Spilt Cream and Other Misadventures

Over the holidays I spent some time with my parents. While I was staying there, they were also looking after Gravey, my brother's dog. Gravey is a bulldog and a very nice animal. She views all people with huge amounts of enthusiasm (with the possible exception of my father when he wants to take her for a walk in the early mornings). She's also 30 pounds of solid muscle at about knee height.

This became a problem one day; I was walking across the kitchen, looking at the bowl of cream in my hands, and never saw the dog. I tripped over her and came down hard on the kitchen floor. I wasn't hurt, but I was slightly stunned. My first thought, with perfect clarity, was "Oh hell, the cream."

It was a few minutes before I was really to rights, and by the time I was, the dog had retreated to her bed in the living room. While she wasn't physically damaged, she clearly felt that the kitchen was not a safe place to be. We made a fuss over her to try reassure her, but my parents said that ever after Gravey viewed that spot of the kitchen with deep suspicion as a place where people were likely to trip over her without warning.

Since this was the first time I'd fallen over since I was in high school, I figured I probably wasn't due for any more accidents for at least another few years.

Earlier this week, though, I was hurrying to the train station to catch the train in to San Francisco. I was all dressed up for a big meeting at work, but had tennis shoes on with my dress shoes in a bag. The pavement is very uneven because it's old and tree roots have pushed it up. I caught my foot on an upraised piece of pavement and down I went.

This time I was a little more badly damaged. My knee still stiffens up if I sit too long, and people keep looking at my hand and saying "My god, what did you do to it?" (it looks like I rubbed it vigorously on a cheese grater).

Fortunately, the people I met with that day were very tactful and didn't ask too much about what happened to me. I also managed to avoid bleeding over anything. So it could have been a lot worse.

I am hoping, though, that is not the start of a trend; neither my skin nor my clothes are likely to be able to take much more of it.

Comments

[Alia]

Ouch! Maybe you should start wearing rollerblading safety gear for your morning commute! At least until your hand heals. Bummer. :-(