Yesterday my bumbling ways continued. I was helping my daughter by carrying a cake that she had baked out to her car. She had made it to serve to her Sunday school class. I had done a sweep of the walk and the driveway earlier, but the snow had continued to fall . There was a light skiff of snow covering the walk.
I came to an area of the path that sloped downward slightly and.... my feet are not as sure footed as a mountain goat and my one foot slipped.
The first part of the fall moved in rapidity. One foot and leg kicked up high enough to impress a New York Rockette. I felt myself falling and my buttocks were the first to hit the snow covered grass beside the stone walkway. The fall jammed my elbow and scraped it.
Now my fall goes into slow motion as the reality sets in. "The cake!" In my mind's eye, I can see this chocolate cake tumbling, crumbled and dark mingling with the white snow.
I do my best to hold onto the cake plate and the aluminum dome that covered it. I rolled over toward the cake hand side trying maintain control of my daughter's precious burden. I watch horrified, as it slips from my fingers.
My hand is already in the snow and the plate becomes a toboggan. It slides across the snow. The one edge begins to form a wake of snow. It slows the cake and partially buries the aluminum cover. I am thinking, "The cake is going to slide off the plate!" or "The cake will overturn!" I think the fact that saved the cake was my hand was in the snow and it slid out supported by the snow and didn't actually fall.
Neither happened. I retrieved the cake and placed it in my daughter's vehicle.
Brushing the snow off of myself, I headed back into the house to get warm. I didn't go to church. I stayed at home nursing my bruised ego and my bruised fanny.
The fall scraped and jammed my elbow, bruised my tail bone, jammed my shoulder, and jarred my arthritic neck. I am sore today and my tailbone reminds me to wear ribbed boots when I go outside even for a few seconds.
Now I can't go to the hospital for at least a year. One of the questions they will ask, "Have you fallen in the past year?" If I answer "Yes." they will put me on a fall watch. I would have to wear those red slippers and an extra wrist band that will make me a marked man. I don't want to lie, but I may be forced to do so should I be admitted.
No rhymes today, only the story of "The Fall of Kind Man."