Just call me Grace

Thanksgiving was fairly mundane, as expected. We ventured up the road to Crofton--where Keith's aunt (his mother's identical twin)lives with her family--to attend the traditional Thanksgiving all-you-can-eat buffet for 30, complete with monkey bread and turducken.

To balance things out, we had decided to spend Friday afternoon at my parents' house with my parents, my brother and the cats, Chrissy and Eeyore, to decorate for Christmas and enjoy a delicious turkey and roasted vegetable pot pie that I put together. All in all, Friday was great, particularly without all the small CHILdren swooping in on you from all angles.

The day was effectively punctuated when I slipped in my socks trying to walk down the wooden steps and fell on my butt some three steps below, seriously bruising my arm (of all things) and scaring the wits out of my parents' as-if-she-wasn't-skittish-enough cat, Chrissy, as I came flying down the steps toward her and landing with what I'm sure was a fairly loud *thud*. She now refuses to come near me.

All I recall is that one moment I was walking happily down the stairs eating a homemade cinnamon roll, and the next I was sitting on the landing, my cinnamon roll in three separate pieces on the floor and everything hurt. It must have been one of those scary/funny things to watch--Keith and Shawn saw the *whole* thing--when you want to laugh because watching people fall on their butts is pretty damn funny, but only if they aren't seriously hurt.

I managed to not break my tailbone, thanks to my amazing put-out-the-arm-to-bear-the-full-weight-of-my-falling-body reflex, as well as all that extra post-marital squishiness, which left me with a sore tailbone, a slightly bruised lower back and a massive contusion on the side of my forearm, just above my elbow.

Once I realized I was not broken, albeit effectively embarrassed, it was neccessary for me to communicate this with the rest of the family who waited in suspense for either screams of pain or hysterical laughter. All I could think of was to complain about the next worst thing: "Ohhh, I dropped my cinnamon roll."

I had a similar bruise earlier this year, after having driven the side of my leg just above my knee into the corner of the cedar hope chest that has always been at the end of the bed. I run into this hope chest quite often, and am accustomed to small bruises on the outside of either knee, however, that one time I managed to sort of really lean into it and ended up with a four inch wide black bruise on my leg. Sexy. So at least I knew what to expect this time around, and have carefully tracked the development of my latest giant bruise with a colorful diagram. Because I know you're just *dying* to know.