The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss

The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss, Part 1  April, 2015

Amazing how time, cats, and the Spirit of Christmases Past can upset the apple cart that you call home.  Not that I actually live in an apple cart.  But right now my home does look like the aftermath of a truly horrific apple cart disaster, minus the apples.  Perhaps this is a bad analogy.  I'm sticking to it anyway.

 Below is what I see when I peer through the French doors between my current hideout in the family room and the original part of our home, which was built in 1978.  Notice my husband Jim propped up against the couch that this morning was a deep garnet red.  Notice his head of completely white hair, that, just this morning, could still claim to have a decent portion of pepper mixed in with the salt. Notice the layer of ash that might make the reader think that the aforementioned apple cart was in the path of a destructive volcanic eruption.

I found myself entertaining a guest this fine April morning, relegated to one corner  in the family room, serving tea and pastries on Christmas dishes, unable to access my kitchen.  Luckily there is an attached apartment on the other side of the family room, complete with a fine kitchen that was once well stocked.  Luckily, I was able to serve up my tea party fare using the melon baller, butcher knife, plastic cocktail forks, and poinsettia-bordered plates that I still had access to.  How did it all come to this, anyway?

Tea and Crumpets, Anyone?

Now serving in the back corner of the room!  Luckily crumpets are small!

Well, much in the manner that the war was lost due to the loss of a horse, the horse lost for the loss of a shoe, the horseshoe lost for the loss of a nail, etc.  I have to reach back a ways to explain the current state of my home.  Let's see now...where to begin?

Christmas 2011--almost four years ago.  We had replaced our aging pellet stove with a lovely new and much more efficient one.  I always put lots of effort into decorating for the holidays, removing pictures, sconces, wreaths, and plaques and replacing them with jolly Christmas art and doo-dads.  I was quite horrified to see dozens of soot frames decorating said walls when seen in their pristine (read empty) glory.  Luckily, my festive holiday decor somewhat camouflaged the sad and smudged walls.  After Christmas( ok-mid-January!), when I traditionally un-decorate the house for  my yearly observation of Martin Luther King Day, I was too worn out from year-end celebrations to tackle a major project, so I just re-hung all the stuff that had sat in storage boxes in the shed since Thanksgiving.  Remember, I said that I enjoy having a nicely decorated house.  Actual down and dirty house cleaning and maintenance, I do not enjoy not so much.  And the concept of "in a timely manner" is completely foreign to me.  Out of sight, out of mind. All in its own good time.   Those are my mottos!  

 

Three more Christmas seasons passed, and by 2015, I knew that something would definitely need to be done to freshen up the place.  Luckily, Jim doesn't mind painting too much, so I figured this spring or summer, we'd deal with soot and smudges.

I kind of rushed ahead through those winter holiday seasons in this telling, but verily, other seasons had passed in the interim.  Three full springs and summers.  Plus several other seasons, maybe ten.  At any rate,  Jim and I were experiencing problems in the bedroom.  No, not that kind.  The kind related to cats and curtains.  I think Jim must be a saint for putting up with my decorating motifs.  Our bedroom is very feminine, a vision of tiny pink roses on blue latticed wall paper, very outdated, and I love it.  It matches a handmade pink teddy bear I was given from a student well over thirty years ago that sits atop the bed.  That's how I decorate, baby--start with one accessory and build a whole room that will remain largely unchanged for decades. 

We don't have much in the way of curtains in our house, because we like light, we have a lot of privacy, and at this point in time, I figure if some random stranger is stricken blind from viewing me charging through the house in my underwear or less, well, that's his problem for being too close to my windows with his eyes open.  But the morning sun shines bright into our bedroom so I had hung white sheer panels with a lovely  blue valance (note: same adjectives apply to window treatment as to previously mentioned general bedroom style).  This blocked enough sunlight to allow us to sleep at least until  the alarm clock woke us.  Or until my cat would screech and hiss as she clawed her way from the floor up to the curtain rod.  This was a fairly regular occurrence.My cat does not play with laser toys, catnip mice, spring-loaded fish, or any of the many other amusements I have bought for her.  No, she really only thrills to the opportunity to shred the one pair of curtains I have in the whole house!  Also, Miss Butterfly McQueen seemed to particularly relish  opportunities to hide behind the panels and cough up fur balls onto the white window sills. Now, lest you think that I would allow my bedroom to be festooned with tattered and puke-stained rags, please be assured that I removed them while they still only evidenced enough snags in the fabric to have given the once opaque sheers the texture of a tapestry.  And I always cleaned up the fur balls. But the curtains had to go!

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  Butterfly McQueen, Resting Up for Next Assault on Bedroom Curtains

& Growing Fur for Hair Balls

So, about a year and a half ago, I took them down.  Then the sun began to awaken us too early.  We solved the problem as best we could, by mashing pillows over our eyes or burrowing under the covers, neither of which was too comfortable in the summer.  Plus you woke up with hard-to-get-rid-of pillow case and sheet wrinkles smooshed into your morning flabby face.  Not attractive.

I was rummaging through the linen closet one day when I came upon four panels of white dotted Swiss curtains that had formerly been in the Cherry Bedroom (so called because the wall paper border in Melanie's room had gorgeous cherries emblazoned on it.   I know, out-of-date!).  Hot damn! Re-purposed curtains would allow more shut-eye for the puffed and creased Jim and Marilyn.  Ever on the lookout for time-saving tricks when it comes to household drudgery, I decided that I wouldn't bother to iron the curtains until I first hung them to see how they looked on the window.  Clever, no?  Even though ironing is the one chore I enjoy.  I believe that is called irony.  Working somewhat feverishly, as I was quite taken with both my thrift and efficiency, it wasn't until I had single-handedly  wrestled with and hung the curtain panels that I noticed  the panels were from two different completely sets of curtains.  One was floor length; one fell  six or eight inches below the window sill. In other words, both sets were all wrong. At least I managed to hang them in an artful short-long short-long pattern.  One thing I can always say for myself, I can never be accused of succumbing to hubris, as I am constantly reminded that I am an idiot.

Well, at least I can sew.  I figured that when the spirit moved me (I seriously think that I was a Quaker in a former life),  I would shorten all the panels to a right-to-the-windowsill length.  Weeks passed.  The spirit felt a slight rustling.  So I got out my very nice, but infrequently used Bernina sewing machine, thread, pins, measuring tape, and set to work.  Only problem was that the machine would not stitch.  I checked the bobbin, took everything apart and cleaned all the casings, gears, and whatever else inhabits a sewing machine body.  No luck.  I'd exhausted my bag of tricks.  I determined that it had been awhile since I'd taken the machine into the dealer for regular maintenance and cleaning. so I knew what my next course of action must be.  Several weeks later I actually put the sewing machine in the trunk of the car so that if I actually drove down to Folsom and passed the sewing center, I would have the ailing machine with me.

Two months later, I did drive  past the sewing center, on a day when it was open, and lugged the machine inside.  It would be worth the hundred or hundred and fifty bucks to have my machine back in good working order.  Well, apparently, it required a bit more than just routine maintenance, including a completely new bobbin mechanism.  Oh, and from rattling around in my car's trunk for two months on bumpy country roads, it looked like I'd also cracked the actual body of the sewing machine.  Just a hairline crack, but still!  Long story short, a mere month and a half later, and four hundred twenty dollars lighter, I had a beautifully working sewing machine again.  I think.  I haven't actually used it yet.  But that will have to wait for Part Two of the Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss.

The Domino Theory of Domestic Bliss, Part 2

It looks like I forgot to mention in part one that I opted to wait to claim my back-in-good-repair sewing machine from the shop until well after Christmas, as the four hundred and twenty dollars required to get it out of hock was needed to buy Christmas gifts for the family. Especially since I would (again) be sewing no gifts for anyone.  In fact, we decided that instead of exchanging gifts with each other, Jim and I would make a short get-away down the coast in mid-January.  I did force myself to take down all the Christmas decorations and put back up most of our non-holiday items before we left for our coastal escape.

Using my Groupon and Living Social accounts, I had gotten great deals on a night on the water in both Morro Bay and Monterey,  with neither hotel room even costing a hundred dollars per night.  Score!  And they were nice places!  In Morro Bay, our room had beautiful wood shutters that afforded both privacy and light.  Actually, I thought these would be perfect for our bedroom window at home, as Butterfly McQueen could not sneak up into them to use as a scratching post or repository for coughed up fur-balls.  Plus, the shutters could be considered a practical update for our quaint, totally out of style bedroom.

Now I may do nothing of note for  weeks, months, years, even decades, but once I make up my mind to do something, I throw caution to the wind and charge ahead with unbridled swiftness.  I zipped off to Home Depot and began checking out blinds and shutters.  I broached the subject with Jim, who agreed this would be a good project.  We ordered the blinds a couple of weeks later, as there was a great sale at that time.  The sale was so good, that I decided we should order blinds for the living room as well, so the next day we returned to the store and ordered them.  Our house has over-sized windows.  Lovely for letting in light.  A pain for ordering curtains, drapes, or blinds.  We had measured very carefully--twice-- just to make sure.  As soon as we returned home from ordering the second set, I realized we had measured incorrectly, so I raced back to Home Depot with the new measurements.  Formerly eager salespeople appeared distressed to see me barreling back to the window covering department for the fifth time in two days  with my little notebook and measuring tape in hand. But I thought I'd finally gotten it right, and hey!  I'm always a polite and self-effacing customer.

Of course, now that I had ordered shutters for the living room as well, we could not hold off til spring  to paint the walls in the living room.  And while we were at it, we'd better do the dining room, hallway, and family room.  I could see Jim getting a bit panicked at the thought of throwing the whole house into upheaval, so we agreed to start with just the two main walls in the living room, so we'd be ready for the shutters installation.  But, planning ahead, I began to systematically take everything down from the walls in the living room, hallway, and dining room, including all the books and brick-a-brack on the floor to ceiling bookshelves.

Enter our daughter Melanie.  "Mom, if you're going to re-paint the whole front part of the house, you've GOT to get rid of these hideous popcorn ceilings!"  Melanie is nothing if not direct, but she also has boundless energy and is always more than willing to lend her help to any projects we undertake. "I did it at the house in L.A.  It's easy to do, a bit messy, but easy to do."  I thought back to that house she'd lived in fifteen years ago.  "Was there any furniture in the house when you did this?"  Of course not--the house was completely empty at the time of the ceiling work as no one was yet living in the abode.

 Truth be told, I'd long been sick of the popcorn ceilings, with their grimy look and  constant cobweb sprawl.  I had wanted them removed for quite some time It seemed that if we were doing all this work, why not get rid of the popcorn ceilings as well?  We contacted a friend who'd done a nice job re-doing our front bathroom the year before, and he said it was something he and Jim could complete in just a couple or three days.  Poor Jim.  I see now that his hair had started going white long before we started scraping the ceilings!   Naturally, I  wanted to get all this done before the shutters were installed.  We scoped out Home Depot for the necessary supplies, and lined up a time to get started on the popcorn project.  Joe, our friend who would be helping us, suggested we look at some YouTube videos before we got started.  All internet videos and articles on popcorn ceiling removal had one thing in common:

MAKE SURE THERE IS NO ASBESTOS IN YOUR POPCORN CEILINGS

 before you do anything else!   Failure to do so can result in DEATH!  WHAT???

  

This cheery news caused us to stop in our tracks.  Our house had been built during the transition year between when asbestos was not banned and when it was.When faced with any kind of dilemma, this is what I do.  Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  For days or weeks.  Eventually I come up with  a plan, but not after quite some time of staring vacantly into space, coming up with contingency after contingency, and casting off each one in turn.  The wheels spin, but I go nowhere. I take to the couch. And I'm depressed.

Choices From The Couch:

1.  Do nothing.  Keep the house exactly as it is
2.  Paint, and just re-paint the ceilings.  Asbestos is not a danger unless it is released into the air--like when taking down acoustic ceilings.
3.  Do nothing.  Eat ice cream
4.  Hire a contractor and a HazMat team to deal with it all.
5.  Do nothing.  Take another trip to the coast.
6.  Do an asbestos test and take it from there.

Eventually I recovered my equilibrium, called up a lab in Sacramento, and we did an asbestos test, which showed no asbestos in the house.  Hooray!  Now we could proceed.

In the interim, when I was couch-bound, Jim had decided to go ahead and paint the family room, an addition to the home that already had nicely finished ceilings.  Away with all the memorabilia in the family room!  Off it went to the apartment, which, at one point had been perfectly organized with all the front-of-the-house crap. Now it looked like several small explosives had gone off in there. But the family room was now ready to receive the furniture from the living room and dining room.  Rendering it the complex maze of chairs, sofas, end tables and lamps, that greeted my guest and me for our mid-morning tea.

Which, I believe, brings me full circle to the beginning of this all-too-lengthy, but still condensed  version of home repairs a la Souza.  The tea turned out just fine, and the pastries were delicious.  The popcorn was removed from the ceilings in what had to be the messiest project we had ever undertaken.  We have decided that the popcorn ceilings can remain in the three bedrooms, and can be painted if we ever feel like it, which we probably won't.  I do worry that if something were to happen to Jim, I'd be forced to sell a house that is dated and in need of repairs.  Jim, on the other hand, has informed me that I worry too much, and if I should kick the bucket first, he'll just load a few things into his little racing camper, and take off to parts unknown! He would most likely abandon the cat. I should prepare the kids for those eventualities, I guess.




In a final note of irony,  once all the popcorn had been removed from the dining room ceiling, I was on the phone, looked up, and spotted a  tenacious little creature.  Sure, let us try to de-popcorn his habitat!  You can take the popcorn out of the ceilings, but you can't take it out of a Daddy-Long-Leg's web!

Final Note:  It is now July 11.  We have decided to re-texture the ceilings.  Not with acoustic popcorn, but with a hand troweled effect.  So, nothing has been finished, walls are still largely empty, ceiling vents are still missing, and ceiling lamps hang precariously by wires.  We survived a  ridiculously stressful  window blinds installation imbroglio---perhaps a future blog post, but it's too exhausting to recount now. The Daddy-Long-Legs have vacated the front part of the house, and are apparently ensconced in the front bedroom, which they are happily and copiously decorating with their webs.  And hopefully, I will be able to put up Christmas decorations before New Years!

Granny Goes Wheeling, Part Une--Beware the Squeezeburger

I love cheeseburrgers.  Always have, always will.  I have spent the better part of my life, once I got over my childhood aversion to most food, in search of the perfect cheeseburger.  Many I have tried, and a select few have been deemed worthy of my quest.  For years, I have read of Sacramento's renowned Squeezeburger, so named because it was fried up in a burger joint so small that patrons literally had to squeeze in just to place their orders.  Given my continuous high-caloric search for perfect cheeseburgers, I had always assumed that this giant burger was so labeled because after eating it, you could no longer squeeze into your jeans!

I was delighted to find an online coupon deal for a Squeezeburger.  Now the main reason I hadn't tried one yet was that there are no Squeeze Inns within fifty miles of my home.  Fried food fancier that I am, it was still hard to justify driving a hundred miles just to cram a burger into my mouth.  BUT, what if I included another activity with the burger jaunt?

Terribly excited, I checked around and located a roller rink not far from the Roseville Squeeze Inn.  I needed accomplices, so I asked the two grandkids with the heartiest appetites if they'd like to go skating with Granny.  Nine year-old Jaiden and six year-old Briar were pretty stoked.  Briar had gone on a skating field trip in pre-school, Jaiden would be a newbie, and I hadn't skated for probably twenty-five years, but what the heck!  It would be fun,  and I'd be careful, so that I wouldn't end up in the hospital, with some young nurse calling my daughter to come pick up her kids because her crazy old mother had broken her hip in a freak roller rink mishap!

Saturday arrived, and I loaded the kids into my car.  Then I loaded the Squeeze Inn's address into my navigator program.  Off we went!  We'd have Squeezeburgers for lunch, and then an afternoon of rollicking, rolling good fun.  I'd waited years for this burger!  Briar ordered a hot dog.  The counter person suggested that Jaiden and I share a burger, given their hugeness.  I was skeptical, and I am not good at sharing my food!   I'm ashamed to admit that, but there you are.  Nonetheless, not wishing to appear to be a total hog-beast, I ordered one burger, fries, and drinks.

What makes a Squeezeburger unique is the large cheese skirt that hangs out beyond the bun.  The slap on to the patty, I'm thinking, about a half a pound of shredded cheese, which melts out onto the griddle, forming a crunchy  and lacy skirt, or as Jaiden calls it, a cheese doily.  With slab-like slices of tomato, pickle, onion, and a crispy chunk of lettuce, the result resembles a very colorful flying saucer.

Jaiden and I proclaimed it splendid and promptly ordered another one to split.  Thirty napkins later, we'd managed to eat most of the second burger.  Put another notch in my Perfect Cheeseburger belt.  On second thought, just buy me a bigger belt!

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Now off to the roller rink. As a southern California kid, I'd done my fair share of zooming merrily around on the old-fashioned, strap-onto-your-shoes numbers that you tightened with your handy-dandy skate key.  As I got older, I'd go skating with friends at the local rinks with real lace-up skates.  I was never a great skater, but I could go zippy-fast, could stop by performing a controlled crash into a wall, and rarely fell,  When my own kids were younger, my husband and I often took them  for Saturday night skating at the rinky-dink  roller rink in the small Gold Rush town where we live.

I helped Briar and Jaiden into their skates, and laced up my own.  Suddenly I felt a little trepidation.  What's a granny doing in a roller rink?  Justifying the consumption of a giant Squeezeburger, that's what!  I vowed to be cautious.  I also had two neophytes in my charge.  This might be problematic.  Amazingly, the skating proved to be like riding a bike--it felt great to me right away, and I hadn't forgotten how to do it.  Jaiden and Briar lurched their way around the rink, crashing repeatedly, with me in close attendance to their needs.  Being kids, they just picked themselves up and started all over again. 

At one point, I noticed that Jaiden was down and very upset.  I tooled over to her, bent down, and started to help her up.  that's when our skated got tangled.  In an instant, both my feet flew out in front of me, and I became airborne.  A second later I crashed with a resounding thud, rump-first, then the back of the head.  Even better, I managed to plant myself right onto the side of Jaiden's skate, its wheel waiting bludgeon-like in repose, to greet my right butt cheek.  The pain was incredible and took my breath.  But I was evidently not dead and I didn't think anything was broken.  I became aware of a great stillness that overtook the rink as I lay splayed out on top of my granddaughter. A number of horrified skaters came to my rescue and got me to my feet again.  

"Oh, I'm fine," I muttered.  "We just got our skates tangled."  I figured that since I was neither deceased or broken, I'd better get moving to prevent my muscles from freezing up, although the flaming pain I was feeling seemed to preclude that eventuality.  Stoically, I wheeled on (Granny is nothing if not stoic! An idiot for sure, but a stoic idiot!).  I managed to enjoy the skate, especially as the breeze I generated while my flattering granny-float-sleeves fanned me gently, as if mocking the searing pain I felt in my nether regions.

Uh-oh!  Briar was now down in the dead center of the rink, and obviously needed some help.  I was not going to do another butt-plant this time, no matter what.  Very carefully, I tried to hoist him back to his feet, only to lose my own footing again. Nothing spectacular this time.  Just a minor case of "Granny Down!'  But, and  it proved to be an even bigger but than my own throbbing Granny butt, I was completely unable to get back to my feet, and not for want of trying.  There was nothing for me to grab hold of to stabilize myself, or to push up and off the floor with.  Trying to use just my wheeled feet and a push off with my hands left me all akimbo on the floor, sitting morosely in the middle of the rink. 

Well, I had to do something.  Briar had recovered nicely from his fall and was off once more skating herky-jerky around the rink. Panic slowly started to set in as I sat there planted center-rink, under the pulsing strobe light.  I had to do something, but I absolutely could not get to my feet.  There was only one way for me to escape from my own self-inflicted disco inferno.  I would have to crawl back to the safety of the padded floors and benches off-rink.  The thought of that, however was too embarrassing--even for me, the Queen of Frequent Humiliation.  I would not, could not, be reduced to crawling off the rink.  I proudly (pathetically?) pulled myself up to full height--when standing on one's knees, of course--and began to inch my way off the planked and polished oval of my shame.  

The skaters who had previously come to my rescue had now apparently deemed me unworthy of further assistance--a lost cause for sure--and I watched them in terror as they now raced past me at top speed.  Now it seemed that I really could get killed out here, mowed down by a swarm of uncaring and and swift skaters.  Luckily, there were gaps between the clusters of skaters who now took on the appearance to me of professional Roller Derby blockers and jammers.  I was able to burst forth in a fast knee-walk for just a foot or two before having to stop and wait for another opening.  I proceeded thusly, knee-walk/stop/look left and right/knee-walk/stop/look  until I finally made it to the carpeted zone, where, huffing, humiliated, and exhausted, I dragged myself onto a bench,.

"That's it, kids!  Skate time's over!"

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I was pretty damn sore on the ride home.  I turned on the heated driver's seat and availed myself of its semi-soothing warmth.  Granny might have to re-think this whole skating thing.  But the Squeezeburger was AWESOME!

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This post originally  appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."

Granny Goes Wheeling--Addendum and a Geography Lesson

The rest of April and into May, 2012

At truly nasty bruise was forming by the time the kids and I got home.  What made it especially hideous, yet strangely wondrous, was the perfect imprint of Jaiden's skate wheel on my right buttock, like a crater left by a speeding meteorite.  It was complete right down to the indentations left by the little lug nuts used to tighten the wheels.  As the weeks wore on, I outclassed any orangutan you've ever seen at the zoo or on Wild Kingdom with the magnificence of my swollen and multi-colored butt.  A constantly changing kaleidoscopic palette of scarlets, violets, lavenders, magentas, grays, greens, and yellows graced my cratered patootie.

 Now for the geography part.

Picture a map of the western United States as my behind.  Now picture the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  That was the bruise!

Can I just say, "Ouch!"

This post originally  appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."

Granny Goes Wheeling, Part Duh!--Beware the Squeezeburger!

February 3, 2013

I had enjoyed an especially busy week that had included nice long walks in San Francisco and Sacramento. I was beginning to shake off my winter/holiday sloth and was feeling good about resuming a more active routine.  Now I must admit that part of the visit Jim and I made to the Norman Rockwell Exhibit at the Crocker Museum was planned around the redemption of a Groupon coupon for discounted Squeezeburgers.  Granny is always seeking redemption in whatever form it presents itself!  At least on this foray into the land of cheese skirts, fries, and juicy burger, I would have the opportunity to walk off a few calories.

Not wanting to backslide into lethargy, and with a few more extra calories that needed burning, the very next day after enjoying the massive burger, I sort of invited myself along to a birthday skating party for one of my granddaughter Jaiden's friends.  Now this wasn't as pushy as it may seem, though I do enjoy a whirl around the rink now and then.  (Read, very occasionally, thus tempting fate and injury as I ease my totally unconditioned granny self out onto a rink filled with speeding, twirling, crashing kiddies who are totally unaware of elderly rinksters).  Besides, I had taught all the attending roller revelers as my second and third grade students.  I enjoyed their company, and they all alt least tolerated mine.

After a very plain and underwhelming roller rink cheeseburger and a piece of pretty darn good birthday cake, it was time to don the skates and start rolling!  I had graciously told all the ten year-old Placerville partiers that they would be on their own out on the rink--I would not be coming to anyone's aid, no matter how grievously they might be hurt.  That's how I wounded myself the last time out, trying to ease Jaiden and Briar back to their feet after their own falls.  It was harsh, I know, but dammit!  I'm sixty-four now--I have to watchout for myself.  I can no longer rely on my decades-old fitness regimen of never breaking a sweat, coupled with eating enough ice cream to amply pad  my patootie and thighs in order to ward off the dreaded and possible lethal broken hip.

Looking forward to wheeling around the rink, I anticipated the lovely skate-breeze I would create, evidenced by the ruffling of my gauzy granny sleeves as they would flap against the ruffed granny upper arms that Briar lovingly calls my "flappies."  I cautiously baby-stepped across the carpeted sitting area and made my way toward the entrance to the rink.  I slowly lifted one foot, gingerly set it down on the polished wooden floor, and instantly said foot betrayed me, causing both feet to fly up and out of me as though I had bounced on a trampoline in preparation for a flying seat-drop.  Apparently my proclivity for spectacular falls continued.  ( I don't fall often, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis to ease the resulting pain!)  Assuming the aerial position of a well-starched magic carpet, I thudded mightily to the floor right at the entrance to rink.  I had completed perhaps one yard of forward movement from the bench.  Granny lands yet another full-throttle butt plant!  My head crashed into the wood a nano-second later.  It is amazing how quickly one can process a full thought in the flash it takes to thunder to the ground when on roller skates.  "Oh, no!  Not again!"

I lay there blinking, stunned, and vowed to crawl off the rink, unlace my skates, turn them in, and, if I could see straight, read my Kindle for the rest of the afternoon.  But before I could summon either the strength or dignity to do so, I managed to focus my eyes  on a completely stricken-looking lady peering down on the completely flattened me.  "Well, at least you got that fall behind you right out of the chute!" she complimented me. My courage renewed, I rolled over onto my stomach, dug my fingers into the carpeted wall, painfully inched my way back up to a standing position, and hobbled shakily around the rink.  Terrified, I did manage to steady up pretty quick, and enjoyed a lovely day of feet-wheeling.  Managed to stay upright, too, to the amazement of my granddaughter, the birthday girl, and my students.

Today I am fairly hobbled, and both Jaiden and Briar, who spent the night with me, are totally done hearing Granny's repeated an pitiful moaning of , "Oh, my butt!"  Well, that's just what they get when Granny joins them for a skating party!

This post originally  appeared in a slightly different form in my blog "Plumpfeet Wonders."

Granny Goes Wheeling, Part Duh.duh*--Granny goes on a Diet

Feb. 9, 2013

I don't know if the pre-skate consumption of gigantic cheese-skirted Squeezeburgers contributed to my downfall as a skating granny or not.  However, as of today, I am officially retiring from the exciting sport or recreational roller skating!!

I did limp up onto the scale at the Sports Club this morning, but that is another story.

*  For those of you not as cyber-cool as I am, read this as "Duh-dot-duh" or "Duh-point-duh."  Your choice!

This post first appeared in my blog, "Plumpfeet Wonders."

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library

by Chris Grabenstein

Just finished "Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library.'" Great read! I had stuff to do on Saturday morning, but I just could not put this book down. I needed to see how it ended! A book written for middle-schoolers, it reminded me of Harry Potter, in that the characters, quality of writing, word-play, and great intricacy of plot and information were more than enough to thoroughly entertain any adult who likes scavenger hunts, board games, books and libraries.  You even get to solve some rebuses and clues yourself!   I gave it five stars.