There You Are!

My mom once uttered a line I swore I'd never myself say.

She'd had several bad happenings all in the span of a couple of weeks, culminating in her falling in the yard and breaking her leg. When she got home from the hospital she said, "I don't know else can happen to me."

That night, our house caught on fire.

It was a small electrical outlet fire, buzzed itself out before the 16 town fire trucks got there, and there was minimal damage, but, well, you know.

I've been having my share of bad luck lately. I sometimes feel like a black cloud is following me around. I'm getting through it, but it's not all roses and butterflies over here in Betland.

In fact, as mentioned in the blog below, my Nervous Breakdown hadn't even made his annual Oktoberfest appearance. I was managing on my two bad knees, trying not to think about the $600 difference in my bank-vs-check register (not in my favor), and I've been limping along, literally and figuratively, fairly well, thanks.

Until last night.

I'd made up my mind to do a little Milo Maintenance this week. The Dear Nephew, Señor Taylor, is happily ensconced at school, so groomings are few and far between. Milo's been getting a tad wooly, and smelling like a dog (gasp!), so I thought this week I'd bathe him, then try my hand at a mini-clipping to keep him tidy and also keep his next Señor Taylor grooming from lasting some two hours and wearing us all out. (Milo included.)

So last night was bath night. Now, here's how I bathe Milo, and if you don't like this, I'm sorry. I read where many people do this, and it sure works for us. I take Milo into the shower with me. Get him nice and wet, lather him up, let the spray rinse him off, throw him out the shower door, then clean my own dirty self up, and wash down the shower stall, all in one fell swoop. It beats doing the seven basic ballet positions over the tub trying to scrub him, then never feeling like he's got all the soap out while I rinse him over and over with water from a cup.

So last night I got the water running and grabbed Milo. By the way, Milo is not overly fond of this bathing method, but at least it's quick, and in short order he was wetted, lathered, and rinsed, and I threw him out the shower door where he could run like crazy and bark at me like, "What are you doing to me?!"

Job one done. Then I washed my own dirty self, job two done. I grabbed a few Clorox bleach wipes and cleaned up the shower, and it was all finished in record time.

"That went really well!" I said to myself as I was turning off the water and drying off in the shower. I then opened the shower door, stepped out...

...and promptly slipped on the bathroom floor.

It was something else, my fine feathereds. It happened very quickly, so much so that it was a shock to the system. Once I had landed in the floor, I realized just how I'd landed.

My bad knee, well, worse knee, hit the bathroom floor. Below the knee, my leg turned to the left and my ankle was against the outside of the tub. My bad-but-not-as-bad knee hit the tub floor, with the below-knee on that leg also twisted left, ankle against the far side of the tub. I was straddling the tub, or more to the point, I was impaled upon the shower door rudder on the tub. It looked a little bit like this.



















And it hurt. It hurt, but I was silent. Until I realized I couldn't get up. But! Above me was the towel rack. I reached up for it to pull myself into a standing position - and it promptly dislodged itself from the wall and I fell back down into the same position.

And all of a sudden, there he was. My Nervous Breakdown. The little tornado with red puffed-up cheeks, in his diaper, and I began to scream.

It wasn't a shriek, like I was being stabbed. It was a throaty sort of scream. It went on for about nine minutes. And while it did, the Nervous Breakdown spun around the tiny bathroom, pointing at me as if to say, "Bazinga! I got her naked this time!"

I honestly have no idea how I got up. Something about pressing against the shower door rudder where I was impaled, and realizing that I was alone, so I had to get up somehow. I guess. The screaming went on even after I was up, and it turned into tears, mainly because I was now envisioning spending every trip hence to the grocery in one of those little motorized carts.

Soon enough I realized that I could in fact stand up, and the screaming died down, and my Nervous Breakdown whirled away, grinning. I walked out of the bathroom and looked into the living room, where I saw Milo lying, still wet, on the couch, looking at me like, "Having a little trouble there? Too bad, I had to go in the shower, my work is done for the night."

And so, Nervous Breakdown had, I got dressed and went on with my night. However, I will never again laugh at those "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials, and I refused to say, "I don't know what else can happen to me."

And I went out today and bought a bunch of non-stick crap to senior citizen-proof my bathroom.

Oh, and speaking of today, my knees are relatively OK, but every single fucking other part of my body hurts.

And my Nervous Breakdown has been here and gone. So now I can get on with the business of living.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* AND - tonight I still gave Milo his mini-clip. It's no Taylor job, that's for sure, but he looks passable and is minus enough hair to keep things easy when he gets his real grooming. It sure was a bitch to get up out of the floor, though.