July Ends With a Bang (Up)

We’ve been busily working away on the H.E.A.R.T Anthology.  I showed Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein from the Blog Talk radio show Authors & Technology around Second Life in preparation for a radio interview next week.  And I had a war of words with our former landlord (Pt. I, Pt. II and Pt. III).  It’s been a crazy busy month and it ended with a huge bang.  I literally slid in to August… on my knees, elbow and palms.  Ouch!

We’ve moved into the new house and I have a new job that will have a lot better pay.  To get the new job tho I have to pass a simple drug screening.  I had 24 hours to get the screening done or I’d be counted as refusing to take the test and ineligible for the job.  Since I don’t take drugs I wasn’t worried at all.

Next morning I got up to ride my bike uptown and pee in a cup.  I looked out the window to see drenching rain and lightning.  No worries, I think to myself, I have a rain poncho and I’m not afraid of getting wet. I finished my coffee and headed into the storm.

The beginning of the ride was mad exhileration.  The rain was pounding and I zoomed past cars that were creeping blindly along like a herd of old sheep.  I was the essence of freedom zooming thru the rain, my blue rain poncho trailing streams of water as it flapped behind me.  Ha! I thought as I smirked at the cars full of captured pedestrians.  This is what keeps me young!

With that thought ringing thru my mind I made a fancy little twist on the sidewalk to avoid a crack and hopped up the curb.  More accurately, I tried to hop up the curb.  My bike had a different idea and decided to betray me to the road.  In slow motion I saw my tire slip off the wet sidewalk and start sliding.

I felt myself going over and had just enough time to make a mental note that there were a lot of cars lined up to watch this embarrassing fiasco before I started skidding along the concrete towards them.  I saw tires rolling just ahead of me and dug my palms and knee in to stop my slide.

As soon as I stopped moving I hopped back to my feet and tried to recover my bike and continue on my journey but my knees and hands were shaking and I had to pause.  Then the sting kicked in.  Sting is a major understatement.  Acid fire would more accurately describe what my leg and palms were experiencing.  I willed myself not to cry and get back on that bike.

Continuing on was a much different experience.  The pain in my leg was intense and was almost making pedaling unbearable.  I saw the deep cuts and scrapes in my palms had embedded gravel in them along with some deep razor thing cuts.  I made the rest of the trip without looking at the condition of my leg or elbow.

By the time I got to the drug testing lab I was an absolute mess.  I walked in, shook the rain off my poncho and tried to look nonchalant.  The panicked reaction of the lab assistant finally prompted me to look at myself.  I won’t get into graphic detail. It looked worse than it was with all the rain, gravel and grass but it was pretty bad all on its own.

I wound up with two jammed wrists and elbows, bad scrapes on both palms and my left knee and elbow.  My right knee had a huge bruise and knot on it.  My ego took the bigger hit.  I went from being a storm riding daredevil to battered survivor within a minute.  How quickly fortune can change when flaunted.

August will find me humbled, subdued and grateful.  The new house and job are huge

The road isn’t kind…

blessings.  We survived the last place and the subsequent landlady battle.  I survived my own attempts to do myself in.  Death by sidewalk may still be in my future, but not this July.

Bring on August, I say, but gently.  My storm riding days are done (until I get better tires).