I've been having a problem with my right knee lately. That's the one I had replaced in September of 2015 and while I can walk okay much of the time, it's rough for a minute or so after I get up from a seated position. I also have a problem on stairs and I've temporarily stopped driving. I have trouble controlling the pressure with which I depress the gas pedal or the brake.
It's something my orthopedist is certain will be remedied via physical therapy so twice a week, I take an Uber over to a wonderful place to which I'd walk if my knee was in better shape. There, some nice people put me through exercises to improve flexibility and strength, and I can already feel some improvement.
An odd thing: In three of the last five Uber trips I've taken, I've been transported by a different guy driving a Tesla…and when I complimented one of those drivers on how nice his car looked, he said, "You should see the other Tesla I have at home." I don't think he was joking. And I don't know why a person who owns one Tesla, let alone two, is driving for Uber, nor can I think of a nice way to ask any of them about this. If I had one of them conveyances, I don't think I'd let a steady succession of strangers ride in it.
Not being able to drive is not a huge problem since there aren't that many places I want to go these days and almost none of them are far. Driving down to Comic-Con in San Diego last July was one of the few times in the last few years I've ventured into a non-adjacent zip code. The Pandemic got me hooked on having Instacart bring me my groceries and to have Grubhub and DoorDash bring me meals.
A lot of meetings to which I would previously have had to drive are now taking place on Zoom or sometimes Skype and I like that a lot. Last week, I had a meeting which once-upon-a-time would have meant a drive to Burbank. That's thirty minutes each way when there's light traffic and it could be more than an hour when it's heavy out there. The meeting lasted twenty minutes on Zoom and that's all the time of mine it took.
Driving to and fro might have been four times that. And if I'd had to take an Uber there…well, right this minute, Uber says "It's busy, fares are higher," and they want $36.93 one way. Maybe that's how Uber drivers can afford Teslas.
None of this should be taken as complaining, not even the part about my knee. It's still causing me less pain and trouble than if I hadn't had it swapped out for a metal one. People continue to ask me, "Are you glad you had it done?" as if the alternative was having my original one functioning like it did when I was a teenager.
That didn't seem to be an option just as it won't be if/when the left one needs replacing. I still don't know why it didn't reach its expiration date the same time my right one did. I got them both at the same time in the same place and since I don't do a lot of hopping, they've taken almost exactly the same number of steps.