Sandy and I attended The Bionic Ball on Friday evening. This is an annual event held by my Orthopedic surgeon’s clinic, celebrating all of the people who had a total joint replacement in the past year. Not everyone gets an invitation–they have a drawing–so we were lucky enough to get picked. It was held at The Club at Strawberry Creek, a really nice venue on a golf course just West of I-94 just off of Highway 50 in Kenosha. We had previously attended a wedding there before.

It was a pretty nice evening of food, drink, and dancing–though Sandy and I skipped the dancing part. It was interesting to meeting many other people who had joints replaced and to hear their experiences. There were round tables setup with 8 people per table. Sandy and I came a little early, so we chose an empty table and sat down by ourselves. The place soon filled up though, and our table consisted of two people with knee replacements (including me), a guy who had both hips replaced, and another guy who had one shoulder replaced and is going to have the other should replaced in a couple weeks. And all of us brought a date–my wife, the other knee’s wife, one-shoulder’s daughter, and two-hips’ date. Two-hips is a chef who teaches classes. Here’s his website: Intorno Alla Tavola. The other knee replacement is retired, and one-shoulder is a carpenter.

Everyone else provided some entertaining conversation throughout the evening, including Sandy. I was pretty quiet, as usual. The food was very good–pasta, chicken, vegetables and potatoes, including drinks and desserts. The entertainment was a jazz band, and they were very good as well.

The one thing I found most fascinating about the evening was how everyone had a cell phone and captures their life experiences on them and is ready to share them at will. “Back in the day” a guy would pull out his wallet and take out the photos of his kids or family and show them off. These days, people just bring up the photos on their cell phone and pass the phone around the table for everyone to see. The best deer that “one-shoulder” shot while hunting, and the “even better” one that got away and has never been seen again… The hunting hides he’s built, etc. He even asked how long my scar was from my knee replacement and Sandy ask me if I had those photos on my phone, so I pulled up the “Jim’s Total Knee Replacement” photo album and handed it to him, explaining that my scar is almost completely gone now. That’s all pretty natural for everyone these days, especially with me being in I.T., but I don’t get out much, so I found it interesting to note.

The other “one-knee” at our table sat next to me, but didn’t talk much. He and his wife were older than the rest of us and didn’t talk much. He seemed like he was doing fine with his new knee though.