Another Life Lesson Learned

Lesson 1: Do not slip on glare ice.

Lesson 1a. Should you fail to learn Lesson 1, do not fall such that the dowel of your embroidery scroll frame is perpendicular to the ground, and then land such that your head impacts the dowel.

I'll remember that next time.

So I fell. Not so unusual, gods know, but perhaps a bit ironic given that I'd just spent the evening watching ice skating competition. I got to the car, slung my purse in, forgetting about the issue of glare ice underneath my feet. The momentum of the purse was just enough to take my feet out from under me. Fine, I go down. I can't walk real well, but I fall real good. Unfortunately, I didn't make allowances for the garbage bag with the various impedimenta of my cross-stitch project thaqt I had in my other hand. I hit my head on the dowel, lay back on the ice, and had mild hysterics. I don't usually cry after falling, but for some reason, I was especially rattled. I didn't realize I was bleeding.

I got home, sat down to watch a nightcap of television, and felt liquid in my ear. I reached up, and my hand came away red. "Huh," I thought. "I guess I am bleeding." I finished the show, went into the bathroom, and swabbed my ear with hydrogen peroxide. You know how above the earlobe there's a triangle of cartilage? I caught the dowel at the notch just above the triangle, where the shell of the ear starts to curve away from the skull. That's where the primary cut is. There's another little one inside the shell. That, however, is totally nominal. It's the one at the notch between the triangle (what the hell is that called, anyway?) and the shell that hurts like a total bitch. When I swabbed it clean, it sent headache pains across my forehead, as well as just hurting in its own right. Now how fair is that? Two hours later, and it's still bleeding. Not heavily, you understand. I'd worry about that. This is just enough that it'll stain my pillowcase and generally be annoying. I currently have cotton stuffed in my ear. It's not really a place amenable to the placement of a bandage. I guess I should really invest in some liquid bandage; this would be the perfect use for it.

So, learn from my experience. Cross-stitch is a dangerous hobby, and should be approached with caution. Professional klutz, closed track, do not try this at home.