oh, oh, oh, you're changing your heart (duos)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: it's a day of service for us AmeriCorps/Habitat members. "They" call it "volunteer" work, but we know that it's required. A very stupid policy if you ask me.
Nevertheless Allison, Nathan, Rye, Erik, Jennifer and I ventured out to Durham (my birthplace in fact) to help the affiliate there with two of their houses. When we arrived it was 14 degrees F. I did have about five layers on, but of course due to the early hour, had forgotten to layer my feet appropriately. I couldn't feel my toes by the time I arrived. We unanimously couldn't feel our faces within the first two minutes. Twas not pleasant.
Durham Habitat is also notably unprepared for "volunteers." We had to share one staple gun between the lot of us who were either putting up exterior corners, siding, or sofit. Completely ridiculous. We barely got anything done.
I did meet some very sweet and amusing people, however. But, like our affiliate, there remain several competitive asses who think that just because they are doing "construction" (I hesitate to call house-building "construction" in the first place), they are macho. After a very nice (and cold) lunch, we were forced to play a game very similiar to tag.
Now, the game of tag brings up various memories of being...well, a child. I am no longer a child, and thus I find it a bit odd when a bunch of young adults ranging from 18-25 in age are forced to participate in it. To make matters a bit more complicated, we played it on a downhill slope and on concrete. This, in my mind is a recipe for disaster. If I were playing a game of non-voluntary tag on a non-voluntary day of service on a downhill grassy slope, I might have felt better about the situation. As it was, and as I am completely accident prone, I did fall. My hands caught me. I am used to falling and thus my physical reaction to the movement is so involuntary (like my day of service) that it's nearly impossible for me to plant my face.
And so, I got back up pretty much immediately to see what damage had been done to my palms, which was minimal. I did feel a bruise forming on my leg where I had landed on my tool-belt (and a bunch of nails), but from what I could feel at the time, it wasn't serious.
I wasn't the only one who fell of course. Allison landed on one hand, on one side of one hand to be more exact. The wind was knocked out of her, and so she was struggling with her breath. I had thought for a moment that her head had gone down first, and was extremely disturbed by her panting. Once she regained a steady rhythmn and had about 15 people surrounding her (I hate it when people do this), she was able to show us that the majority of the skin had been scrapped off of her hand.
The Ex-Navy Seal of course gave us his expert advice, "just give it another six hours. That's the only way you'll be able to tell what's really going on." I, of course, am extremely skeptical of anyone who spent any amount of time in the military giving me (or my friend) medical advice. We sat on the porch of an unfinished house, the wall insulation just installed, and I tried to gage how much pain she was in. She had been in shock - I mean, the girl turned bluish yellow and was shaking. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
We sat there for about an hour until she let us take her home. Rye drove.
Once I arrived home around 4PM, I sat in the bathtub for about 30 minutes trying to warm up my joints and watching the blue bump on my upper thigh. I have about three bruises on my legs at the moment, most of which are from Annabel (Kirsten's puppy). Once I decided that I look like a leper, the entire scenerio became rather comical. I laughed about it, rather hysterically, until I collapsed for about an hour. When I woke up my face was tight and wind-burnt.
There was rain last night and it froze. It was very hard to tell if what I was driving on was a pond or a skating rink. There were four car accidents I witnessed on my way to work, but I was already half-way there. I thought to myself, "Whatever, I might as well keep on going." I learned how to drive on ice in this state, seeing as how it's a required practice every winter here. It's not a fun weather condition, but I'm not scared by it.
Today Allison's sling-enslaved arm is broken in two places and I feel as if I've gotten a botox injection.
What a weird beginning to the week...