Shake it off.

Unless you’re a pro football fan, you may not have noticed the attention finally being paid to players’ concussions. We can all remember when it was gospel that any competitor worthy of the name would “shake it off and get back in there.” Headline stories praised weekend heroes who threw the winning pass but couldn’t remember the entire last half.

Despite being hit in the head few times, I remember when I played small-college basketball, back in the dark ages, when the accepted rule was “never take water during practice or during a game — it will slow you down.” Hydration, what a concept.

It’s a reminder of the value of questions when someone says, “Everybody knows.”

Don't count on the right-of-way.

An NPR conversation this morning reminded me of something I’ve been mulling ever since I had my first driving-in-Italy experience a few years ago.

Back there again a few weeks ago, I wondered whether it might be safer driving in Italy, where you have to pay attention to the aggressive drivers and twisting roads, than driving here in the U.S., where a lot more elbow room and traffic controls give the illusion of safety.

I recently read about a town in England (I think it was England) where they're experimenting with fewer traffic controls. First they tried removing the signs from a round-about and found the number of accidents plummeted, seemingly because drivers had to pay attention to each other rather than to the traffic signs. They’re now removing stop signs from a large section of town to see how that works.

The guest on NPR this morning was saying that the worst accidents are those horrific broadsides that take place in a marked intersection, when two drivers think they have the right of way: “I’ve got the green. Go for it.”

This traffic control thing reminds me of something else I notice every time we go to Europe. That's are very few watch-your-step warnings. I suppose that's because many of the streets and walkways are uneven ground, especially in the historic areas. You have to watch out for yourself. There's no signs by the Seine that say, "Hey fool, don't fall in."

(A bias: I hate the word signage. They’re signs, call them signs.)

There may even be a conservative-liberal argument embedded in this. When is it better to put controls in place and when is it more productive to emphasize individual responsibility? (Who was it that said, “Everything, in the end, is political”?)

Back now, I think.

I’m surfacing — the bionic man. After getting a second titanium knee a couple of weeks ago, I now have a matched set. I mention it only as an explanation for my failure to write much the last few weeks.

The last couple weeks have been a reminder of how hard it becomes to tend your duties when you don’t really feel “there” (or "here") for a while. I tumbled a few steps down Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I’ve had a lot of interesting stuff going on in my head. I just haven’t wanted to sit down at the computer and tell you about them.

It’s reminded me of a weekend my wife and I once spend with our youngest son at his college. He was going through difficult times. (I remember those sorts of days well.) And his characteristic way of dealing with the outside world back then was wonderfully Scandinavian — he'd simply stop talking entirely.

My wife and I recognized the pattern immediately because her dad, a wonderful guy, was famous for not speaking for days at a time. And my wife … let’s just say conflict manage was not very creative early in our marriage. Here was I, compulsively needy about getting things settled and there was she up in bed, head under a comforter, trying to find some safe harbor from my anxiety. It was wonderful.

After a few years of that, I learned to stop pushing a bit which let her shorten the absences. We still run the same circle, but much more quickly. You can even be with us and not notice we've just had a brief tiff -- faster than a speeding bullet.

Getting back to that college weekend, after a day or so of “the great silence,” I threw one of those unhelpful, parental hissy fits (does anyone still use that idiom?). I remember yelling at him, actually just speaking quite firmly -- that really helps, ya know. The gist was, I know you’re feeling lost right now, but if you would just surface for a moment and say, “I’m hurting, is it OK if I don’t talk much right now?” you’d have us immediately on your side.

I imagine that speech crossed my wife’s mind a few times in the last couple weeks. But she lovingly restrained herself. And I’m coming back.

Minimally Invasive, my foot. (Actually, my knee.)

If you’ve been wondering, where’s Phil? I’m in the middle of a seldom-available hiatus from the working world. My wife and I had long ago scheduled two weeks in Europe. Then my friendly neighborhood orthopod said, “It’s time to replace those aching knees with titanium.”

(That’s right, I’ve joined the growing throng of bionics. I’m also close personal friends with a variety of airport security people. All those odd positions they want you take? I’ve got them down pat. And, yes, there is some patting involved.)

So I got one new knee in March and the other was scheduled for six months later, which ran us right up against our already-ticketed two weeks in Europe. When I asked the folks at work how they’d prefer I handle that, they said it was easier to deal with one longer absence than two shorter ones. Be gone.

So, we've just done a week in Malta — an ancient and fascinating island seldom visited by Americans, and a week in overwhelming, extraordinary and overrun-by-tourists Florence, Italy. (Imagine what it’s like to live in a town of about 350,000 that’s visited by 11 million tourists every year.)

That means we went from a place where we were the only Americans in sight to a week where we couldn’t get away from them, no matter how badly we wanted to. (The wild-eyed woman in the lovely plaza-side restaurant in Florence, waving both of her arms over her head and shouting, "Hey, waiter, over here! over here!" made everyone want to hide, no matter what language they were speaking.)

Then the day after we got back, I, as my dad used to say, “went under the knife.” I’m doing great, but then everything looks pretty good when you’re still on Percocet.

There’s still a bit over a week before I’m due back at work, and I’m starting to sit down and sift through what has been an incredibly experience-rich sort-of-sabbatical. As you might guess, many of the following entries will probably reflect my five weeks away from daily schedules. (You may now take a moment to envy me.)

One generalization about all of the above — it’s a theme my wife often plays back to me, and one of the reasons I value her so much: we are incredibly privileged.

In this case, first, to have the time and money to bop off to Europe. And, second, to have the sort of healthcare coverage that lets me exchange aching, old parts for shiny new ones. 

Talk about an oxymoron, the surgeries I just had are officially called Minimally Invasive Total Knee Replacement. That sounds as if my doctor sawed of my legs, inserted new parts and put me back together again, and there was nothing to it. That’s a wow.