This is riveting stuff, I assure you:

I was carrying my laptop under one arm, my cell phone under the other, and my big cup of water with the lid and the super-cool straw (all Tupperware®, of course) in my left hand (Janet would call that “my BaBa” – evidently you’re never too old).

I did not fall down the stairs. I did not fall up the stairs.

I reached the end of the downstairs hall (in a hurry?) where there are two doors – one to the right and one to the left. Then I did a fantastically spectacular gymnastic maneuver towards the floor -perhaps the ceiling? (well, the wall, really). Let us say I tripped over something. It’s possible – the Kitten Childrens’ scratching post is to the left. Their food mat is there, too. Air? VERY HEAVY AIR???

I hit my right knee on one edge of the right-hand door frame on my way down, flung everything up in the air -WHEEEEE – (including, remember, a large cup of water, which, despite having a lid, has a VERY LARGE HOLE FOR THE SUPER-COOL STRAW). Then I hit the right side of my head on the other side of the right-handed doorway. This bent the right ear-piece of my glasses (and hurt my ginormous head, I must say).

I spent one split second thinking, “WHAT THE…????” Didn’t even have time for proper sailor language. Then I RAN to get towels from the right-handed bedroom closet to dry off my two most beloved (well, I’d put my iPod in that ranking, too, but that was safely ensconced elsewhere) pieces of electronic equipment.

My phone still seems to work; that’s good. I shut down my laptop as fast as possible, dried it off and took the battery out (luckily it wasn’t wet inside there…). Now it is sitting on a very soft pillow in a dim, quiet room with the door closed while it is recuperating. I’m hoping for the best. It didn’t smoke or sparkle and still had normal screen images as I shut it down; I’m taking that as a good sign. Everyone please think healing thoughts for my beloved PowerBook.

In – what – two or three years Grettir managed to only put the tiniest dent on one side (which I couldn’t find for two weeks after I had the thing and then I had to wonder if I’d done it myself). I’ve made a lovely scratchy mark on the right side top already (yes, I’m right-handed – talk about your dominant sides) and another not far from that one.

I suppose what I’m saying is I’M TALENTED LIKE THAT.

Oh – and I did some sort of damage turning off the main water source to the house, but you mustn’t tell my Dad. First of all, I turned the water off (I’m so happy to have the valve IN MY ROOM) being snotty (for a good cause?). Secondly, my Dad takes that joke about engineers being “glorified plumbers” seriously. SERIOUSLY. He should not plumb, for the most part, I assure you. Secretly I will blame him for that faucet being in bad shape because he has turned it soooo hard that part of the knob has actually broken off.

Being a brilliant scientist he does not think the water in the house is off if you can turn on a faucet and ANY water comes out. My Mom and Shirleen and I have all tried to explain the logic of BLEED OFF – the idea that there is still water in the pipes that HAS TO COME OUT even AFTER you’ve turned the main valve off. He has never believed us. A MAN told him that one day and I swear he shouted, “EUREKA – what a brilliant thought? It never, EVER, EVER would have occurred to me!!! Why didn’t someone tell me that before?” As though he’d never heard such an amazing concept before. Argh.

I did learn something very important because of Labor Day. Well, I suppose it’s completely coincidental that I got “schooled” because of Labor Day (which I’m feeling too pissy to spell the cool “Labour” way), but then I can pretend it was part of a celebration.

As I need to take my glasses to be bent back into shape (I learned the lesson about trying to do that yourself a LONG time ago – during an era when every single time I set my glasses on the bad I assured myself I’d remember they were there and then I sat on them about forty-seven percent of the time – maybe even forty-nine percent. It’s the early-onset senility…) I took them off and had a nap. After taking some ibuprofen. I’m tellin’ you, that’s what you do.

And when I awoke, the magical shoemaker elves, as they didn’t have their normal duties today – it being Labor Day and all, had FIXED MY GLASSES. And as it was a holiday, they stuck around (instead of following their normal proclivities to mysteriously disappear leaving being many gorgeous pairs of Italian shoes in MY SIZE) to play some board games (they cheat, but they are so cute it’s just funny). I made some great hummus and we all had a snack and it was just the BEST TIME EVER.

And then I woke up with Kitten Child clear under the covers near my RIGHT FOOT – sooo very cute, but not an expensive Italian, custom-made shoe. Oh, leave me alone; I can dream (I wish I dreamt such nice things).

I went to put my contacts in. This is still a slightly tenuous process, as I’ve mentioned. Let me preface my next adventure by explaining that a day or so after I first got the contacts, they were bugging me a little (because of STICKING MY FINGER IN MY EYE ONE TOO MANY TIMES) and I called the optometrist to ask how I could tell if I’d put a contact in wrong-side out. The reply was a slightly impatient, “Well, can you SEE?” to which I answered in the affirmative (good thing, too, as I was driving at the time – conscientiously using my Bluetooth® headset). “Then they are in right.” I felt like I’d called and basically been told, “Duh, duh, duh – DUH DUH DUH, Dummy! Have a nice day.”

My eyes were a little sleepy/irritated, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when the right contact bothered me after I put it in. I put the left one in, and it was a little better. I took the right one out, my eye was still a little buggy, so I just put the contact back in. After five or ten minutes of blinking and wandering around closing one eye and then the other evaluating whether or not I could see (I could) I thought I’d better check the damn thing again.

Okay – BRILLIANT PEOPLE FROM THE OPTOMETRIST’S OFFICE – it was inside-out and I could still see (when I wasn’t blinking tears away or just blinking for FUN).
Happy Labor Day. Phhht.