waiter's Bows using a 45 lb plate. My hands were a bit shaky from the chins. The plate slipped and fell. I moved just in time to prevent the plate from dislocating my kneecaps or crushing my toes (I train barefeet whenever possible) but not fast enough: it took some skin of my lower thighs on its determined journey down.


The Waiter's Bow. That ain't me either...

I decided that I wouldn't want to do the Waiter's Bow after towel chins. Ok. This wasn't too bad but it could have been...

Later we were watching "Silver Blaze", a Sherlock Holmes episode on DVD, when my brother's neighbor Louise called. She sounded shaky and apprehensive,

"Can you come over please?"

So we rushed over. Scotty, her 6-month old miniature Schnauzer, had taken a tumble down the stairs and was lying on the floor just inside her front door. The poor fella had what looked like a broken front leg. So while Louise was on the phone with the vet, we patted and soothed the little bugger as he alternated between moments of silence and piercing wails. I learnt today that he had had a fracture and had to go under the knife earlier this morning if early arthritis were to be prevented (as opposed to a simpler solution that would have cost Louise much less than $2500). I should know in a few days how well that limb is going to recover. But if I know the Scot-man, he will continue to get around with a great deal of enthusiasm, arthritis or not.

I couldn't help but cross-reference what happened to Scotty last night with several things: 1) I could have ended up with a serious injury earlier that day myself while training, 2) Scotty's plight was much more serious than what happened to that horse in the episode of "Silver blaze" and 3) I was reminded of when my brother (who was visibly upset and pretty pissed at Louise for being less than attentive with Scotty yesterday) suffered a compound fracture of a leg during a game of cricket in our early teens growing up in India 15 years or so ago.

Stuff like this makes you pause and take stock.