I just reread my last blog about what a serene and reflective and luscious day I was having on Wednesday. Note to self: do not enter blogs about the day until the day is over. After that idyllic morning, here's what happened. I got up from the couch and swung my foot into the base of the coffee table, spraining the middle toe on my left foot, which bruised almost immediately, although in truth I might have had twenty toes throbbing for all the resonating pain I was experiencing. I hobbled to the computer to take my mind off it by doing a little work. Still in my robe, sitting there trying to figure out why iphoto kept seizing up, I was thinking that force quitting a program several times a day was probably not a good sign. Then the phone rang. My friend Lee informed me we were not shooting rehearsal that night, but only dress rehearsal thursday as the set was not yet ready. As we talked, the doorbell rang and Shadow morphed into Cujo. I hastily told Lee I'd be right back and dashed to see who was at the door. It was the locksmith trying to deliver a receipt and keys for a job he'd finished the day before. Shadow apparently did not remember the locksmith fondly. Grabbing Shadow by the collar I pulled her out the sliding door onto the deck where I could fasten her to a cable until the locksmith left. I did all this in bare feet, having learned nothing from the stubbed toe incident an hour earlier.
One step onto the deck and I slammed a huge sliver - sliver????- no, chunk of wood into the bottom of the same foot. Yowling in pain I grabbed the keys and receipt from the locksmith, while yelling: Sorry! Thanks! and hobbled to the computer room, hung up on Lee and just rocked and whimpered for a minute. Then I called my neighbor Bridget and asked if she'd remove a splinter for me. I put on some jeans and a tee shirt and got myself next door. Everything at this point was moving in slow motion because all I wanted in the world was for Bridget to pull that tree trunk out of the sole of my foot. She, of course, was formulating a plan as to how to do this, recalling how her father would run through the house yelling "surgery!" when he had to remove a splinter from her when she was a child. I had carried over my faithful Uncle Bill's brand tweasers but Bridget didn't even acknowledge them. She got out the mega tweesers that I'm quite sure would not even be called "tweasers" if they were hanging out in a bar for implements of a surgical nature. They'd probably be called BubbaBoyPointyHead. They looked about 8 inches long which is never comforting when an implement is metal and being directed towards an injured part of one's anatomy. But BubbaBoyPointyHead wasn't going anywhere without DaSlicer. Bridget's husband Jake got home just in time to assist. Bridget had cleared with me the necessity of slicing the skin along the top of the sliver before trying to remove it as it was "so big" that she felt it couldn't just be pulled out without a larger opening to exit. Jake found some sort of razor blade in the garage which he kept assuring us was clean and only needed to be sterilized. Bridget held a flame to it and then very neatly made the cut (her Dad would be very proud I'm sure) and after a couple of grabs got a good grip on the tree, er splinter, and pulled it out. She cleaned it up with an alcohol wipe, very thoroughly and I told her she was a really good Mom and I had needed one that day. I thanked her and went home, much relieved. As I left, Bridget was thinking of calling her Dad. I guess the memories of "surgery" were making her a little verklempt.
I went home and called Lee to tell him all my screaming was not for anything life threatening. As we laughed about my foibles he said "did both injuries happen to the same foot?" "Yeah," said I, then "Damn! I've just set the good foot down in some fresh cat vomit." Laughter is the best medicine, right? Even when you're wiping cat vomit off your "good" foot?
There was a tiny speck left under the skin, but I hoped it was nothing or would just fade away or work its way out, if it was a bit of wood. It has not so far done that. And I haven't been for a walk since. When I get up in the a.m. it seems not to hurt. Until I walk around a bit. It's beginning to feel larger. I'm not sure what that means except that I am going to call the doc in the a.m. and see if I can get in and have the speck removed. I'm sick of not walking Shadow. I miss it! I am not looking forward to the doc reopening this wound and digging around in there but it's got to be done, I guess.
May I not have another "I Love Lucy" or Keystone Cops day for a really really long time! May you not, either!
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