It looked like things were going to be calm this year. My psycho coworker had tried to screw me by putting in for vacation time for the entire week, with the result that our boss got mad and gave her Christmas Eve & today off, gave me Christmas off, and we both work tomorrow. Frankly it wouldn't have bothered me if she had tomorrow off too, but I'll take what I can get.
Then I got home after my shift on Christmas Eve...walked in the door with a bag of assorted junk and an armful of mail...and proceeded to trip over a cat, several shoes, and a roll of giftwrap. I wasn't smart enough to let go of the stuff I was holding and try to catch myself on anything, so I would up doing this really odd crash on my knees (bad knee first) followed my smacking my chest on the edge of the couch and my face on a book on the couch, all while twisting my back in some demented effort to stay upright. The thud as I hit the floor literally rattled the whole house, and any neighbors who didn't hear that surely must have heard my standard cry of dismay in falling situations. "SHIT!"
Both cats took off for parts unknown as I hit bottom. I've warned them repeatedly that if they kill me by tripping me, Gramma's going to send them to the pound. I stayed in my awkward position for a few minutes while I reassured myself that I wasn't dead and nothing appeared to be broken. Truthfully, I was afraid to move at first becasue my back was sending distinct "not happy" signals, but I slowly & carefully hauled myself upright. The first thing I noticed was Greymalkin peeking around the bathroom door at me. He mewed softly as if to say "Oh Thank Goodness- I thought we'd really killed you and we haven't been fed yet!"
Let me back up and explain the shoe thing- Nightshade has taken to viewing my shoelaces as a plaything. She drags every pair of lace-up shoes I own over to the front door (her favorite play spot) and does acrobatics trying to pull the laces out of all of them. It's funny as heck to watch, but a pain in the butt when I have to put them away again. And a pain in several other places when I trip over them.
I texted Mom & BFF's Laura and Drew to tell them about my latest mishap. Drew is a nurse and called immediately and told me to haul myself to the ER. I told him I was pretty sure there wasn't any major harm done except to my pride and promised I would call Mom for a ride to the ER if the pain got worse or I started feeling dizzy. Made the same promise to Laura, via text.
Did I mention that since I had been a lazy lump all weekend, I hadn't done any of the baking I was supposed to do for our Christmas dinner? I had promised a trifle for dessert for Mom & myself, and a yellow cake with chocolate icing & black walnuts for Dad. So I had cakes to bake, custard to make, and fruit to deal with. I cheated and used extra creamy Cool Whip for the trifle's whipped cream and tried the new Cool Whip Chocolate Frosting for dad's cake. The frosting is actually fairly good, but has a mild chocolate flavor instead of the rich fudge Dad prefers.
So I stayed up until 4 a.m. limping around my kitchen and working on dessert prep. Mixed up way too much cake batter and had to bake the layers in batches. The custard cooked up fairly quickly, but I stupidly put the double batch in one bowl so it took forever to cool. Then I tried to get cute with the bag of mixed frozen berries that I'd bought and cooked them with some sugar & a splash of brandy. I was aiming for a mock-jelly, but didn't quite get there.
By the time I went to bed, every part of my body was screaming in pain. I took my last painkiller and slept until 3 p.m. Christmas Day. We were originally planning to have dinner at 5, so I frantically called Mom and begged for an extension. Luckily they'd had a late lunch, so that worked out. I threw the trifle together, frosted Dad's cake, and started wrapping presents. (yeah, hadn't done that yet either) I was still stiff and sore, but was able to hobble around.
Dinner was excellent, the desserts turned out well, and we were all happy with our presents. I talked to Uncle John, who was home from the physical rehab center on a day pass, and he was in good spirits. The new computer my mom has let me get online to play games, so it was a nice evening.
Today- still hobbling. I have a nice assortment of bruises on my legs and chest. Part of my pain is the arthritits in my knee & back flaring up due to the lovely rain/sleet/snow we're experiencing right now. But I successfully avoided the ER, and hope to continue to do so!
BTW- my favorite present came courtesy of my dad. We watch MeTv together every Sunday night and they always run a commerical for a product called Strutz. The commerical features this goofy animated critter- we think it's a kangaroo- hopping about singing a weird little song before they get to the 'user testimonials.'
picture courtesy Amazon.comI had jokingly told my parents I wanted some for my birthday and professed to be quite disappointed when I didn't get them. So I told Dad that he'd better get me some for Christmas, and the old stinker did it! I'm wearing them here at work today (yes, I'm blogging from work- it's dead tonight) and they are surprisingly comfortable and make walking a bit less painful.
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