Why I'm Sporting a Shiner...And Alla answers

The Porch...before the glider!

This is a story about clumsy. Clumsy is as clumsy does. And it's also a story about Good Sister. You all remember my wonderful Good Sister, my sister of the heart, not sister of the blood? She of Quincey fame (a lady Medical Examiner) and morgue intrigue? Well, I am happy to say that she is back on the dating scene and seems completely over the lying miserable cad who captured her heart then stomped all over it with his big hobnail boots...no wait, he wore Harris Tweed jackets and blue jeans, so perhaps they were just boots, no hobnails...the lying dog (sorry to dogdom) who claimed to be single but was NOT. Makes me grit my teeth and ball my fists just to think of it. (And go in search of my gun for crying out loud!) Cad was not my word of choice, but my granddaughter reads this blog...have to use some decorum.

So anyway, once I convinced Good Sister to stand on her back porch and scream "NEXT" and many nights on the phone listening while she cried, suddenly one day she didn't cry. She talked about going out. And gave me the gentleman's name and car description and tag number. Okay, you gotta know that women who have anything to do with law enforcement know what type of world we live in and that we trust few...so if I don't hear from her I know whose car she left in complete with tag and color and car body condition...and we have a picture of said date in my data base...it's the way we roll. So anyway, just as I keep up with Good Sister's social life, she keeps up with my physical one.

So she calls me on Thursday night to tell me that she is going out, who with, and where...I ask about the two kittens she got from me (named Tweedledee and Tweedledum) and she says they are doing fine and she is making introductions to Shadow and Butch (her two dogs). She asks me what I have been up to. Since I am a mass of bruises and pain, I hesitate. She hears the hesitation in my voice.

"What have you done?" she asks. "I don't want to tell you, you'll fuss, " say I. I can see her eyes narrowing, through the phone. "Don't make me come over there, because I will, you know!" Yes, I know. I laugh nervously. "Well, I sort of...okay okay...I fell. I fell really hard."
"You FELL? Where? Did you go to the hospital?" So I began to explain...

I can't leave anything alone. I am never happy with the arrangement of a room or a porch or even a yard. I rearrange furniture and plants and decorations. Mac says it's a good thing he's not blind, he'd never know where to find his chair. He pities Mindy Lou (the blind dog) although she adapts quite well to my madness. The glider that was under the big Sweet Gum tree with several chairs had caught my eye. Mac was cutting grass and I took it in my head to move the glider onto the front porch. It would be much more convenient for sitting. So I went down and took the big thing apart and moved it piece by heavy piece to the front porch. I took the small table and two yard chairs down to replace the glider. Mac wasn't amazed that I had managed to do this while he was cutting grass. He wasn't even surprised. He just wondered what had taken me so long to get a wild *ss idea about the accoutrement's of the front porch.

So Wednesday morning he tells me that he wants to go to Bethune (a small town in Kershaw County near us) to get a replacement bowl for the birdbath. I'm chattering away, grabbing my purse and happy to be going to the huge concrete yard where I can browse and buy, walk out the front door when suddenly I feel myself falling and sliding and head bouncing off wood. Mac is suddenly next to me, helping me to turn over and I see his face and it is white. He is looking at my head. "Oh my GOD," he says, " are you alright? Your head has a goose egg the size of Cleveland on it!" I begin to tick off the signs of concussion as he helps me to my feet...I didn't lose consciousness, I am not nauseous...I rush into the guest bath and look into the mirror...pupils are normal...but MY GOD! The bulge on my head gives me pause. And terror. I quick like a bunny (been waiting a long time to use that term) hurry to the kitchen and grab my ankle wrap from the freezer...and apply it to my head! Mac is behind me as though he is going to catch me in case I fall. Where was he ten minutes ago I want to ask...testily! But I don't. He's worried enough as it is.

"So, " I am telling GS, "I tripped on the footing of the glider...I had just earlier decided I needed to move it down further away from the front door but hadn't done it yet. I caught my foot and the only thing that saved me from sliding on down the steps was the gate at the end of the porch. My head broke the slide." I laughed. She didn't. "Did you go to the hospital?" I heard her demanding to hear a yes to her answer, but she didn't get it. "The darnedest thing, " I began and she interrupted..."DID YOU GO TO THE HOSPITAL?"

"Ummm...well, no...not really. You see when I kept peeping under the ice wrap I could see the bulge going down and then Marty Horton showed up out of the blue!" (Marty is a Paramedic I had once worked with , one I hadn't seen in two years...now go figure that one out!) "So I say to Marty, boy am I glad to see you! I told Marty what had happened and he looked at the knot on my head, the bruises on my shoulder, the scrape on my knee shined a light in my eyes and pronounced me capable of going and sitting down without fear of dying right away. But he told me if anything changed, head ache or nausea , loss of consciousness...get to the ER immediately...okay?"

She allowed as to how since it had happened the day before and I was still as sassy as ever, she supposed it was okay. "But, there is this...today I have a black eye, " I told her.
You know, I could hear her pulling keys out of her purse, walking down steps, car door opening...and I knew she had to see this one for herself! God may have sent me Marty, but nothing takes the place of a sister.

Me...sporting my shiner...sans makeup!














And an addendum to this post, from my new dear friend Alla, I just wanted to share it with you all!

Dear Sandi,when I saw "Hello, Alla" in your blog, I was amazed ,and this page appeared the whole week ago,the time flies, I`ve just listened to the music in your blog. And I was reading this story in tears, I remember your mother and her kindness to me, I was so sorry when she fell ill and when Toni informed me of her death on 28.06.01.I can`t stop crying even now.

Yes, I am reading your book every evening, I am finding a lot of interesting and wise thoughts and ideas about life in them.Oh, I am saying Thank you very much for the dedication of this page to me!

And the story about school room desks seems unreal but the idea is great, and the teacher is a genius .The WW2 in my country is called The Great Patriotic War, 20 million people were killed, and children must know who paid their young lives for the possibility for the children of future generations to take their seats at the school desks.You did the right thing of passing this story on.

Yes, blog is a good idea when you have what to say to other people.I`ll think about it.

I am still very awkward at the computer. I hope I`ll learn soon.

By the way, it was Tony who we began to communicate with, then she shared my letters she found funny with your mother, I called her Grace. She had such an ideal, beautiful handwriting.

I`ll tell you why the title "the crazy cat lady" appeals to me so much, that`s because I had a cat, his name was Kuzma( the stress on the last letter) and he lived 19 years with us then he died in my hands, it was a real grief. I said I would never ever keep any animals in my home, but my son brought two rats ,bought them in a pet-shop. Now feeding them.They would be absolutely nice if not their ugly tails.

Love

Alla