Why I was hanging around HUD at 6 pm yesterday

Last night JD and I got seriously misplaced in DC.  WHY IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE FOUR SIXTH AND E INTERSECTIONS IN A CITY?  WHY?

Before we left I googled and mapped and generally oriented myself.  Then, as we were driving away from the house, JD decided he wanted to go to a different metro station.  Yay.  When we have 30 seconds to decide before making the turn.  So, I went to his preferred metro station.

Unfortunately, on the train I was looking at the map, and I said "Hey, why don't we get off at this other metro station?  The walk looks okay and we wouldn't have to trek east as far."  And JD looked it up on google maps and it was near Sixth and E SW, which was where we were going.  I checked my calendar entry to be sure.  We'd just approach from the south, not the north.

But when we got there, we couldn't find the building entrance.  Weird.. also, we couldn't find the restaurants we expected.  We settled for McDonald's and then went back to tackle the building entrance issue again.  And that's when JD discovered that we really wanted to be at Sixth and E *NW*.  I had written it down wrong.  Had we gone to the originally planned metro station it wouldn't have mattered, as that WAS the right place.

So, we got back on the metro and road it a few stops and made it to the meeting late.  But before we got there, a train arrived as we were still walking up to it, and we ran to get onto it.  You remember that I don't run anymore?  Because I'm not supposed to? Because my spine sucks?  Yeah.  I wasn't thinking about that.  In the back of my head, I could still run in an emergency.  In my head, it would take more than a few seconds of running to hurt myself.

Not so much, as it turns out.

When I got on the train I realized that I had totally effed myself.  And I remembered the last time I had felt this particular pain, and how long it took to feel better afterward.  It is not a fast healing process.  Oh, I was steamed.  Two minutes!  Another train would have been along in two minutes!  For two minutes I bought myself weeks of pain.

We went to the meeting and I paid attention as best I could, and then they declared that they were adjourning around the corner to the local beer and steak place.  Not me.  I was done.  Toast.  Stick a fork in me.  I snappishly announced that I was not following them, and I headed for the Metro.  Given that we hadn't had a chance to speak, JD had no idea what was going on in my head until I started bawling while we waited underground for the train.  The prospect of weeks of pain plus no horseback riding hit me like a ton of bricks.  Or like my spine bouncing while I ran.  One of those.

Also, I perhaps neglected to mention that I fell headfirst, downhill on Saturday.  I landed on my head and my shoulder.  I wasn't going fast (I was trying to step over a log and the maneuver went drastically wrong) but I ended up in a position which neither my head nor my shoulder are really trained for.  The lump on my head is nearly gone, but my neck is kind of pissed off about the whole thing.

So, yeah.  Just waiting for an arrow in the back to irritate my other ungood spinal area, and then the set of irritated spinal bits will be complete.