Thursday Thirteen #95

I think I've done this before but I'm sure I've collected enough for another batch of 13 since then. These are moments of oops. Things I did or that happened to me that might be attributed to my visual impairment, sleep deprivation, the absent minded professor sans PhD syndrome, or according to my sister, ADD. She and her son have been diagnosed and my brother's son but not me.

Thirteen Oops in My Recent Past

1. While clearing the table, I picked up what I thought was a piece of grated cheese and put it in my mouth. It was a yellow twist-tie off the bread wrapper.

2. While bringing Merlin out to the back yard, I misjudged where the stake for his leash was and I stubbed my bare foot on it. In my defense it was painted green and didn't stick up above the grass much that day.

3. Last Sunday the oscillating fan in our room started making a racket and in order to adjust it I needed to kneel on the bed. I had been reclined against pillows reading and in order to get onto my knees had to roll over first. In the process I smacked my forehead on the shelf holding the clock and reading lamp. It gave me a headache for a few minutes. About twenty minutes later I went out to the porch fridge to get a cold drink. Ed was out there working on the laptop and he looked up and said, What happened to her head? When I went to the bathroom mirror to look I saw a small round red dot like Hindu women often wear to represent the third eye. Except it was a tad off center and a tad higher.

4. A few hours later while exiting our room I tripped over Merlin who raced between my legs. I stumbled out of the room and on down the hall (about three steps) where I smacked into the doorknob on the hall door which stands open against the hall wall. I now have a bruise the size of a tennis ball about four inches above my left hip.

So much for the idea that the bump on my head had opened my third eye.

5. About six weeks ago I was washing dishes on the day of my in-laws expected return from the coast. I'd let them pile up for most of two days. I was almost done when I suddenly noticed that the clean dishes in the rack which sits in the left sink well were standing six inches deep in greasy pink water. I'd been rinsing them with the spray nozzle not realizing the drain stopper was in on that side and earlier I had rinsed out a spaghetti sauce skillet on that side before placing the rack there. I had to rewash everything in the rack.

6. I was feeding a little stray kitten out of a tiny cup held in my hand. I tried to stop a piece of kibble from going over the edge with my finger. I missed. She bit my finger.

7. Sunday night as Ed was getting ready to sleep and I was getting ready to write my post for Joystory, I discovered that the clip-on lenses that make it possible for me to read the screen from a normal typing position--ten or more inches from instead of the four required by my bifocals--were missing. I suddenly remembered that I had accidentally worn them outside when I took Merlin out and had clipped them to the cover of my book. Knowing I couldn't have a satisfying or productive session on the computer without them, Ed got dressed and went back outside to try to spot them. No luck. He found them the next morning under the bottom step of the back porch.

8. Monday afternoon when Ed and his folks left for the dirt track races, I moved my workstation out to the living room where I anticipated sitting in comfort with the cooler and two fans in there. I got all set up and then reached to lower the clip-ons and they weren't there. I distinctly remembered clipping them on as I left the room with the first load. I spent the next hour backtracking my every move looking for them. I even had to go out to look on the front porch and steps and the strip of lawn beside the driveway because when I had gone out for the small folding table (we used to call them TV trays) Merlin had darted out with me and gotten clear to the driveway before I caught him.

(Call that an oops too so that makes this # 8 & 9)

Anyway after working up a serious sweat doing all that scurrying around and going in and out of the nearly 100 degrees and I mean really serious--it soaked my T-shirt from the neck to the waistband of my shorts--I finally allowed myself to sit down and rest and try to think where else in the house I had been while getting my workstation moved out and set up. I went to raise the collar of my shirt up to wipe my face. And there were the clip-ons--clipped to the collar.

10. On my last walk to the library and back about three weeks ago I missed a landmark which was my cue to turn and cross the street. I overshot by nearly a block before I realized I now recognized nothing. I stopped and turned in a circle slowly a couple of times trying to get my bearings and a man who had whizzed by on a bicycle a few seconds earlier circled back to see if I needed help. By then I had spotted the backside of the stop sign behind me and I gestured at it with my white cane and then at the other side of the street from it and said, I think that's the stop sign where I was supposed to cross. Is that the street that goes past the post office?

He confirmed this for me and I trudged back. It was pushing 90 degrees that afternoon. So maybe that could have seemed like the explanation for my red face. I get so embarrassed when people stop and ask me if I need help when I am acting disoriented on the street. I appreciate it. I do. But I am still embarrassed.

11. A few weeks ago, one of the weekends my in-laws had gone to the coast, I was walking across the living room and tripped over Sweetie, their Border Collie/Australian Shepard. I went to the floor hard, hitting the couch on the way down having thrown myself to the side so I wouldn't land on her. That has happened at least a dozen times since we have lived here.

12. One night last week, Merlin tried to jump up on top of my To-Be-Reviewed pile on the bedside table trying to get to the window to check out the sounds of a catfight just outside it. I tried to stop him. the pile of five novels fell off and the reading lamp beside them fell over and a lot of misc small stuff fell onto the bed and floor. If I'd just let him do his thing he would have probably managed it without the fiasco. Sigh. More than preventing the tip over of the books and lamp I wanted to prevent him getting in my light. In my attempt to save a little bit of time and annoyance for myself, I ended up causing the loss of a lot of time for myself and annoyance for both me and Ed who had been asleep beside me. It took me twenty minutes to put it all back in order.

13. That To-Be-Reviewed pile had to go back to the library unreviewed Tuesday morning. Leaving aside the fact of my procrastination due to the heat so that three of them had sat there over a week--much of the blame can be placed on the oops #7, 8 & 9 which caused loss of time and energy intended for that project.

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