From the May, 2008 Disaster

My next door neighbor, for some reason, about a year and a half ago decided to put a surveyor’s stake in the ground between our houses. It’s rebar, and it’s in cement, and dangerous (it’s gone as of yesterday afternoon).

I was moving furniture from the front where I was assembling it (new patio furniture) to the back patio, when, during the last load of the umbrella and the tube that holds it etc., I hit the stake, tripped over it and smashed, head first, into the brick wall of his house. I was stopped somewhat by the thorny rose bushes I hit first embedding rose thorns into my scalp (I am allergic to rose thorns as well).

My knees hit the crumbling rocks and cement base, and the stones kind of left my knees with stone impressions, but bleeding ones.

I hit hard, had to eliminate bodily excesses which thankfully passed (the yearning, not the excess), started to pass out, saw stars etc., hit the ground in pain and thought I’d broken my knees.

When I calmed somewhat, I was screaming for Rosie and she came out, looked at me lying there, and returned to find her mother and told her she thought I was dead.

I pulled thorns out of my scalp, got onto my feet and went in and sat down with an ice pack on my neck which still hurts. The knees and the head are sore but OK and Motrin helps a lot. The glass of gin I drank with the Motrin helped even more, in fact it was so helpful I had another.