Every day the swelling goes down, and the pain decreases. It doesn’t disappear which is disheartening. I so want a miracle, one of those middle ages miracles where I throw my crutches to the ground and walk while the crowd falls to their knees and yells halleluia! My mood today is better, not great but better. I’m watching Killers from Space, a black and white movie from 1954. Few movies are better than old black and white science fiction, those grainy films of my childhood. This one has bug-eyed aliens from Venus hoping for world domination. But don’t they all?

I’m wearing my cozies every day. I haven’t been clothes dressed since last Wednesday when I drove home from the hospital. The repairman is coming to fix my fridge today so I may dress in my cozies but add a constricting garment for the sake of propriety.

When I was a kid, I never stayed in a hospital. Whatever ailments I had were taken care of at the doctor’s office, but those ailments were few, just the typical 1950’s kid diseases and maybe a cut or two needing stitches.

When I was young, my mother always used to say beggars can’t be choosers. Mostly that was when I carped about the vegetables.

When I was in the Peace Corps, in the town where I lived, most beggars stayed away from me knowing I lived in town and was not going to be forthcoming with money. If I gave money once, the beggars would descent on me en masse and expect money all the time. They’d harass me if I didn’t give them any. One beggar was especially persistent. He had had leprosy and was missing some finger tips. I used to give him a blessing. My language instructor Lawel said you could never let a beggar leave empty handed so giving a blessing, instead of money, was appropriate. I’m not so sure the beggars agreed. My favorite beggar was an old lady. She would follow me from store to store and beg and beg. She wasn’t content with a blessing. I remember being at the post office where I had parked my moto under trees. She followed me, grabbed a stick then screamed and started to attack me and my bike. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t want to be attacked either. I turned the front of my bike toward her and revved the motor. The threat was enough. She took off and never bothered me again.

The morning is perfectly lovely. The sun is bright and glints through the branches of the trees in the backyard. A few white clouds dot the blue sky. The big branches at the tops of the pine trees sway in the now and again wind. Leaves on the smaller branches twist in the wind. It is warm, already 67˚. It may even get into the low 70’s. It is a delightful Sunday.

My foot is nearly back to normal. Only the top is still swollen which is, of course, where my slipper goes. The toes are back and blue but the dark colors are fading. The redness of the hematoma is shrinking, but the leg is tender to the touch, an ow! ow! tenderness if even cloth touches the shin, and it still hurts almost all the time but in a smaller area. I have a compression bandage to wrap around the leg, but it is a grit your teeth procedure so I’m waiting a bit longer. When I first get up, the pain is shorter lasting, but I still have to grab hold of things on my way to the bathroom. Thank the Lord for door knobs.

When I was a kid, I saw the Roy Rogers rodeo in Boston Garden. We had front row seats so during the parade I could almost pat Trigger as he and Roy rode by us. It was the same with Buttercup and Dale. Pat Brady drove by us in his Nellybelle. I loved watching the horses, especially the bucking broncs. There were covered wagons pulled by oxen, rodeo clowns in barrels and so many horses. It was one of the neatest things I’d ever seen.

When I was growing up, almost nothing was boring. I had woods and a field below my house. I could pick wild blueberries on the bushes near the water tower or chase grasshoppers across the field through the tall brown grass. The paths crisscrossed the woods and field. Horses on the field across the road always came to the fence. I dreamed of grabbing their manes, jumping on and taking off across the field. It never happened which was a good thing.

I went out on the deck right in front of the back door to survey the yard. I noticed paper from the trash and something orange. I realized the orange objects were the socks from the hospital stolen from my bedroom by a marauding thief, the lovely Miss Nala. I decided I didn’t care as I just couldn’t walk all the way there and up and down the stairs, but then…The back door wouldn’t open. It had locked itself. That had happened one other time last winter, but this time I was just fine as I knew the front door was open. I tentatively went down the stairs one step at a time holding on to the rail for dear life. I got through the gate then rested. I got to the grass then rested. I walk a bit across the grass then rested again. I was exhausted. When I got into the house, I unlocked the back door then collapsed on the couch. I think it’s close to nap time.