Gathering Goat Eggs

A red state Catholic relocates blue and writes home about it.... politics, economics, music, culture, religion, and unfocused griping.

No goats were harmed in the writing of this blog. That could change if I don't start getting a few more hits, though.
Legging It

I had just left the bank yesterday afternoon, and was walking back to my car across the parking lot, when I was struck by a car. The car hit me in the left side, just below the knee, whereupon I was thrown in the air and landed on my left arm. Luckily I didn't hit my head, lose consciousness, hurt my back or neck, or any of those other traumas that get you confined to a hospital overnight. I didn't even break anything, although the ligaments in my left knee now have the approximate tensile strength of overcooked linguini and I'm in a thigh-to-calf immobilizer splint for at least a week. What is actually more of a bummer is my left wrist, which is wrapped so tightly I can't play the harp, and it would probably hurt if I tried anyway.

So here I am two days before Christmas, with a filthy house and an unstocked refrigerator, and my husband's mother is coming for Christmas dinner. What's funny is that, if I hadn't hurt myself I'd be in an utter tizzy right now. I'd probably had gotten up early to be at the grocery store as soon as it opened so I could snag the best rib roast from the butcher, after which I'd haul heiney all over town finishing my shopping, come home and spend several hours scrubbing the kitchen floor and destroying the elaborate insect ecosystems that occupy all my dormer windows and ceiling corners, and generally making myself miserable. Now Rachel the trainee driver is going to ferry me to the grocery sometime later this afternoon, I'm not going to fuss about cleaning the house, and if we get a tough piece of beef for Christmas dinner I probably won't even notice.

This has nothing to do with intimations of mortality or having one's priorities set in order, although I will admit there were about five seconds when I was lying on the asphalt staring at a tire that was still rolling towards me that I suspected it might be all up. No, its just that I am forced to admit there's nothing I can do about this, and so am allowing myself to quit being such a fussbudget. So apparently the only way to turn Kathy away from Martha towards Mary is to run over her with a car. Well, I always have been kind of pigheaded.

Brenda (www):
YIKES! What an appalling Advent event! Many hugs from your friends at the Crazy Stable. Here we have been legging it all over town on foot, ferry, bike, and rollerblades (well, not us personally for those last 2) without subways or buses, and you are felled by an evil car in a parking lot! May your subsequent legal maneuverings be productive; just remember what the angels said in the sky over Bethlehem: "No justice, no peace!" (I think it was more of a prediction than a protest, however.) May your Christmas be the authentic kind--which is to say, messy, unfinished, impromptu and dictated by strange events beyond your control, just like the first one--and may your wrist be harp-worthy soon. Best wishes to the various learning drivers, musicians, photographers, and Wastrels among the goat eggs!
12.23.2005 11:45am
Scott Carson (mail) (www):
Wow, that's pretty scary. I'm glad to hear you're all right. I hope your first words to that crazy driver were something along the lines of "My husband's a lawyer."

Get well soon!
12.23.2005 9:28pm