Incident Report, 7/29/05

1. Cut finger on wire shelving
2. Tried to put slide box on counter in library but fumbled the pass (so to speak); fortunately, I managed to "hot potato" it up to the counter.
3. Got stack of papers stuck in the hole punch at work. Managed to get them free before D. noticed (I think...my muffled cry of "It's stuck!" might not have escaped her notice).
4. Banged elbow on chair.
5. Jabbed neck with thumbnail.

6. Okay, so as we were leaving work on Friday evening, D. and I saw a family of three stray, hungry-looking dogs. We immediately took pity on them, and D.--being the more active of the two of us--suggested that we run back inside the building, grab the leftovers from the other night's office party, and throw them to the dogs. We debated whether or not we knew the code to turn off the alarm, and after we came to the conclusion that we were pretty sure it was either xxxx or yyyyy, it was bound to be one of the two, I agreed to go back inside with her. Here's the thing, though: you only get 80 seconds to turn off the alarm before the security company sends out the cavalry. We knew we had to get in there in a hurry, especially since we really needed extra time in case the first code we tried didn't work. D. opened the door, and I launched myself inside just as quickly as I could.

When retelling the story for my sister the next day, D. said, "We had 80 seconds, but we were preparing for 3." That's an accurate summary of what happened. As I shot inside the door, I remembered thinking that morning as I left my apartment that my shoes didn't have good traction, had never had good traction, and seemed unlikely ever to have good traction, and that I should probably just throw them out. This is what was going through my mind as my left foot slipped to the right, my right foot and the rest of me slipped to the left, and down I went.

D. was useless after that because she was practially crumpled on the floor, she was laughing so hard. That left me to "play through pain" and get the alarm code entered. And I did. So there.

(And we did manage to get the food to the dogs, in case you were wondering.)

Too Much Effort

I was looking at the care instructions for my new panties, and they specify using a low setting for ironing said panties. This begs the question--who irons their panties? I don't.

Do you?

Incident report, 7/28/05

Failed to clear doorway.

That's it. Really. My number of incidents has steadily declined, while the number of incidents occuring to the people who interact with me has increased. Hmm. Food for thought. Is this something one can pass on to someone else?

Dirt is Sharp and Pointy

Okay, I don't know if "sharp and pointy" is a scientifically accurate way to describe it, but dirt is abrasive. Dirt can damage the fibers in paper and textiles, for example, so if you have family mementos that you're hanging on to, try to keep dirt off of them.

Just a handy little tip.

If you'd like to read more about dirt and caring for artifacts, go to this website from the Wisconsin Historical Society: http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/localhistory/articles/dirt.asp.

The problem with getting up extra early

It's only 9 o'clock, and I am sooooo hungry.

Incident report, 7/25/05

1. Cut finger on car key as I threw my over-filled laundry bag in to the back seat of the car.
2. Failed to clear doorway
3. Banged elbow on back of chair at dinner

Did you know that potatoes, if left to themselves, can eventually leak brown goo? Also, according to my friend H., zuccini will leak all of its insides out if you leave it for long enough.

Sad (as in pathetic) Monday

I have the day off from work today because I was expecting my friend H. to fly in from New York--plane landing at 9:30 A.M.--and spend the day with me. Due to bad weather out west somehwere, however, she had to spend 5 hours on the tarmac. Her plane took off at around 11 A.M. (instead of the 6 A.M. take-off time she'd expected). So I've been sitting around the house. Oh, sure, I ran a couple of errands and ate lunch with JLR, but the rest of the day has been spent doing things I have been putting off doing, flipping through old magazines, and--wait for it--listening for the postman. Yes. I'm waiting for the mail to arrive. I'm not expecting anything good. I'm just that sad.

*Sigh*

Back to the work I've been putting off doing...

(and yes, I managed to cut my finger within 5 minutes of leaving the house this morning)

The Call of the Yard

We don't have a yard, per se. We have two 10 ft. x 10 ft. beds in front of our apartment that are tended to by no one but JLR and me. At first, I wasn't too enthusiastic about messing with them, other than planting our annual "let's see how long they last before we manage to kill them this year" flowers. But, strangely, the plants we planted have not died (except for the daisies; I finally had to admit that they're dead, and they're not coming back). We've been so pleased with the results that we've caught some sort of yard fever. We've decided to do something with the bed in front of the vacant apartment next door, and this morning JLR mumbled something about the bed across from that. Money I had planned to save for a new pair of glasses is now being spent on mulch, sandstone, lavender, and pea gravel. Friday nights consist of a trip to Home Depot and a mosquito-ridden evening in the "yard." I don't know what we're going to do. Is there a cure? Taking a look at my parents, I would say the answer is "no."

Reasons Why Timothy Hutton Will Never Look Twice at Me

(Beside the fact that he's married, and beside the fact that we'll probably never even be in the same zip code at the same time.)

1. I've given up shaving my legs except for special occasions (or except for when I need to do laundry and I only have skirts left to wear).
2. I am not graceful.
3. I am not tall (but I'm not short, either, Deals, and I don't buy my clothes at Baby Gap!), and my legs don't "go all the way up." (That expression has always seemed strange to me. Technically, don't everyone's legs go all the way up?)
4. My hiccups aren't ladylike, and I sneeze like my father. That's right, I have a man-sneeze.
5. And then there's the fact that I'm so clumsy...


I don't know what I would do if Timothy Hutton actually did look twice at me. I certainly don't want to meet him because if I met him, then he would become a real person to me, and I wouldn't be able to enjoy any of his films. Instead of Archie Goodwin, for example, I'd see Timothy Hutton playing Archie Goodwin. "He's doing a really good job," I'd say, but the magic of Nero Wolf would be over.

It's a Good Thing I Don't Walk with My Mouth Open

A bug flew in to my lips as I was walking to the door at work this morning. Ran smack dab in to my lips.

Incident Report: A Guest Posting, by JLR

RR posts her daily incident reports, so you might be inclined to think that she is the clumsy one in the family. Sadly, this is not the case. She is not alone. For example, it’s exactly 9:37 in the morning as I type this, and I already have green ink all over one fingernail on my left hand and the palm of my right hand. I have no idea how it got there, but it’s a safe bet it will be on my face before the day is over.

It just runs in the family. Our mother has apologized profusely many times for it. Our parents feel very guilty about the negative genes they’ve passed on. Whenever I brought home a mediocre grade in math, my father was never disappointed in my performance—he just apologized. “Sorry about that,” he’d say, taking the blame. My mom does the same thing whenever one of us does something klutzy. But whereas my dad always apologized in a resigned, what-do-you-do-about-it type of way, my mom always apologizes in a way that makes it seem as though she’d given us the pox—and on purpose.

Then again, the clumsy factor can cause more harm than a bad math gene. My mom should know. She once got her hand caught in a mixer. Whenever I tell people that, they always say “how do you do that,” meaning how can someone possibly get their hand caught in a mixer, and all I can say is, I’m always careful when I turn on the Kitchen Aid. All three of us females have at some point sliced off some part of a finger with a potato peeler. For me it was my thumbprint. I had an urge to go commit crimes—no fingerprints—but I resisted. My poor father has had to assume the role of Accident Preventer. Back when RR was in college, when he discovered that her closet had very high shelves, Dad made her promise that she would not climb on a stepstool or anything else to get something down from there unless she had supervision. He has banned my mother from using anything sharper than a butter knife when she’s home alone. Every year when I need to replace my car inspection sticker, my dad removes the old one for me. Last year I said that I was old enough, that I ought to do it myself and could I just borrow a razor blade, and my dad looked at me and said, “well . . . why don’t you just bring your car over.” He didn’t add, “because I think you look better with 10 fingers,” but it was implied.

[RR's note: he also--politely but firmly--turned down my offer to mow the lawn for him.]
[JLR's note to RR's note: when we suggested it, he laughed at us.]

Our clumsiness can also harm those around us. RR has mentioned that she has recently punched herself in the face (twice), but she didn’t mention that once, when I was putting my arm through the sleeve of my coat, I punched her in the face. And then a few days later, when I was explaining to someone how I’d managed to do something like that accidentally, I did it again. I will say this for RR—she can take a punch.

Sometimes clumsiness isn’t an inconvenience, it’s just good entertainment. Some other time I’ll tell my two favorite stories of spills I’ve taken. I’ll save for another time examples of instances when we were injured by other people’s clumsiness, which we’ll detail in one of RR’s upcoming posts, “Head Injuries I Have Had.” For now, I just wanted to say that RR isn’t alone—it’s a family affair.

Incident report, 7/21/05

I'm in fine form today, folks.

1. Cut hand (small cut, don't panic). Not sure how. Just looked down and saw it. Oh, look. I cut my hand.
2. Jabbed finger with pencil.
3. Punched self in face (in check out line at Sam's Club).
4. Ran cart in to wall at work.
5. Accidentally rammed doorknob in to hip.
5. Knocked over four glass bottles of sparkling cider in one pass. Thank God, none of them broke.
6. Opened door, banged elbow.
7. Hit mounted display photo with arm of paper cutter.
8. Scratched finger with blade of paper cutter (no blood, though--yea!).

Incident report, 7/18/05 and 7/19/05

7/18

1. Overcaffeinated
2. Crashed
3. Punched self in face
4. Jammed thumbnail in carseat

7/19

Stabbed self in face with thumbnail

Incident report, 7/14/05 (Bastille Day!)

1. Failed to clear doorway.
2. Banged hand on cabinet.
3. Dropped cereal crumb in to JLR's laptop keyboard (sorry, JLR).
4. Scratched arm with seriously strong finger nail.
5. Interesting-looking raised mark on right arm. Is that where I jabbed myself with my fingernail, or do I now have some sort of worm?
6. Banged elbow on back of wooden chair at lunch. D. gave me a look as if to say, "This is going on your report, isn't it?"
7. Jeans too tight. Pressure on bladder. Frequent trips to bathroom. (Lay off the candy, for Pete's sake, RR. You can't afford to buy bigger clothes.)
8. Failed to clear doorway.
9. Accidentally kicked JLR's foot.

Incident report, 7/13/05

1. Banged hand on counter
2. Knocked curling iron into bathroom sink
3. Tripped on flower bed border

Had lunch with board member today and did not spill! No food caught in teeth, either. I did get some crumbs on the table (and none of the other people at our table did), but that's okay. Also, note to self: cute waiter at Dancing Marlin. RR will be lunching at the Dancing Marlin more often.

Now that she's re-joined the modern world

Deals is back at her desk and has finally posted something new on her blog. Yea! :)

A Whoopin' from God

I once heard a woman on the radio say that there was nothing like a whoopin' from God. Boy, howdy, ain't she right. As my hairdresser says, "He'll take you out to the woodshed." Today, after having failed (again) the daily "try to be more than just barely civil to jerk of a co-worker" test, I had to face an irritating drive home. Most of the drive was great, actually, but the last bit was more than my short-fused, impatient temper could handle. There was a stalled car at the intersection of the frontage road for 75-North and Lovers Lane. Happened to be in the turn lane. So happened I need to be in the turn lane and didn't know about the stalled car at first. I've just exited the freeway and am trying to cross over to the far right lane. There's a bit of a jam as the two right lanes merge into one, so we're all doing the we'll-take-turns-going-ahead-with-one-car-from-each-lane-going-forward-at-a-time bit, or at least, that's what we're supposed to be doing. One particularly malevolent driver in a white ford steadfastly refused to let anyone over, never mind the fact that these were not people who had tried to cut in line in any way. We had just exited the freeway, people. Anyhow, after going around white ford, I was left with just one lane to go, when driver of too-big-for-the-city white SUV and I came shoulder to shoulder. The cars in front of us merged. It was then my turn to pull ahead, but white SUV was having none of it. The other drivers in her lane weren't having any of it, either, so I had to fight my way into the lane behind her. Then JLR called my cell phone to tell me that there was a stalled vehicle in the right lane and that I should move over to go around it (and also to tell me that there was a big, beautiful rainbow just around the corner and I should be sure not to miss it). I quickly (and politely) maneuvered into the next lane and zoomed ahead. White SUV got stuck behind the stalled truck, and I had the opportunity to do the right thing, the Christian thing: show mercy and forgiveness and let the woman get over in front of me. I didn't do it. I was sorry almost immediately, of course, but then it was too late to do anything about it because of traffic flow. I was so eaten up with a combination of fury at her selfishness and disappointment in myself that I completely forgot to look for the rainbow.

Sorry to post such a long, boring post, but for those of you who've bothered to sit through this, there's a lesson. Do the right thing. There's no earthly reward for it (as we like to say, "No good deed goes unpunished"), and often, quite frankly, it hurts, but it's worth it. The feeling you get when you do the wrong thing, the feeling like you've disappointed the person whose opinion matters most to you, is not worth the satisfaction you get from getting your own way.

Do the right thing.

Incident report, 7/9/05

1. Banged elbow on desk.
2. Banged elbow on desk.
3. Banged elbow on desk.
4. Banged elbow on desk. Grrrrr.
5. Banged elbow on desk.
6. Banged elbow on desk.
7. Banged. elbow. on. desk.
8. Banged elbow on desk. It's getting to be a thing now.
9. Banged elbow on desk.
10. Scratched fingernail on aforementioned desk, which, strangely, had same effect as scratching one's fingernail on metal or on a chalkboard. Shudder.
11. Knocked lampshade askew.
12. Knocked lampshade askew.
13. Knocked lampshade askew.
14. Knocked lampshade askew.

It's been a busy day.

Updated incident report, 7/8/05

1. Tried to hang up phone handset on tape dispenser. Need caffeine.

2. Book dust on shirt. At least, I think it's book dust. I hope it's book dust...because if it isn't, it's a mystery stain. A brown mystery stain (or, as we say on condition reports, "Foreign deposit: unknown").

3. Banged elbow on metal doorframe. Ow.

4. Accidentally hit JLR's foot with cart at garden center. She then demanded that I keep an unnecessary amount of space between the two of us.

5. Accidentally hit display stand with cart at garden center.

(And now you're asking, "Who in the world let you have a cart? Haven't you learned your lesson by now?")

"We shall prevail, and they shall not."

Mr. Blair's words today are burned into my brain.

"It is important however that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world."

Incident report, 7/6/05

1. Sometime mid-morning realized I had skipped a button while buttoning up my blouse this morning.
2. Faithfully watered dead plants. Forgot to change shirts first so dress shirt I washed this weekend is now sweaty.
3. Spilled ranch dressing on table at restaurant.
4. Temporarily forgot how to tell left from right while attempting to apply the "lefty-loosey-righty-tighty" philosphy to turning off water spout. Mild panic for about 5 seconds while I couldn't figure out why the water pressure increased as I turned the knob. Shoes wet.

Incident report, 7/5/05

1. Banged hand on wooden bench
2. Tested home-made mosquito repellant. It didn't work.
3. Sat on ground while helping neighbor install do-it-yourself sprinkler system. Tip: white terry-cloth shorts + sitting on wet, dirty ground = embarrassingly-placed stains.

Apparently I didn't need to water the plants this morning

It rained today. That was good--we really need the rain--but, as expected, when the rain disappeared, the humidity did not. It was quite humid outside today.

So I'm outside talking to D.'s dad, and I certain that whatever he's saying is amusing...if only I could concentrate on what he's saying. Instead, all I can think about is how frizzy my hair must be. And how large my hair must be growing. By the time he and D. drove away, I was wondering if I was going to be able to fit my enormous coiffure through the doorway.

Weekend Incident report, 7/1/05-7/4/05

1. Kicked self in toe
2. Spilled box of toothpicks on floor in kitchen
3. Grabbed what I thought was a wad of cat hair from the floor but was actually a cobweb. Didn't panic when it stuck to my hand.
4. Spilled oreo milk shake on JLR's shirt I had borrowed

OHMYWORD my apartment is so hot. Can't run airconditiong because a/c just distributes the mildew smell. Sooooooo hot.