Skip to main content

Baby Elephants

I now have infamous grace in my family.

so two days ago, while it was raining in the morning, my mother dropped me off at school. Scrambling, I shoved my worn work shoes onto my feet and scooped up my bag; seeing how my mother had to tutor a kid in 15 minutes, I really had to get going. Opening up my polka-dot umbrella and slinging my bag onto my shoulder, I closed the van door...

Now let's pause, leaving our heroine in mid-stride. How long have I worn these shoes? a year. Do they have any traction after thousands of hours running around Wendy's? no, not really. Do they have any traction on a wet curb? I could defy the laws of friction in that envirionment.

...so our heroine's first step is miscalculated, and only her traction-less toe makes the curb instead of her entire foot. and down she goes. I didn't stand a chance. My hair and arms seemed puzzled by it all and tried to stay up in the air a split second longer, but my lower body knew I was done for. I stood up, grimacing in embarrassment, to my mother's hysterical laughter. She was laughing so hard it became internal; I didn't know she could go that long without breathing. She kept jabbing at her sternum, gasping for air and intelligible words, finally saying, "Oh Heather, you are SO your mother's daughter! I saw you stand for a moment, then the next all I saw were arms and hair flying everywhere." Leaning against the steering wheel for support, she wheezed, "I'm laughing so hard because I'm the kind who'd do something like that!" I giggled along, feeling perfectly foolish, rubbing the wet stripe now down the length of my right leg.

Still hiccuping with laughter, my mother wished me a good day. Looking around sheepishly for any witnesses, I went off to class with nothing worse than wounded pride, little expecting how the story would get around and around and AROUND my family. My mother was so genuinely delighted with the hilarity of my 'grace' that my father and half her side of the family knew within 36 hours. When the grandparents came into town yesterday for my sister's soccer game, I got properly razzed for the whole thing. Then my father learned about it, and was so disappointed I hadn't told him about it the first time I saw him. oh well. I guess I'm just a walking disaster - known to spill the most spill-proof of things, and now to sprawl on wet curbs. *sigh* I told my mom I was gonna start calling myself a baby elephant, and though she protested to my self-appointed name at first, it reminded her of my 'grace' and she collapsed into cahoots of laughter once more.

so I guess I really am a baby elephant. hooray for the love of a mother.

Comments

Deb said…
This is such a great story. And *so* well-written. I love how you use the "our heroine" thing.

Keep the posts comin', Heather. I'll read 'em!

Popular posts from this blog

I Watch You Smile - You Steal the Show

Anyone ever see "Mean Girls" with Lindsey Lohan? When she was pissed off, she suffered from a symptom she dubbed "word vomit". Hers was the result of her convulsing anger, but I have a different word vomit. Mine is basically the result of my vocabulary and emotions upchucking at the same time. I'm not quite sure what to tell you guys; what's appropriate to say, what you don't need to know, what's too much to tell you. This is probably gonna be a pretty long entry, which might scare you off, but after hearing my unusally discouraging tones I have no doubt that many of you are now riveted. I guess...you guys love me and want to know me, and for some, this is the only way you keep up with me. I'll figure out the limit as I go, I guess. I had a very good talk with my momma today, which is a good sign for our relationship. It was violently and starkly splintered for quite a while, but it has progressed in leaps and bounds lately as I've better und...

Shipwrecked

I always seem to come back here, to this place of writing and sharing.  It feels like a boulder on the shore - I may wash away in the tide for a while, but somehow I always end up washed back here. It's now been nearly twelve years since my first post here.  I was 18 when I started this blog for my Freshman English class; two months from now, I'll be 30 and freshly divorced. There is much, of course, that I cannot and will not write about that last detail; I am not here to tattle or list grievances.  Here is the short story: we were together for nearly 12 years, and now we are working on paperwork for our dissolution.  No, there was no infidelity on either side.  And no, I was the one who initiated both the separation and the dissolution.  Yes, it was - and is - very painful.  And yes, I do hope he quickly finds happiness after we part ways, even if it sounds trite. And here I am, back here on this seaside boulder, washed ashore like a ...

The Core Four

What a wonderful delight - the Core Four are back and typing about their lives. Nothing makes my day quite like reading a fresh entry - or two even! - from Tricia AND Traci AND Jans. Nothing compares. Especially Jans; that was what, a two, maybe three month difference between entries? It made me sad, but I checked as often as I thought of it. What a tremendous treat to click your link and find my name invoked in the first sentence - I'll be on a high from that for hours to come. To the rest of you wondering what names I'm referring to, check on my links sidebar; the three of them and I used to live in three different cities and two different states (now three cities and three states), and our little-traveled blogs kept us connected. These girls are the reason why I started writing a blog at all; it's hard to imagine that I once was the worst at updating consistently...now I can't get enough of it, and I run out of stories to tell (which is saying alot for me...) We all ...