More little snippets for your Sunday…

My kids have always loved hiking in the mountains, in the woods. I remember when they were little, Becca was fascinated by ferns. Whenever we passed a glade of ferns, she would stop us so that she could pet them. I couldn’t imagine anything cuter than a little three-year-old stopping her whole family in mid-hike to toddle over and gently, tenderly pet the green ferns in the dappled shade of the mountain forest.


She also loved to pet moss, wherever we found it. I’ll confess that I love to pet moss, too. It is so soft, and I always imagine that it is the head-fur of little gnomes that live under the ground. I am always careful to be gentle with the moss, and never to pull it up, because I don’t want to anger the little gnomes who tend the woods. And I wonder if the sprites and sylphs and wood-nymphs watch over us as we stop to pet the ferns and the moss, and if they smile at us because we love the woods as much as they do.

I have to be careful with jewelry, because I’m allergic to nickel. My parents didn’t know this for the longest time. I’d had problems with earrings, and in the early 80s, nobody really knew about nickel allergies. Then I took band in junior high school, and I played my flute every day. My first flute was silver plated, and after a couple years of this, the plating wore away from the mouthpiece, leaving nickel to make direct contact with my mouth every day - multiple times during marching season. By November of eighth grade, I had a huge sore under my lip. And, of course, since I found myself surrounded by junior high schoolers, the word herpes was used in my presence on many occasions. During that year, my dad took me to the doctor, who diagnosed me with the nickel allergy - which answered both the earring and the flute problems - and my parents got me a new flute with a solid silver headjoint. My herpes problem went away, and ended up forgotten by all but me.

The last move of my childhood was from the Philadelphia Naval Base to Virginia Beach. I was to start seventh grade, the first year of junior high school, and my sister was going into third grade. My parents were having a house built, but it wasn’t going to be ready until late October. But they wanted to get us into our schools so that we wouldn’t have to transfer mid-year, so we set up an address at a soon-to-be-neighbor’s house and we stayed in efficiencies and with friends from mid-August until the house was ready. On the drive down, I started to feel really miserable. Mom and Dad thought I was just carsick from the hot summer drive, but the next day - Saturday, conveniently - I started to spike a fever and become quite obviously sick. It turned out to be one of the worst cases of strep throat I’d experienced, and we couldn’t get in to see a Navy doctor until Monday. That Saturday we spent at the realtor’s office, choosing vinyl flooring and wallpaper and lighting fixtures and paneling and stain for the new house. I stayed slumped in a corner, mumbling vague responses when pressed, generally feeling miserable. Mom felt so bad.

The first week of school, we were staying in an efficiency at a rather skeezy motel, waiting for Labor Day to pass so that we could get better rates in this tourist town. It had a pool, of course, and the pool had a slide. Dad and I were out playing in the water Saturday afternoon, and he wet down the slide for me to make it faster. I had the bright idea to go down on my belly, face first. With the additional water, I went really fast… right into the bottom of the concrete pool… face first. Somehow, my nose impacted, so I ended up with wounds above my nose (between my eyes), between my nose and my upper lip, and on my left cheek. I could barely open my mouth to speak, and I was a little shocky that night. Mom said that if it had been just before the first day of school, she would have kept me home, but with it being the second week, the teachers actually expected real work from us. So I had to go to school with my face covered with scabs until they healed. At least the story was a pretty good one.

… unlike the story of my first sprained ankle (previously mentioned here). In the spring of ninth grade, I was in the back yard playing soccer with our half-cocker-spaniel-half-gooney-bird dog Critter. Critter was smart as a whip, and he was amazingly good at predicting where you would go next with the soccer ball, and when you were going to feint left and then kick right. I tried a move like this, not expecting him to anticipate me, and ended up tripping right over his body. Critter was fine, but I sprained my right ankle. And telling that story in school the next day… “How did you sprain your ankle?” “I tripped over the dog.” Yeah, that’s a great battle scar!

However, that one wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as the worst sprained ankle I had, which happened when I was about 27. I was sitting at the computer desk, and since I’m vertically challenged, my feet didn’t reach the floor. So I had my legs curled up under me while I worked. After a time, they fell asleep, but I was involved in what I was doing, and my husband was upstairs with the kids. Then one of the children called me from upstairs, and said they needed me, not Daddy. I uncurled my legs, wincing at the realization that standing up was going to be less than pleasant. My left leg supported my weight, but my right foot and ankle had no sensation whatsoever. I landed on my face, my right foot completely twisted under me. But now - now it had sensation! And the sensation was not good. I spent the rest of that morning at the doctor’s office, getting x-rayed and poked and prodded, and being given a splint to wear. Then we took the children to their tae kwon do demonstration, where I had to quickly come up with a good story for why I was on crutches with a splint on my ankle. I tried, “Um, I got mugged this morning?” but apparently my inflection wasn’t convincing. So I sighed and admitted I’d tried to walk on a foot that was completely asleep. As expected, everyone within earshot was bent over double in laughter. And when the pain medication kicked in, I was, too.