Animated

I made some friends last night when I went to dinner with Friend and her parents.

"Are you OK?" One small girl asked, and I frowned for a moment before understanding.

"I just hurt my foot." I told her. "That's very nice of you to ask, but I'm fine."

She nodded solemnly as we skirted around each other in the rest room. I went to wash my hands when someone poked my elbow a couple of times. I looked down at an even smaller girl, thumb in mouth, who blinked up at me and pointed at my brace.

"Oh." I smiled down at her. "I missed a step and hurt my ankle. But it's OK. This is just to help it get better." She looked down at the large device again then nodded.

"Hi." The largest of the trio said and I turned to greet her while drying my hands.

"Hello." I said.

"You hurt your foot." She informed me, not unkindly, and I nodded. "But you have pretty shoes." I smiled and thanked her, then hobbled back to the table.

"I have pretty shoes." I informed Friend before we came back to my house so she could sleep in a real bed while her parents use hers. I frowned when she asked which shoe was pretty and decided they likely meant my brown flat with the satin bow rather than my giant brace with lots of velcro.

I want the ankle to finish healing. It continues to hurt, though it is considerably better and semi-functional.

I mowed the lawn this morning. Specifically, I mowed the two strips of weeds along my driveway in our depressing, drought-ridden landscape of dead and dying plants. Somehow some tall grasses have survived and after making sure Friend was awake and preparing to rejoin her parents in packing and moving, I put on my brace and hobbled outside. As I shoved and yanked the mower around - taking for-freaking-ever despite the small job, I had Know What Boys Like in my head. While I wondered why that song and why I was quite disturbed, I shook the bits of grass off my brace, hobbled inside and realized that awful old man on Family Guy sang that song.

He totally ruins the show for me, leaving me tempted to turn it off. But I do like Family Guy.

I walked in to find Friend weeping.

"Is it your tooth?" I asked with concern. She shook her head and I continued to guess. "Your knee? Your hip? Your shoulder? Head?" She smiled and shook her head. "Emotions?" I finally decided gently. (I find Friend, by the way, tremendously strong and insightful and lovely. Even if she hadn't been taking care of me for the past week, I would feel tremendously privileged to know her.)

"Now I have that hymn in my head." She sighed moments later, wiping her eyes while I looked on in concern.

"He lives in a pineapple under the sea." I called down the hall when she went to get ready. "Absorbent and yellow and porous is he! If nautical nonsense be something you wish, then drop to the deck and flop like a fish!" As I started to clap and say SpongeBob SquarePants over and over, Chienne barked at me. She wasn't singing along so much as demanding I stop. So I did.

I have done precious little overall today. Picked up a few things - including the care bears - napped, watched some college football, did a bit of editing on the first part of my novel. It's boring.

In fact, for something more interesting, you'd likely be better off watching cartoons. Or browsing someecards. I'm going to begin packing for my trip and finish cleaning.

I'm so bored.