Gimping Along

I have had a bad back for the past two weeks, and on and off for the past month or so. It is characterized by breath-catching pain when I lift, lean forward, twist, or sometimes do nothing. I finally broke down and went to the doc, but it was nothing exotic as I had feared (spinal collapse? osteoporosis? something deadly and undiagnosed?), it is simply a pinched nerve. It should go away with exercise, icing, and pain killers in about six weeks. If not, the doc will order an X-ray, but he assured me that most of the time it goes away before he has to get out the big guns.  He gave me a prescription for the world's largest horse pills of ibuprofen and sent me on my way.

When I got home, I ran into my next door neighbor, Doreen, who had canceled a flight to see her family due to a pinched nerve higher up in her spinal column than mine was in mine. She was feeling just about as chipper as I was, a couple of gimpy gals. So, we decided to cook dinner together and watch the baseball game on TV as we cheered each other up.

My Beloved, always the Good Guy, ordered some guacamole and chips from Las Camelias in San Rafael and drove across the bridge to San Rafael to fetch it. Guacamole is a cure-all, and the stuff from Las Camelias has been known to work miracles. If I were still a Catholic, I might nominate it for sainthood. 

As we munched and chatted in Doreen's gorgeous kitchen with the game on dueling TVs so she wouldn't have to turn her stiff neck to follow the action, I put together a simple spring risotto. Arborio rice, chicken broth, fresh asparagus, yellow sweet pepper, fresh dill, fresh parsley and frozen shrimp - easy one-hand. I didn't even have to take the tails off the shrimp. I forgot the Parmesan cheese (airhead!) but it was still delicious and a single cup of rice with embellishments fed all three of us with some left over for Doreen's lunch the next day.

Agonizing over the game (although the right team prevailed in the end) took our minds off our ills, and sharing a meal brought a neighborly glow. We hugged when it was time for me to rest my stabbing back and parted at the kitchen door, comforted to have shared our miseries and our meal.