This is your knee. This is your knee on the slab.

Playing in the background: "Food Detectives" on the Food Network, which just incidentally is a channel Jen should not be watching.
Meters swum today: 1600
Miles swum in July, Swim for Distance Month: 19.3

What we have here in this nifty graphic is a representation of a human knee. I think it's a right knee. If you'll squint at a little structure underneath that top knee bone, kind of on the left (your left, not the knee's left) you'll see something called a "lateral meniscus." Why is this important, you might well ask. Because, I tell you, it is this little structure that is causing Joan so much distress.

Remember when we went to get married in California? Well, the day before we left, Joan took a bad step outside a restaurant and her knee went "AAAAAIGH!!" Two and a half emergency room hours later it was determined that nothing was broken. And just now, three weeks after the fact, we're finally getting the MRI results back. Guess what. That "lateral meniscus" fella has suffered what we shall call a "radial tear." And that's not all: The inside of Joan's knee (I guess that'd be the curvy bit above the squiggly bit) is possessed of "stage III and IV degenerative changes," which is to say, arthritis. So Joan is headed for surgery. Directly for surgery. Do not pass "Go," do not ask your health plan how much this is all gonna cost.

Now here's the strange part. Every time I start talking about this, or blogging about it for that matter, my own right knee starts to hurt. Why, I have no idea. I was in a skiing accident some 24 years ago (having violated the Family First Commandment of Skiing, which is, "Thou shalt not follow Uncle Rod," who is, just incidentally, my father) and caused some as-yet-unknown damage. Every now and then, when it gets humid or a storm is coming, my knee makes my life unpleasant for a few hours. To have it simultaneously kick on and off at the drop of a hat, or a knee, is a new thing.

Well, there's only one possible explanation. We've been together so long that my knee is having sympathetic ouchies. It's a good thing we didn't have kids or one of us would be having sympathetic labor pains.