Earlier this week one of my good friends, Martha, came over for dinner.  Post food while we were chatting over whatever TV we were watching I excused myself and came back with a giant bottle of hydrogen peroxide that I have turned into a spray bottle, pulled up my pants and sprayed down one of my newest scrapes.  Martha’s responses:

* “You hurt yourself so much you have a hydrogen peroxide SPRAY BOTTLE?” – Yes.  Well technically the spray bottle’s actual purpose is to make using hydrogen peroxide for house cleaning easier (search on Pinterest will offer suggestions on what exactly to use it on) the fact that it makes disinfecting my tortured body easier too is just a happy accident.  No pun intended.

* “Aren’t you suppose to be all graceful and junk in that class you take?  Aren’t ballerina’s good at balance?” (Perhaps not an exact quote but this is how I remember it.)  Sigh … yes.   First of all let’s get one thing straight.  I’m not a ballerina.  Sure my exercise of choice utilizes a barre but, tragically enough, it is used mostly to help balance yourself while you do near to impossible exercises.  I’m extra clumsy in Bar Method class.  I ALMOST fall over at least 1/2 dozen times a session.  Every class starts with leg raises (just march really … that’s all it is … marching).  Which I constantly fumble at.  After basic bicep and shoulder work you move to a position that was created by the devil.  You stand with your feet parallel then move one foot (let’s say right) back and turn it out a bit.  Then you lean over at the waist, roll your shoulders down and pull them together, align you neck, hold in your stomach, open up your chest, lift your right arm (in this case) above your hip as high as you can while keeping your shoulders and hips level, then straighten your arm as much as possible.  Once you get all that together you spend the next 3 minutes or so going through little arm motions continuing to keep it above your hip and as straight as possible.  You can use the mirrors around you in the room to make sure your back is flat (which is what really kills me) and that your shoulders are level (which they probably aren’t).  Each time I check a mirror I don’t gracefully return my gaze down to a few inches ahead of my toes, as suggested.  I bobble my way back to position barely making it there without tripping over my own feet.  There are a number of times during heel raises (is what it sounds like … raise up on your toes and down a bunch of times) and stretching where you are encouraged to “take a balance.”  Every now and then a nice supportive teacher will call me out and tell me to give a balance a try.  In my head I scoff at her/him and think, “Yah right.  I almost fell over and died when I put my leg on the bar for stretch earlier.  I know you saw that.”

So there you go.  I am destined to be covered in bumps, bruises and scrapes.  I have a number of dog related paw sized bruises and nail scrapes but right now my big issue comes from falling down on my hike with the dogs on Tue.  We were coming down the trail from the Griffith Park Observatory.  Wide path.  Very little incline.  No reason at all to fall.  I stepped wrong, twisted my ankle, and fell down on hands and knees.  To add insult to injury NO ONE came to help me and/or check on me.  5 people actually walked by me without saying a thing.  Can you imagine?  Oh well at least I had the dogs.  Nope!  Riggins, who is normally very loyal in these situations, just kept walking down the hill with Asscher following (after she tried to steal my hat when I was down on the ground).  Only little Creature stayed to keep me company as I picked myself back up.  From this incident I have an ankle that hurts and a giant scrape on my right knee.  The burn  and chunk of missing skin on my finger from crafts a couple of weeks ago is still healing and, if hit wrong, hurting.  Then Tuesday as I was dropping off Asscher at home I parked on a steep incline.  I got out of the car and moved to open the back door for her as my door swung itself closed into the back of my head.  That’s right folks.  For the second time in less than a year I hit myself in the head with my own car door.  I screamed, “YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME.” when it happened.  Then, while cooking dinner for my friend, I casually cut my finger while chopping something.  I estimate this happens about 33.33% of the time I have a knife in my hand.

I suppose the lesson here is stay far away from me and if you do get close make sure you have a first aid kit packed somewhere on your person!

(My clumsy self.  One of my favorite topics was also written about here.  In case you want/need to read more.)