Poor Ellen (With the Sound of the World's Tiniest Violin Playing Sad Music)

Ribs Seasoned With A Touch of Teeter-Totter: A couple of people have asked how my ribs are holding up. They're sore. My torso has a bruise and a scrape. I'm waiting to see whether it turns that really nauseating yellow-blue-blackish color, but not so far. It seems to hurt more each day rather than less, although I'm reluctant to spend the time & $ to go see a doctor because, the last time they said i might have a cracked rib, it was "bummer. Hope you feel better soon." There's nothing they can do for it.

It's not as though I'm disabled. Still, I was joking earlier about it hurting only when I breathe, but today that's true & it's a bit exhausting, just always in my psychic peripheral vision.

But HEY! maybe I'm another legend in the making! I still find it funny that Rem thought it was exciting. Wonder what else I can come up with on course to give him an energy burst? I'll try to think of something a little less painful--

Really Know How To Hurt A Gal-- I mentioned that I really messed myself up over the weekend. Understand that mentally I'm doing fine, so this is all sort of funny in a pathetic kind of way. Not only the teeter thing-- Saturday morning, I had finished unloading the car, setting up the chairs and dog crates, and assembled and unfolded my canopy. The only thing left was to raise the canopy to its full height. I grabbed one leg, started to lift, and my upper back snapped into spasm. I was able to just lie down and work very hard on relaxing, then do a little bit of stretching, to keep it from going into full agonizing knots. It's been a very long time since this has happened. Years, maybe? Fortunately I also had some muscle relaxants with me (because of my leg muscles from my sciatic nerve problems--are you crying yet?). Today's the first day that the pain back there seems to be mostly gone. Don't know what the precipitating factor was. Maybe the cold--?

Then when I was trying to walk the dogs to the exercise yard, I somehow got tika's leash wound around my finger right before she gave a big yank--that remains slightly swollen, stiff, and sore even today.

It was so dang cold in the morning (where the frost-covered grass crunches under your feet and the dog water bowls have frozen overnight--that kind of cold) that I couldn't really feel anything while I was playing warm-up tug-o-war with Tika and then with Jake. In Tika's case, I got to the ring with her and discovered I had blood all over my thumb from where a tooth had apparently confused it with a dog toy; in Jake's case, I got to the ring and discovered I had blood dripping from my pointer finger where a tooth etc. etc. The next day I made it 3 fingers in a row when I scraped the skin off the knuckle of the middle finger on the same hand.

PLUS I broke 3 fingernails somewhere along the way. Do you feel sorry for me yet?

I could've stayed home and trimmed the roses--no, wait, that *always* scars me traumatically. I'll take my chances with the vicious beasts.

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