To milk a moment

So I've been over the shopping trauma for days now. But it did feel nice to bask in the righteous indignation shared by some of my friends.

I used to have a pastor who was famous (to me alone?) for his saying: "A pity party of one is really fun... for about a minute."

But this week I am determined to remain positive. Even though we're pretty sure bambino(a) #5 has cracked or somehow dislocated my lowest right rib. Anyone? I am just so not going to the doctor over this. I have an appointment on Monday anyway, and I may or may not bring it up. Depends. It's been four days and I will shriek if a hen's feather or stronger breeze lands in that general vicinity. And don't get me wrong: it's amply cushioned. There's no way it was injured from the outside.

Imagine the guilt I can heap on this baby.

This brings me to a random but almost related story.

Besides breaking my hip (two years ago?) in a spectacularly noneventful way, I have broken other bones. In my years -- more than a decade -- as a dancer (Graceful? Me? Shaddup if you know me in real life.) I am sure I crumbled more than one abused toe. OF MY OWN, people.

En pointe as it were.

But five or so years ago I broke my, um, tailbone in a snapped stirrup leather accident during a (or directly ending) a trail ride. That was fun. Did you know off-road ambulances are five times as expensive as their two-wheel-drive counterparts? And did you know you have to pay full price for both if you are transferred once you leave the wilderness? Seems there ought to be a discount.

ALSO ... if your backwoods ER doctor is an ex-rodeo man with his own story of breaking his coccyx at the tragic seven second mark and then driving 17 hours straight home in his beat-up pickup and forthwith applying to medical school as a cheaper and easier career alternative ... you might not get as much sympathy (or pain medication) as you would have from city doctor. I'm just sayin'.

Anywhat.

I wasn't even recovered from that injury, not even walking without a geriatric tennis-ball-footed assistance device, before my dear friend KL's eldest son, blog name of Headlong, (maybe 11 at the time) ventured this question:

"How do you break a bone when you have all that... padding?"

I'm not really sure, Headlong. Not really sure. And for some reason a Willy Nelson moment is coming over me.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowgirls.