Possumblog

Everyone hates hearing about dreams…

But I had somehow wound up in the gymnasium, and for some reason I couldn’t find the stairs to get up to the upper level. A lady told me there was a set of steps around the corner in the locker, so I went around the corner, but the locker was empty. I asked the person next to me where the steps were, and I was shown something like a vertical drawer that had a padded front. This pulled out from underneath the upper level, and it contained a giant extendable ladder. I figured out that you raised the ladder, and then climbed up it to get to the seats. Odd, but what the heck, right? Right.

I raised the ladder and clambered up the rungs, which were also padded and upholstered like the front of the drawer had been, with a soft squishy sort of beige Naugahyde attached to polished metal bars. It didn’t add much to the feeling of security, but I went on up anyway, rickety thing swaying back and forth.

I got to the level of the seats, and toyed with the idea of going all the way up to the top of the ladder, which by now stretched all the way up into the rafters of the gymnasium. It was already so wobbly, though, that I decided I’d gone far enough and carefully edged off the step onto one of the bleacher seats, where I stretched out to watch the game and sleep.

Remind me never to eat grilled chicken ravioli before bed.

ANYway, still not much in the way of enough free time to blog, but enough to stay abreast of the events of the day.

More or less.

The little pup Patches finally decided he’d try out his barking. He’s got a nice bark. Loud enough, but not too loud. Big enough to sound like a real dog, but not so loud that it’s disturbing. Small, but not yippy or yappy. And he only barks when there’s actually something to bark at, not just when everyone else in the neighborhood barks. I hope he doesn’t grow out of that.

Nearly killed myself yesterday. Or more precisely, was nearly the victim of patricide. We (the three younger kids and I) were outside playing keepaway with Patches’ glow-in-the-dark mini football. (He wasn’t playing, just watching us.) Anyway, I’d managed to get in the middle, and in a ploy to appear disinterested, would not try much to catch the ball as the kids tossed it back and forth, and didn’t make a lunge for it when it landed on the ground. When I saw that none of the kids were going to make a run for the ball, which had landed only a yard or so in front of me, I leapt after it and scooped it up in triumph and started trotting away when I was suddenly and without warning WHALLOPED in the back by Rebecca, who’d (too late) seen me grab the ball and decided to get it back by running after me and trying to grab me. The whallop threw me off balance, and since I was already trotting down a very slight downward slope, and what with the momentum of my doughy, formerly-athletically-gracefully mass now hurtling increasingly out of control toward the ground, it was pretty apparent terra firma was going to win a round.

I tried mightily to react appropriately. Back in the old days, my feet would have caught up with my now forward-plummeting torso. Or I would have deftly dropped a hand to the ground to arrest my top-heavy bulk. As it was, my little legs tried to run, but were hampered by the combination of age, and slick-soled wingtip dress shoes on slick grass. My upper body was firmly in the grasp of the earth’s gravitational field and the laws of motion, and despite my most valiant efforts, I crashed heavily onto the yard, digging a big ditch with my right shoulder and arm, and a smaller one a few milliseconds later with my knee. The overall effect was something like what happens when you have a runaway wheelbarrow full of wet cement. It was at this time that the puppy decided this looked like a very fun game indeed, and rushed over to snuffle and cold-nose me in uncomfortable places.

At least I did retain possession of the ball.

Alas, dignity took a beating.

I was able to have a nice supper of grilled chicken ravioli afterwards, so there is that.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 5, 2007 02:07 PM