Tag: humor

One Week In

Well it’s been one full week here and adjusting to life in the Pacific Northwest. There have been a lot of adjusting for all of us. The dogs are trying to figure out what is going on, from one home totally chaotic at the end to no home staying a pet spa during the day and sleeping in hotels before getting on the road, to a three day road trip, sleeping in better hotels. Walks consisted of rest stop strolls along a busy highway. Now they have been thrown into apartment living, with people and dogs always close by and walks are done always on the leash, sidewalks and groomed landscaping. So far no place to get off leash and run until totally spent.

I’m going from a home I didn’t like but knew every corner to homeless spending time driving around trying to get everything wrapped up before a long tiresome three day road trip to coming to rest more than eighteen hundred miles away from the city and state where I lived my whole life. Apartment living here means no real privacy because of the climate, there is no air conditioning so everyone has their windows and doors open. I got to listen to a fierce argument between the couple in the next building at eleven o’clock the other night. The downside to hearing the fight was that the couple fought in their native tongue and I didn’t understand a word. How am I supposed to eavesdrop when I don’t understand a thing said?

Poor Mitch, he probably has the hardest adjustment of all of us. He’s been out here displaced since mid-May and has had to find a place to live that would eventually house all of us. He had to find where to shop, where to get gas and how to get back and forth to work and home all by himself. We have one couple living here that have been good friends for a long time, Mitch works with the wife and I worked with the husband, that live here and have been so helpful for him, but it is still a huge adjustment.

Now I come crashing back into his life bringing all of my chaos and lack of organization. He has had almost three months of orderly boring routines and all of a sudden there are messes in every room in our two bedroom apartment. Even though we still have no furniture or most of our personal possessions, which it seems takes longer to travel from Missouri to Washington than a 1995 station wagon with two dogs, I have managed to upend every room. I can make more and bigger messes than the best, I am quite the pro, so you can imagine adjusting to me again is taking its’ toll on Mitch.

The biggest adjustment overall is that now we are retraining the dogs to be better leash walkers. With all of the people and dogs squished into such close quarters we constantly run into other renters and their dogs. Charlie and Orso have not done well in the past with other dogs walking in their path. We always found an escape there and here there isn’t an escape. We have not been consistent with leash training and other dogs in the past and now we’re paying for it. Oh I forgot to mention the bicycles, there are bicycle riders everywhere. It’s very popular here and that’s another problem for the dogs. They lunge and try to charge the riders. Bad, bad, bad. I am trying to redirect their attention to me when we walk by carrying dog treats and feeding them to the dogs as bikes, walkers, runners or dogs are around. Of course after one week I can’t tell if it is working or not. I think that Orso has gained five pounds though.

I have decided that I want to move to a house that is secluded without so many people around. Now I’m looking online for houses that are a ways out, maybe in the booger woods and who knows maybe I will find one before our furniture gets here.

On the Road – Day Two

It felt so wonderful waking up in a soft king size bed with clean sheets. Clean sheets and a super soft pillow, in a nice cool air conditioned room, life doesn’t get much better than this. That was my first thought, my second thought was it’s time to feed the dogs and take them for a walk after I got a big wet nose in my face. Even on the road, nothing changes.

We made it to Gillette, Wyoming without any more incidents. I took the first exit that had hotels listed on the lodging sign options. I found a Holiday Inn and pulled into the parking lot. Wonders of wonders they had a room available and they allowed dogs, double bonus! I didn’t care that the only room available was a king suite, I didn’t care that there was a pet fee and I didn’t care that it was a lot more than I usually paid for a room. I was tired and I wanted to sleep in a clean soft bed. Even better there must have been a state police convention in town, because we counted nine state police cars in the parking lot. The state police cars outnumbered the motorcycles in the parking lot. We never felt safer than we did that night.

After breakfast, we loaded up and hit the road, there were still more than a thousand miles to go. Monday, well west of Sturgis, traffic on the highway was minimal, the occasional semi and pickup truck, but for the most part we were alone on the highway. Thankfully most of day went without incident and we made good time. By midafternoon we were almost through Montana and decided on Coeur d’Alene, Idaho as a stopping point. As we got closer to Idaho, road construction slowed us down to about thirty five miles an hour. We came up to a point where the road narrowed to one lane and as I headed in a pair of motorcycles came shooting up from behind us trying to cut us off and get ahead of us. One motorcycle cut off my friend but couldn’t get past me so he ended up sandwiched in between us with his friend behind the truck.

All the way through South Dakota and all of the motorcycles neither one of the dogs made a peep, but after this jerk came barreling up and almost landed in my back seat, Charlie went crazy growling and barking hitting the back window in an effort to eat him. I thought if I could go the rest of my life and never see another motorcycle I would be just thrilled. Then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that he was even dumber than I originally thought. This jerk stood up and started to perform acrobatics on the bike. He stood on one peg then changed to the other peg, all this on an uneven surface sandwiched between a pickup truck and a station wagon both from Missouri and both driven by two women who were willing to run over him and keep going. What a dumb ass.

We finally lost him and his friend after we got into Idaho, and found a Best Western in Coeur d’Alene that allowed dogs, clean sheets and a soft pillow ahead. Oh, and a bottle of wine too.

Selling the House

I am learning so many things about selling a home, most of which I wish I didn’t have to learn. I don’t care if I have 80 amp service or 100 amp service. I only care that when I flip the switch the lights come on and when I push the “on” button on the remote the television turns on. I don’t care that the furnace is older than dirt, I am just really very happy that when it gets cold outside I can turn up the thermostat and voila! we have heat! I have a slow running drain in the bathroom, my sink, more than likely from hair, soap and make up. I know it and have been putting just about very chemical and/or home remedies and nothing works. It was just a bit humiliating to see a color photo on the buyers’ inspection report showing my slow draining sink. I thought great now the world knows I have a giant hair clog.

All of the steps that a seller goes through to get their house sold is mind boggling. I understand the buyers want to get the most for their money and the inspectors are there to make sure that a buyer doesn’t get ripped off, but some of the stuff on the report is nitpicky at best. I mean anyone looking at our house would know that there are going to be things that are not the latest and greatest. The original structure was built in 1928 what do they expect?

One of the things on the list that the buyers want corrected is that I have any tree limbs close to power lines cut back. I haven’t gotten any of the tree trimmers I have called to come out and even look at the house and property. The minute I mention power lines, they all say, “Nope don’t do that. Call the power company and have them come out.” Great, the power company doesn’t care about me.

I was telling my coworkers about the tree limbs and said in passing that I would have to cut any limbs I find myself. One of my coworkers suggested that I wear rubber gloves and maybe I wouldn’t get electrocuted. Another coworker said that I should take off all of my jewelry so I wouldn’t get electrocuted. I said I should put on all of my jewelry, wear rubber gloves, climb up on top of the camper shell of the truck with my Little Giant aluminum ladder with a really long limb cutter and cut back any limbs. I would have on rubber gloves and be wearing sneakers. What could possibly go wrong?

A third coworker was actually concerned for me and said the company I work for should pay someone to trim back any limbs so I wouldn’t get electrocuted. I think they were going to take up a collection, but I’m not so sure what the money was for. I think some were putting money in the pot for flowers for the funeral, you know just in case.

It Just Keeps Getting Better and Better

With the station wagon out of commission, it has been a week of no dog mobile so for each showing I put the leashes on the dogs and headed out for a really long walk. Tuesday we had two showings at the same time. I hoped I would come home to a house with no broken furniture. Luckily Tuesday was a bit cooler with cloudy skies and a chance of rain. As we headed out the door it started to rain (as is always my luck) so I grabbed the umbrella. You have no idea how much fun it is to walk two bratty undisciplined dogs and carry an umbrella at the same time. It is almost better to just get as wet as them, at least I don’t get yanked around and poke myself with the umbrella as one dog goes one way and one goes the other way.

We walked down to the dam and about half way there the rain really started to come down. It poured on us as we walked the last quarter mile to the dam. People coming home from work looked at us like we were nuts, especially me for taking those poor “babies” out in the miserable conditions. Yeah right. If they would have accepted the crates a little better then they would have stayed dry and I could have jumped in the truck and headed out to let potential buyers poke through my closets and drawers.

We sat under the canopy of the shelter house at the dam and watched the rain come down even harder. It looked like we would be sitting there for a while. At least it wasn’t ninety five degrees with the humidity in the “rain forest” zone; though it was raining like we were in the rain forest. After about thirty minutes the rain let up and I figured that maybe the house would be empty by the time we got there so we started back. As we topped the hill overlooking the house I could still see cars in the driveway, so I walked the dogs right past the house and turned to the right to circle around the block hoping they were close to finishing up. The dogs looked up at me like I had lost my mind. Here we are at the driveway, what’s up? They wanted to go in and get dried off, they were not happy that we were still walking. I circled the block and came back up to the top of the hill and saw the cars still there, so I turned around and heading back the way we came. As we came back around the cars were gone; as I turned into the driveway, I could have sworn I heard a big sigh from Charlie.

Wednesday it turned back hot with a vengeance. Working outside repairing some wood rot damage was miserable. The temperatures were again in the high nineties with high humidity and no breeze. The air was stifling and still, the only plus was that my son and I were working in the shade. I must be getting old, because I do not handle the heat very well this year.

Thursday night strong storms were forecasted and this time the weather forecasters got it right. Mother Nature hit us hard, straight line winds from seventy to eight miles an hour uprooted a neighbor’s large tree. It fell down blocking the road. The storm also knocked out our power at two am. I know because it woke me up when all of a sudden it got very dark and quiet in the house. Super. I had an inspection on the house scheduled at two pm. I hoped the power would be back on when I came home at lunch to pick up the dogs and take them to doggie day care.

No such luck, power was still out all day Friday. Friday night trying to sleep with no ventilation was a challenge at best. Saturday I woke up to no power still and thought great, there goes the food in the freezer and fridge. I jumped in the truck, ran up to the store and picked up three bags of ice hoping to salvage a few things. I wandered from room to room trying to decide what to do. No power, I can’t get on the computer, I can’t do laundry, vacuuming is out and no point in going out to the garage to clean it out. With no power the garage doors weren’t going to open and I had no lights, it was just a big dark space waiting for me to trip over all of the tools and boxes laying out there in wait.

I pulled a chair under the window and just sat there trying to stay cool with the slight breeze. That was when I realized how dependent I am on electricity. What a wimp.

I Need a Vacation

Mitch is in Seattle and I’m here getting the house ready to sell so I can load up the dogs and head west. It has been a long arduous month getting rid of a lot of stuff and packing up boxes after boxes of more stuff. What I really should do is after everything is packed up, go back through each box and throw away half of what’s in each one.

Saturday a week ago the house went on the market and I had promised myself that when it happened, I would go get a massage. Lord knows my back and feet needed some tender touches, so I decided to add in a pedicure along with the massage. I locked the dogs in crates and headed out for a little pampering.

I had my first showing almost immediately after getting home from my little bit of self-indulgence. I had just enough time to feed the dogs and load them up in the station wagon to escape. Of course this weekend was oppressively hot with temperatures over ninety eight and it felt like it was over a hundred. The station wagon struggled to pump out even moderately cool air. Sunday morning I ran a quick errand and came home to find Orso not in his crate but waiting at the top of the basement stairs. Somehow he escaped. To say I was not pleased was an understatement.

Sunday afternoon I had three showings scheduled and again it was in the high nineties and felt much hotter. I loaded up the dogs and headed out. This time I planned a little better and loaded the car with water for the dogs and me, leashes and car charger for my cell phone, just in case. We weren’t gone thirty minutes when an afternoon thunderstorm popped up causing us to sit in a ballfield parking lot watching as lightning flashed across the sky. I hoped that the car was lightning proof.

Monday morning I took the dogs to the basement to crate them up and neither one was having any of that. Charlie turned around and went back upstairs refusing to come down and Orso would not get in the crate. Can you imagine trying to push one hundred pounds of dog in one direction while he wants to go a different direction? The dogs hated the crates and I knew they wouldn’t be happy but I didn’t think I would be faced with outright anarchy. The treats I threw in the crates went untouched as both dogs refused to be bribed. I had to go to work and couldn’t leave them running loose because I had a showing scheduled for the morning and three more that evening.

I had to put the leash on Charlie to walk him down the stairs and into the crate. I grabbed Orso’s collar and shoved him in, latched the door and just to be safe I took tie downs and wrapped them around his crate cinching them tight. I then turned both crates to face each other so they could see each other and hopefully be reassured they weren’t alone. I came home for lunch to check on them and take them for a walk. Orso had been working on destroying the crate, pulling at the wire door and bending in two of the wires toward him which could poke him and make him bleed. I searched for a pair of pliers to bend the wires back and Orso pulled the door back toward him getting his head stuck between the door and the crate. I had to get his head unstuck then pull the door back to the outside of the crate and keep a very unhappy dog in the crate at the same time. Not an easy feat. This time after I finally got him secured in the crate and the door locked I used the tie downs again then turned his crate up against the wall in an effort to keep Orso contained until I got home.

Monday evening I got home and thankfully both dogs were stilled in their crates, unhappy at me but still contained. I fed them and loaded them up for three showings, all back to back from five to five forty five. Another scorcher I drove the poor overworked station wagon down to the dam to let the dogs run a bit before sitting in the air conditioned car. When I finally was headed home I noticed a hot smell in the car. Thinking it might have been the car charger for my cell phone, I pulled it out hoping that was the cause. That’s when I noticed the smoke coming out of the vents, super. I looked at the front end of the car and saw smoke coming out of the hood. Getting better. I sped up hoping everyone was gone and I could get the car into the driveway before it died.

I backed in the driveway, got the dogs out and in the house then went back to the car to check on it. I turned it off and raised the hood. Smoke was coming out at the bottom of the air-conditioning compressor. Wonderful, the day just got even better. That was the only car I had to get the dogs chauffeured around. Where is Mitch when I need him?

At that moment all I wanted to do was walk back in the house open a bottle of wine and go sit in the corner and have a pity party. Why do I get all the fun stuff to do?

I Did it Again

I fell again today. This in itself is not new; I have a special knack at falling. I don’t know why I fall all the time, I just always seem to find the right circumstance and my body capitalizes on the moment and topples over. Granted there are a lot of times the dogs do all they can to help me crash and burn. They will give chase to an animal like a squirrel, deer or a yeti while I’m attached at the other end of the leash. Or they will hit me from behind while chasing each other around the yard. But a lot of my falls are all on me.

Mitch is not surprised anymore on my falls, what surprises him is the circumstance that causes the fall. One time was when I was carrying a four foot stepladder from one spot to another, earning me the nickname, “Dances with Ladders”. Another time it was a simple misstep to avoid a super cheap solar light causing me to fall down a flight of steps and crash into the house. I cannot count the number of ways that I’ve fallen lately; it seems that a day doesn’t go by that I haven’t fallen either over something or backwards or just walking across the floor. Maybe I’m top heavy like those high profile SUV’s that fall over in tight turns or on windy highways. Or maybe I’m just clumsy. As Mitch says, “It’s a gift.

This morning’s fall was once again a task that normal people would have no trouble accomplishing without even slowing them down. My only possible excuse is the weather and Casual Friday, and that’s iffy at best. The Midwest has been hammered with rain and storms for the last couple of weeks. Everything is water soaked and there is no real end in sight. Because it’s Casual Friday I had on jeans and deck shoes so that if the rain stops at lunch time I can come home and give the dogs a midday walk. I was on my way out the door to work, I had my purse, my lunch bag and my keys in my hand when I pulled the door closed. The door didn’t close all of the way so I turned around to pull it to the limit, just to make sure it was latched. Don’t want someone to come and steal the dogs, yeah right like that’s going to happen.

Anyway, when I turned back toward the door my deck shoes slipped on the slick wet wooden steps and I went down hard. The storm door whacked me on my right shoulder blade adding insult to injury. My left knee and shin were stinging, my right thigh burned and my right palm was on fire. I stood up and looked down at my dirty wet jeans and unlocked the door, evidently it was closed enough to catch the lock. I went in and took my shoes off, pulled off my wet dirty jeans and took off my top because it was also wet and dirty.

I checked my knee, shin and thigh. I am sporting a six inch thin bruise along my right thigh, my knee has the skin abraded off of it which will bruise up and I have a large knot and a bruise on my shin. I thought the whole purpose of deck shoes was that they helped a person maintain their balance on wet wood surfaces like decks and docks. Why is it only me that cannot do a simple task like turn around?

Oh What Fun!

Now that Mitch is in Seattle permanently and I am home working on getting the house ready to sell, our schedule and routine has changed dramatically. The dogs are still trying to adjust and figure out what is happening. Before I would get up at 2:15 in the morning, feed the dogs and take them outside for a quick outing in the yard, then take them for a walk after I took Mitch to work. Now I have the alarm set at 3:30 in the morning, a whole hour and fifteen minutes more sleep, yay. I get up feed the dogs but instead of going outside, I take them for a walk then come back eat breakfast and get ready for work. Not a big change, but enough to throw the dogs off.

Since it is just me now I come home at lunch and take them for another walk, then head back to work. After work I come home let them out for a quick pee, the entire time Orso is running around like a lunatic barking at me and letting the world know he is alive and feels great. Big Doofus. Then I take them back inside feed them, change my clothes and take them for a long walk to burn off some pent up energy. Of course now that Mitch is not here they devote all of their attention on me and what I’m doing. They follow me from room to room constantly under foot, making sure I don’t get away.

Last night after a long day, I didn’t get to bed until after 9pm and of course was over tired so I couldn’t fall asleep right away and then it was a restless sleep. Orso decided he wanted to sleep with me, something he doesn’t normally do, so I let him. About 1am I woke up to a chirping noise, great the battery on the smoke alarm was going dead. Why is it that the smoke alarm batteries always go dead in the middle of the night? Is it some conspiracy by the manufacturers to make us crazy? Do they plan it that way to force us to get out of bed and run around the house searching for the chirp just to make us change the batteries on a timely basis?

I just stuck a finger in my ear and pulled the covers over my head and hoped that I could fall back asleep for a couple more hours. Orso was not so inclined. The chirping was upsetting him. For all he knew it was some strange alien running around searching for dogs to eat. He started making weird noises and moved closer to me, causing me to pull my pillow farther away from him. That didn’t make him happy so he stood up walked over and stood on top of my head. I had to find the lamp turn it on and get Orso off the bed. He stood there looking at me like I was feeding him to sharks, but finally lay down. I turned the light off and tried to go back to sleep. Just about the time I dozed off Charlie decided he needed to get into bed and away from the chirping alien and Orso. That was about 2:15. One hour and fifteen minutes left to sleep that was all I could think about. How quickly could I get back to sleep, how much of the hour and fifteen minutes could I squeak in?

Evidently not much, because Orso was back panting in my face at 2:50 letting me know that the alien was stalking him and he wanted it to go away. This morning my day got to start at 2:50am. The world was working against me.

This is it!

Friday morning we got up around 4:30am normal for a day off. I know, normal? This was it, the big day. This was the day we load up the firebird with as much stuff as we could cram in, stuff that Mitch will need for the short term and head west. Mitch was to have all of his clothes washed and packed. But as is always the case, Mitch was behind. Thursday afternoon he was to pack and load the car. Didn’t happen. Friends and family realizing that Thursday was his last day here for real and not “just fooling” came by to say good bye. He spent a large part of his afternoon catching up and saying good bye to longtime friends, friends he grew up with, friends he made along the way.

Friday morning Mitch “The Snail” poked along, finishing up laundry, ironing and deciding what to take. He was able to fit two totes in the back seat of the car (with the seat back down). He filled the totes with of his uniforms. He filled one of our largest suitcases with street clothes; slacks, shirts, underwear and socks. I filled a milk crate with all of his vitamins, four bags of Milky Way candy bars and cappuccino mix. What is more balanced than vitamins, candy bars and cappuccino mix? Of course all of these were absolute essentials because everyone knows Seattle is some remote little dinky town without benefit of Walmart or a grocery store. Yes I know I was going overboard, but what else could I do, it’s my job to take care of him.

About 10:00am I could see the signs, Mitch was poking, the longer it took him to get loaded up, the longer he could forestall the inevitable. If I let him, he would stand in one spot and not move all day. Of course this was making me crazy. I had wanted to be on the road by about 8:00am, not that I wanted to be rid of him but this was also my vacation and I wanted to spend part of the trip sightseeing. Once again a case of the whirlwind crashing into the brick wall. I walked up to him and said something really hokey.

I put my hands on his arms and said, “The journey starts with a step.” Pretty lame, huh?

That’s when he looked at me and said, “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to go and leave you here with all of this.”

I told him that it would be fine and that this was going to be an adventure. This was something we’ve talked about doing, not Washington, per se, but going somewhere else. We just hadn’t pulled the trigger. Change is hard and taking that first step is the hardest. I guess fate decided we needed a nudge.

Time to Exhale

Now the panic sets in. So much to do, so little time. Isn’t that always the case? We found out in January that the airline Mitch works for was going to start vendoring out twenty eight stations across the country. At that time it wasn’t defined yet whether or not United was going to vendor out both the above the wing and the below the wing employees in all twenty eight stations. The plan was to seek outside company bids in each of the cities affected and pay people to come in, load and unload planes, work the ticket counter and gate for wages ranging from a third less to half of what the airline employees are currently making. Such “good” news right after Christmas was definitely not well received.

My first instinct at hearing the news was to go into survival mode, cancel the paper, cancel cable, sell almost everything we own and eat only every other day. After a couple of days I calmed down enough to realize that I might be over reacting just a bit, we could probably eat most every day. The waiting game started, which stations were for sure going to be vendored out, and was it going to be both upstairs and down or just one side? Rumors started flying, so we didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. Were the employees affected going to get any type of severance pay or was it going to be “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.”

Word came out in February that our station was going to be one of the twenty eight stations hit and it was going to be the ramp agents going away. The next step was the options selections. The airline was going to open up the unaffected stations to allow agents to transfer to granted they held enough seniority to move there. There was also the option to retire and take an enhanced severance pay, if the agent met a myriad of requirements, age, length of service, etc. If none of the above fit then there was always furlough with recall rights. Yeah right, first they’re told to hit the road and then they might get called back.

Finally April 10th the airline published the list of cities that were available for the agents to bid on to relocate to if that was their choice or severance or furlough. Those choices were required to be turned back in no later than April 14th. Then the airline promised to return the result of each agent’s choice on April 24th. We actually received our notice on Thursday the 23rd that Mitch will go to Seattle. He has to report on May 17th, not much time.

That was when I started “The Mitch List”, all the projects that I cannot physically do, like finish the trim work, hang the last pieces of sheetrock in the kitchen, install three sheets of plywood on the outside of the garage so I can have it sided to match the house. Then it’s all up to me to do the finish work in and around the house so I can get it on the market and sold soon.

Can you imagine what lies ahead? There is so much stuff to go through and get rid of, landscaping, and just the prettying up so it will look nice for potential buyers. I’m just really glad I have a well-stocked wine rack, because I’m going to need it.

The Whole Day – Kaput!

I had planned my whole day Easter Sunday, from the time I dropped Mitch off at work to dinner. I was going to take the dogs hiking just after sunrise, yard work in the afternoon and for dinner; I was going to grill a rack of lamb. I had been looking forward to my early morning hike all weekend. The weather forecast for Sunday was perfect, sunny, lows in the morning high forties with a high in the sixties. Perfect for an early morning hike, not too hot or too cold. Well as usual things didn’t go as planned.

I dropped Mitch off at work and drove home, pulling into the driveway. I got out of the car, let Orso out, he always rides along, headed to the house to get ready to go hiking. That’s when everything went horribly wrong. I’m not really sure exactly how it happened, but I know how it ended up.

Our house sits on the side of a hill with the garage above the house and concrete steps down to the house. There are two concrete retaining walls lining the steps growing taller as you walk down to the house. The two retaining walls end up about four and half feet high at the base with a three foot concrete walk from the door to the side of the house and winds around to the front of the house.

Orso was standing on the landing at the top of the steps waiting for me. I took a couple of steps toward him and for some reason I was going to bump a solar light that had a dragonfly on the top, one of those that turn different colors in the dark. Very pretty, super cheap, only cost me $3.97, also very fragile. I bought one a year ago and bumped one of the wings with a shovel and broke it right off. I knew that if I hit the light, I would probably break it, so I did the only logical thing I could do under the circumstances, I stepped around it. As I stepped around the solar light, I saw that my foot was going right for the Autumn Joy Sedum planted along the edge of the landing. I couldn’t step on the Sedum, that wouldn’t do at all, so I planted my right foot past it in the dirt below the Sedum and the solar light, completely throwing my whole body off balance. I tried to right myself with my left foot by stepping wide left and down two steps, bad idea.

That threw my balance and momentum to the left and since I was heading down at the same time, gravity and physics took over. I stepped down missing the next step hitting the step below it with my right foot and gaining speed scraped two fingers on my left hand on the top edge of the retaining wall, leaving skin behind. I twisted to the right a bit and swung my left foot forward still hoping for a recovery missed the next step and whacked my right forearm on the retaining wall. That’s when I spun around as I hit the bottom of the steps and slammed into the side of the house with my back.

I sat there at the base of the steps up against the house, trying really hard not to cry, assessing the damage. My right arm felt like it was on fire, I was pretty sure I was bleeding and hoped I hadn’t broken it. I drew in a couple of breaths to check for broken ribs. I didn’t think I had broken any but wasn’t sure if I had cracked or separated any. I moved around a bit to make sure I hadn’t broken anything else, like my back or hip. At least I didn’t hit my head this time.

I looked up at Orso who was still standing at the top of the landing watching me, not moving. He wanted no part of the carnage below. I called him down so that he could see I wasn’t dead. I very slowly twisted around and got up to a standing position quite surprised that I was still holding my keys. I went in the house to inspect the damage to my body.

Surprisingly, there was no blood, I was so sure that there would be bleeding and gushing wounds, but no just a big honkin bruise that was already forming on my forearm. I decided that I hadn’t broken any bones in my arm or any ribs, I just hurt like hell. Any movement was iffy and painful; there went the plans for the day. No hiking, no yard work, no fun.

On the bright side I saved the $3.97 dragonfly solar light.