A Topsy-turvy Day

Rebecca and I were excited!  We were going to a book signing by Heidi Swanson,  the author of my second favorite cooking blog, 101 Cookbooks.  My first favorite, of course, is the blog of Rebecca Herself, found here.  The signing was in the evening, so I thought I would clean the house and vacuum in the morning.  I did the downstairs, left the vacuum cleaner at the bottom of the stairs – semi on the bottom step, as I took the carpet swoosher section upstairs.  Coming down, the cleaner on the bottom step made a sort of optical illusion.  (I comfort myself that this was true, and that I am not losing my mind.)  I thought the second step was the bottom one, and consequently launched myself into space.  As I hurtled across my entry hall towards my ceramic umbrella stand, I had visions of the terrible injuries I was going to do myself when I crashed into it.  It is astonishing how long it can seem to take to come to a landing, and how much one can envision in those fractions of a second.  When I landed just short of the umbrella stand, my stupid first thought was – Oh, no!  If I have injured myself, I will miss work.  Actually, I am usually delighted whenever I feel sufficiently under the weather to call in sick.  That is, at least as long as I don’t feel too bad to read or knit.  I sat up, assessed myself, and found that I was intact, except for a scraped ankle, but was totally shattered – all weak and aquiver.  I staggered to the kitchen, poured myself a cup of tea, and retired to my bed to drink the tea and then close my eyes until had I recovered somewhat. 

I was fully myself by the time Becca and I left for our adventure – where we were promised bubbly and treats, as well as book autographs. But, quelle horreur - as we approached the area of town where the event was – near the sports arena, we saw hundreds of folks heading the same way. Folks with green hair, green faces, and if not those, at least green jackets.  Aaak! A sporting event right near out book signing.  We knew that we were going to have to park faaaaaaar away.  But we are hearty, and didn’t really mind as the evening was fine.  Except that we were both a little desperate to find the ladies’ room!  As we walked along, making our way through the often drunken fans, we discussed the blog entry I would make. Suddenly my sandal, which was too loose, caught on a piece of air, or sidewalk, or something, and once again, I went lurching forward, landing this time on my knee.  Rebecca, horrified, was nervously tittering as she helped me up.  She volunteered to take a picture of my injury, and you can see it here.  This time, I was less shattered, fortunately, and I told her I was glad that, being so desperate for the loo, I hadn’t wet my pants in falling.  She positively chortled.  “That would have made for a very sad little blog post,” she comfortingly mused. 

We finally reached our destination, had some bubbly, and had our books signed.  I had planned to enthusiastically chat with Heidi about the great things I had made from recipes on her blog, and how much I loved it, but I was suddenly suffused with shyness, and said barely a word.  Sigh!