Daily Diatribes

Today has been rather uneventful; at least it was until I went outside to wait for the goddess to get off the bus.  I cleaned my family room, played a lot of Pogo, and blogged quite a bit.  I folded some laundry and held multiple phone conversations.  Life was good until I stepped outdoors.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Alabama.  I stepped outside and took a deep breath, filling my lungs with cool winter air.  I shielded my eyes from the bright sun and looked around.  Down at the stop sign, Ms. June sat in her old Buick, also waiting for the bus; she picks up her granddaughter every day.  Across the street, I could see a young moppet picking her way down the rock steps in front of the house, preparing to walk to the bus stop to meet her older sisters as they came off the bus.  Her mother  followed behind.  I waved to them both.

As they came down the steps, she called hello to me and we exchanged pleasantries.  I had loaned her an onion last night, and she called her thanks to me, telling me there was more than enough for the dish she prepared.  I called back that I was glad to be of assistance.  Then she asked the fateful question, the one that would set me on a path of destruction.  “Does the goddess know what she wants for her birthday?” she called to me.

This is a hard question to answer.  the goddess wants everything for her birthday.  This is her right as an almost six year old.  But since her birthday comes so soon after Christmas, Anna does not need anything.  So when I am asked, I have to give it careful consideration.  So when she asked me, my mind went into careful consideration mode, never a safe thing for me. Because I am incapable of carefully considering and performing any other sort of function at the same time.

“Well, she really doesn’t need anything,” I answered.  “Just come to the party; she’ll never know.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” she answered.  “I know it’s hard to have a party right after Christmas, but I have to get her something.”

My neighbor is a lovely woman.  She holds a pHD in something I can’t pronounce.  She is slender and has a flat stomach.  She has three beautiful girls who excel at everything and will probably be prime ministers one day.  In short, she is the opposite of me.  I am always intimidated by skinny, smart women; it doesn’t seem fair that some people get to be both. 

So there I was, on the front porch, unwashed, unbrushed, dressed in nasty, housecleaning clothes, but I started down the steps toward her, the fateful steps that would ruin my lovely afternoon.  Down one step, then two, and I believe I was saying something along the lines of “Anna really likes animals,” when I missed the last two steps and plunged down into the lawn, arms flailing.

I can only imagine how it must have looked; one minute I was on my feet, the next minute, I was face first in the lawn, spitting out mouthfuls of zoysia and bleeding.  I scraped a bunch of skin off of my feet, but that was the worst of it.  I popped up immediately with my patented jack in the box maneuver. 

“Oh MY GOD, are you ok?” she was hollering, obviously having never seen a grown woman throw herself down the stairs before.  

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I answered cheerfully, striding down the hill toward her, ignoring the throbbing pains in my feet.  “Happens all the time!”  We finished our conversation, the bus came and I slunk carefully into the house to assess the damage.  Imagine my horror when I discovered the contusions were not the worst of it.

You see, I am a woman of a certain age, and a woman who has birthed multiple children, although thankfully not all at once.  And once a woman reaches a certain age and has whelped a couple of pups, she begins to lose some muscle tone in certain nether regions.  Now I can accept a little leakage when I cough or sneeze; most women have that.  But when I fell today, I evidently lost quite a bit of control!!  I HATE MY BODY!!!  I’m gonna have to start wearing Depends because I fall ALL THE TIME!!  I can’t fall down the stairs at the Galleria and wet my pants in the process!!!  Falling is humiliating enough; do we really need to add golden showers to the show???

So this concludes the entertainment portion of today’s show.  Don’t miss tomorrow’s episode where I try to walk and talk at the same time without breaking any bones!