Dragon Boat Bites Back

Recovering from a rather freak injury Sunday when P and I went to the Dragon Boat festival in Flushing Meadow Park. P got a hold of some chicken and rice (the Carribean kind, not Hainan ‘chicken rice’), and I was chomping down on the drumstick when part of the bone fractured and ended up embedded in the roof of my mouth. It took about half an hour to get the bleeding to stop, but P’s medical training came to the rescue.

It was pretty sore for the last couple of days, but it’s now starting to heal up. I have to eat soft foods for the moment — I tried to have some salad today, and you wouldn’t believe how painful ribs of lettuce can be when it hits the wound. Using a straw can be a bit of a problem, because in order to position the straw to not hit the injured area, it sometimes ends up squirting the liquid into my lungs. I’m seeing the dentist anyway this Saturday, so I’ll let him look at it. At least it’s not hurting too much anymore.

The Dragon Boating wasn’t that good this time either. I’ve never seen this happen before in competition, but the referees actually called a foul. Someone in the middle lane dropped their oar in the water. That immediately caused the boat to do a U-turn because of the uneven stroking. One of the refs raised a red flag, then turned their boat around to recover the oar so they could row back to shore.