REPEAT PERFORMANCE

For those of you new to my blog, I'll briefly recap my falls:

Twenty years ago I fell down a flight of stairs and landed directly on the base of my spine, sustaining a very (and I mean very) nasty injury.

I vowed it would never happen again.

Last winter, when I first moved to Tennessee, I fell on the ice twice - landing on the exact same spot of my spine. It's now a year later and I still have pain and trouble walking.

I vowed it would never happen again.

The mountain terrain on my property is all slopes and angles - there's not a level spot. It's treacherous when there's ice or rain. Hell, it's treacherous even on a dry day. I now use extreme caution whenever I walk outside, and I also use a walking stick.

Today was a rare dry day - no ice, no rain. But there is mud.

Need I go any farther? You can already guess what happened.

I walked out to my car to get a few things that were in the trunk: a twelve-pack case of Coke, a thirty pound bag of cat litter, and a four-roll pack of toilet paper.

I didn't bring a walking stick. My arms were loaded with all the stuff. I laboriously dragged myself up the hill and almost made it to the back porch.
That's when I slipped on some mud.

I wish I had this on video, because seeing it would be much more entertaining than describing it.

I was suddenly airborne.
I literally flew onto the back porch, head first, and landed directly on a lawn chair.

Somehow, the thirty pound bag of kitty litter landed on me, the Coke cans rolled everywhere, and only God knows where the toilet paper went. The once-sturdy lawn chair broke into pieces. And I mean pieces.

I had instinctively broken the fall with my arms and subsequently injured my wrists. A chunk of flesh was gouged out of my left wrist, courtesy of the metal lawn chair. It wasn't until I was laying there, face down, that my chest, knees, and left leg started hurting.

As stars and birdies swirled around my head - like in a Warner Brother's cartoon - I realized that I was fortunate I didn't land on my spine.

I really felt sick for several hours after I finally crawled inside. 
And I had unholy visions of what might have happened if I hadn't been able to get up:
After I froze to death and the coyotes were feasting on my body, my three cats would watch and laugh from the kitchen window.

Is there a happy ending to this tale of woe? Naw, not a chance. I not only ache in a wide assortment of uncomfortable places, my pride hurts, too.

And I vow that it will never happen again.



Since I have no photos of me falling on my ass in Tennessee, I've decided to treat you to these pics that were taken when I lived in Texas.

I had set the timer on my camera with the inane intention of taking some pictures of myself fooling around in a wheelbarrow. Naturally, the damn thing toppled over just as the camera was clicking.

 

BIZARRE ACCIDENT

 Bosco is the star of my story

but not the hero

I've often said that I never have to fabricate stories for my blog because fact is more interesting (and stranger) than fiction. I have a prime example to tell today.

Come to think of it, my entire life has been filled with bizarre stories. I am either the unfortunate victim of an irreversible evil curse, or I was simply created for the amusement of the Gods.

It's never my deliberate intention to drag out stories to agonizing lengths, but I probably will. Please bear with me. 

I've had a hectic weekend, bordering on rotten. Despite living here for a year (I moved in on Thanksgiving, 2014) I'm still very unsettled. There's a heckuva lot of work yet to be done and I'm extraordinarily slow at tackling it. Life in the wilderness is wonderful, but MUCH more trouble than my city-boy mentality ever imagined. I also have health issues that I never mention in my blog (it's extremely unbecoming to bitch)
and....I'll admit it.....
living with three feisty cats in a small place ain't easy. 

Cats......cats.....here's where my bizarre story begins.

I felt really rotten last night. Couldn't sleep. Pent-up stress eventually induced an anxiety attack (nothing new - - anxiety and I are roommates).

Cut to the chase, Jon.


Okay, I crawled into bed somewhere around dawn. Bosco (my male cat) always sleeps on my bed. No problem. When Bosco's not sleeping, he loves to sit atop the tall chest of drawers next to my bed. It's his favorite place to be.

His habitual way of accessing his favorite perch is to leap onto the headboard of my bed and then jump up onto the chest of drawers. He always does this gracefully and effortlessly.

 Bosco and his big ass

This morning he encountered a problem. Major malfunction. 

I had just drifted off to sleep when Bosco attempted his Nijinsky leap. He missed the headboard and landed directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) on my face. He panicked, tried to scramble, and crashed into my face again.

I initially didn't know what hit me - but I literally saw stars and birdies. It was like a knockout punch in the third round. Bosco is very heavy and his claws are razor sharp. He ravaged the entire left side of my face with his claws.

One of his paws gouged my left eye and I truly thought he ripped my eyeball out.

I stumbled to the bathroom, trembling and scared witless to look in the mirror.
Bosco did one helluva number on me.
The entire left side of my face was covered in blood. Blood was in my left eye and oozing from my mustache.

It took over half an hour for me to staunch the blood and assess the damage. My eye was okay but there are two vicious cuts a fraction from it - one above and one in the corner.

All in all, I have seven (count 'em) nasty gashes on the left side of my face. I look like the loser in a barroom brawl. My face hurts and burns but at least I still have my eye.

Holy shit - - it will take some time to heal.   

I wasn't angry with Bosco because he didn't intend to do it. He was actually as shocked and surprised as I was. Bosco is a very gentle and timid cat. He simply lost his footing (perhaps he needs glasses?).

I'm always amazed at how big and heavy Bosco is. I had him (and Scruffy) since they were first born - and both kittens were so frail and sickly that I doubted they would live. 

Hopefully this bizarre and ugly incident will never repeat itself. Perhaps I should wear a hockey goalie mask when I'm sleeping.

 

 Here's Bosco when he was a tiny sickly tyke in Texas. Ironically, he's standing on my bed headboard - - the same one where he attempted to make his flying leap this morning.

My other blog:
http://cabinetofcurioustreasures.blogspot.com 
 

OVER THE EDGE IN ARKANSAS

This is a continuation of my two previous posts.



The drive from Texas to Tennessee took longer than expected.

"I'll get there in two days," I bragged. "I'll only need to stay in a motel one night."

It in fact took me three and a half days, and I stayed in motels every night.

I opted to travel on I-40. It was the most simple route, even though it forced me to drive through all the big cities. I arrived in Oklahoma City during rush hour and the traffic scared the living jeeters out of me.

Got a motel room in Shawnee. This time my next door neighbors were two lesbians. They had a huge St. Bernard dog that ran into my room as I was bringing in the luggage. If my  cats weren't caged there would have been trouble.

All in all, things were going very smoothly and I was in a mellow frame of mind. Until I got to Arkansas.

I have no qualms about Arkansas. Lovely scenery. Nice people. But.....

.........rotten roads and highways. Haven't been repaired since Betsy Ross was sewing the flag. All right. I'll admit I'm being vicious.

In late afternoon the weather takes a turn for the worst. By nightfall it's pouring rain. I want to stop but there are no motels. No rest areas. No signs of life.
And no signs. Not one damn sign to let me know where the heck I am.

I don't like night driving. I have bad eyes. Night blindness. No exaggeration. I've had surgery on my eyes, but I won't go into that.

As if torrential rain and bad eyes aren't enough, major road construction begins. And detours. The highway narrows into one harrowing lane.

The deluge becomes Biblical. I don't need a vehicle. I need an ark. The rain is pounding so hard that my windshield wipers are useless.

No lights along the highway. Pitch blackness ensues. No white dividing line on the pavement. Nothing to guide me. There was a feeble smattering of reflectors along one side of the road, but suddenly they vanish.

Absolute blackness. Relentless rain. Nowhere to pull over or stop. I'm gripping the steering wheel with both hands, riding the breaks, crawling 10 MPH.
Literally driving completely blind.

You'll never make it, Jon, you're never going to make it.....

As I'm breathing these ominous words, my car is suddenly airborne. I'm flying through nothingness, like a NASCAR Peter Pan.
It's a crappy analogy, but what the hell...

It wasn't until I hit bottom that I realize I went over a cliff. Landed in a very thick swamp of mud. And water. And oozing Arkansas goo.

The impact was brutal but the mud saved my ass. And my car. And the cats - who were ruthlessly tossed in their cages. Cat food and used kitty litter is everywhere.

It takes all of my strength to push open the door against the resisting sea of mud.

Let me mention that I'm wearing a brand new pair of leather boots. Brand spanking new and beautiful. Only wore them for three days.

As soon as I squeeze out of the car, I sink up to my hips in mud. I'm immediately drenched with pouring rain.

There are times when reality is so harsh that it abandons us. Everything seems completely unreal. I'm drifting in the outer realms of the Twilight Zone.

How the hell am I gonna get outta here?
I have a cell phone, but who can I call or text? And what will I say? Hello, I just went over a cliff in Arkansas and don't know where I am.

I suddenly look up at the steep embankment and realize that the highway is at least 50 feet above me. Vehicles are zooming by, seemingly in the heavens.

I decide to abandon all sense of dignity. I start waving my arms and shouting. Can it get any worse than this? I've sunk to the lowest rung on the Ladder of Humanity.

My pathetic pleas were eventually seen and/or heard. An Arkansas patrol car is on the scene.

"Are you hurt?" he shouts down to me.

"Only my pride," I yell up at him.

And I'm thinking:
there is a God. He's punishing me for all my past sins.

"Better get back in the car, " the officer suggests. "You'll get wet."

Get wet? Is he joking?? I'm covered in mud. I look like the frickin' tar baby in Uncle Remus.

The tow truck finally arrives. The driver is like a reject from a casting call for Hee Haw.
His southern accent is so thick that I can't understand a word.

My car is soon chained to his truck and he's plying me with instructions as he performs the extraction.

"Torn th' weeel rait!"
Turn the wheel right.

"Ain seen nutin thes baid inna loong taim."
Ain't seen nothing this bad in a long time.

The crystal clarity of his pronunciation astounds me when he finally quotes the fee for the extraction.

"Three hundred dollars."

No accent at all. I understood every word perfectly.

Fortunately I had cash.
Being extracted from the depths of hell and the agony of humiliation was well worth any price.



This isn't the end of my adventures, folks. There's more to come.