All God’s Chillen Got Blog.

Part of my job is to edit and upload real estate stories onto my company’s Web site, GlobeSt.com. As my boss is careful to put it, that is an “Internet-based news service” not a dotcom, but in any case as Midwest Bureau Chief, I handle commercial real estate stories from Chicago, Detroit, Denver and Philadelphia, which come to me by e-mail every day from correspondents in those places.

The other day I got a story from Denver with the pedestrian headline, “Grubb Sells Apartment,” Grubb (& Ellis) being the brokerage company that arranged the sale. Further reading revealed that some group had bought a property called the Cloud Nine Apartments and had plans for a condo conversion. I take my job as editor seriously — my goal is to improve the copy, make it a better read. So I re-titled this story:

Investors Buy Cloud Nine, Plan Condos.

Yep, that sounds like real estate development to me.

On Wednesday I bought a cane at my neighborhood drugstore, and am learning to use it. More exactly, I’m learning to use it to walk. This is an education in personal physics, since I’ve never been obliged to use a cane or crutches. The cane goes on the same side as the good foot. This is counterintuitive, but it’s remarkable how much stress that takes off the bad foot. When walking, you’re making an equilateral triangle at all times, with the good foot taking the brunt of the weight in the center of the formation.

Gives me a new appreciation for that absurd euphemism “differently-abled.” Because of a temporary minor disability, I have a cane. That makes me able to wave it in people’s faces now, if they are half my age (20 or younger) and annoy me. I’m even able to give ’em a good whack if it comes to that. Now that’s ability.