Marginally decent song with lyrics that describe what I've not been doing for the last week.

"Hey, Anne," you're saying right about now. "We thought you were supposed to be back in town Tuesday evening. This is the first time we're hearing from you. What's up with that?"

Well, it was an--eventful--trip.

Actually, the L-i-K-S called me the night before my flight and said they all had summer colds and if I was worried, maybe I should reschedule my trip. Not normally being vulnerable to these random illnesses that pass through society, I assured her I had no fear of being struck low.

I may have spoken a bit too soon.

No, I didn't catch anyone's cold. I can do better than that when it comes to making a trip eventful.

It started well. I landed in K.C. without the benefit of torrential rainstorms (sometimes I think just booking a trip to KCI is a signal to the weather gods to move in and start strutting their thunder), to be met by the L-i-K-S and Rapunzel.

Pippi was otherwise engaged that night, but the rest of us took off to the theater, where we saw Moonlight and Magnolias. The play was an interesting balance of humor and social messages--three men, two of them Jewish and the objects of discrimination, writing a movie script to make heroes of Civil War-era slave-owning Southerners? And yet, it was funny, since the nominal "script writer" in the group hadn't actually read the book, a fact that forced the three of them to act out scenes from the book as they wrote. A very enjoyable evening and a really charming little theater.

The next day, Rapunzel wanted to go to the local Renaissance Festival. Since it was a nicely cloudy day (no possibility of a return of the near-sunstroke I suffered at the Taste of Colorado Labor Day weekend), it sounded like a good idea and it was.

Naturally, we ate things. I was mocked for ordering a "foot-long sausage on a stick" but I didn't realize it was "foot-long" and thought it was, you know, just the normal "sausage onna stick" that you get at the RenFair. When I was served--well, let's just say it was all incredibly more phallic than I was really prepared to deal with. Also, I got mustard all over myself and then when I opened my bottle of lemonade, I got that all over me and what with one thing and another, we hadn't been there fifteen minutes before I desperately needed a shower.

But whatever. We were having fun. We wandered around and shopped. We (Rapunzel, Pippi, and I) rode an elephant! I've seen the elephant and camel rides at the local RenFair here in Denver, but this was my first time taking the plunge. (Elephants walk funny--all the parts move strangely under you and it turns out that a 30-second ride is enough to make an old person stiffen up and need assistance dismounting.)

We shopped. Rapunzel bought a print. Pippi bought a ring. I bought a strange kind of rock potpourri, warranted to last six months or more in a medium-sized room. Subsequently, the double plastic bag it was in had to be locked in the trunk of the car for the trip home, then triple-bagged in plastic and stuffed in the bottom of my suitcase to control the overwhelming odor for the rest of my trip. (By the time I unpacked, both inner bags were covered in an aromatic oil that somehow worked its way through the packaging. My hands smelled for two days but the rock potpourri ceased to have any aroma 24 hours after I put it out in a dish.) (The plastic bags are still fragrant, though.)

That evening, we ordered pizza for dinner (I can't remember how many years it's been since I ate pizza) and sat around reading and watching DVDs for a while. (I love my family--I love anyone whose idea of "entertaining a guest" means making sure they have an interesting book to read.)

Anyhow, and to get to the disaster portion of the trip, at one point I naturally needed to step outside to smoke a cigarette. Since I was going out anyhow, I offered to walk their dog.

Big mistake. Those who know me know I'm not really a dog person. Those who know me well know that dogs can sense this about me and consequently tend to ignore my firmly stated orders (not to mention begging requests...).

They leash up the dog (Which is, don't mistake me, really a very sweet animal. We met him on my previous trip to K.C, remember? Buster, the dog-inna-box.) and I putter outside. I smoke. I decide that "walking the dog" should be more than just letting it have a pee against the nearest tree. The poor thing is cooped up all day, after all. It should be allowed to romp a bit when it goes out, right?

You see what's coming, right? We're walking along, Buster freezes into place when he fixates on the sight of another dog on the other side of a fence. I turn my head to try a "commanding voice" to make him keep walking. I step forward as I do this.

My foot meets--nothingness.

Yes! There is a curb! I'm halfway to the sidewalk as I realize this. This is my last coherent thought for three or four seconds, a time-frame that seems to last an hour.

The rest is a blur of pain and panic as the hard plastic handle of the leash, after gouging me quite painfully in a sensitive part of my body just to the left of my right armpit, slips out of my hand. My left foot mushrooms into mass of agony.

Buster, a thing I was afraid to tell the L-i-K-S before now, romps off happily, thinking this is some new kind of game. Fortunately, he is a well-trained, sweet-tempered animal. When I gasp out his name, he returns to me, letting me grab the leash again (in, I need hardly add, my bloody hand).

Oh now, oh no, oh no.

I spend some time thinking that, before I decide to stand up and see if my foot will hold me. It does, just barely. Buster, somehow sensing I'm now wounded and vulnerable, pads slowly next to me as I stagger back to the building, up two flights of stairs, and back indoors.

Anyhow, all that melodrama aside, I scraped the back of my right hand, my right elbow, and my right shoulder. I scraped my left palm. There's the aforementioned damage to the (ahem soft tissue on the right side of my chest. And who knows what I did to the foot?

The L-i-K-S and the girls took good care of me for the rest of my trip. They went out the next morning to get me bandages and a cane. (It's a tricky proposition to use a cane when the hand you should hold it in is too damaged to use but using it in the other hand aggravates the muscles under the arm on that side.)

We sat around their house all day. I took Advil and napped. (The L-i-K-S naps, to get rid of the rest of her cold. Rapunzel naps, because she was awakened long before her normal time that morning. Pippi goes to school.) They waited on my hand and foot. Buster, still understanding I was hurt, but not sure what the problem was, persistently tried to lick my foot better. (I am very ticklish on the bottoms of my feet, so we discouraged this.)

The next day, they all returned to their normal pursuits. I spent two hours showering (sort of) and packing. I sat around a lot.

Airport (where a torrential rainstorm moves in just as they're about to load us), the flight (where I was, naturally, in the very back row of the, thankfully small, airplane). wheelchair ride to baggage claim where the R.C. reclaimed responsibility for me.

Then, home.

And that's pretty much it for excitement this week. I've spent the week sitting in a chair with my foot propped up, trying to get it to look less like a turnip (it took the trip badly) and more like a human appendage. With quite a lot of success, I should add. It's definitely foot-like today. Most of the swelling is gone. The bruising (base of all five toes, outside of foot, instep, bottom of foot) is starting to fade from red-and-purple to a healing sort of green.

How was your week?