More than usual, that is.

I tried to do this yesterday. Set up the computer, grabbed my email, then went offline to write. But before I could even start, the phone rang. That's when I noticed that I'd been dripping blood on the floor. These kitchen chairs are pretty hard, you know.

I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? I'll just go back and start where I left off.

Friday

We had the end of the year luncheon for the American Women. We day-tripped to Cesano Maderno, and had a tour of the Borromeo Arese Palazzo first. This wasn't the first palazzo or villa of the Borromeos' that I'd seen. This particular palazzo dated from the early 1600s. Those Borromeos did quite well for themselves. Although I have to say that I'm sick to death of allegorical paintings. If you want to portray old Charles sticking it to the Spanish or whatever, do so, and spare us the nymphs cavorting with Greek gods wearing enigmatic expressions.

Lunch was at a fancy hotel located in the palazzo gardens, and was very nice. Also very hot. We had it on the terrace, which they keep shrouded in a huge plastic tent. They didn't open it up until after we arrived, and then they only pushed back a few panels. Finally, a friend of mine and I started doing it ourselves because we were sick of sweating and violet ice cream doesn't taste so hot when melted. That got them moving. I just wish I'd thought of it earlier.

I wore my new sandals. They are black leather thongs, with slippery leather soles and bright blue paste jewels and beads of all sorts of colors. They are seriously fabulous, and wickedly hard to walk in, at least until I managed to rough up the bottom enough for some traction.

By then, of course, it was too late. They rubbed most of the skin off my right second toe. I think they'll be ok, though. They're more broken in now, and I won't need to contort my feet so much to keep them on and myself from slipping on the cobblestones.

After that, I stopped by the store on the way home to buy some new underwear for the both of us, seeing as our washing machine is currently defunct. I packed, changed (including shoes) and headed off for dinner.

Dinner was in honor of U2 and his wife Maria. U2 works with Elvis, and is leaving at the end of this week. They then plan to spend three weeks in Greece, and two in Austria. After that, they'll do whatever strikes them as a good idea until they run out of money and U2 needs to look for a new contract, I guess. Poor things.

Juan had arranged this one. We've been there before, at another going away party arranged by Juan. He likes the place because you get all the food and drink you want for a set price. I hate it because you really don't want any of the food, and the wine is nothing to brag about either. They have a unique way of butchering a rabbit, for example: they cross section it. So you'll get a piece of "meat" consisting of a vertebra or two, two teensy ribs, and some shreds of overcooked flesh. Everything is served "family style", meaning they toss a variety of "meat" on platters that you pass around. It looks pretty much like the site of a war crime, what with all the various unidentifiable body parts heaped unceremoniously together. Grab your DNA kits! Call in the forensic scientists!

That said, if you drink enough cheap wine you can have a bit of fun poking at the various chunks of what at least smells like meat, trying to identify what type of animal it might once have belonged to. We pretty much ID'd the rabbit, horse, and possibly lamb. How old can a sheep be before it stops being lamb? This one appeared to have left middle age far, far behind. Sheila swore that one of our mystery guests was, in fact, guinea pig, but we had to draw the line at that one.

Although it does leave the intriguing question of just was was it, then? Rat? Vole? I'm guessing a particularly runty rabbit. They must have been on sale.

My advice, should you ever find yourself at this place, is fill up on the salumi antipasti. They don't cook that, just slice it. Although I should warn you that the bresaola is most probably horse, but some people like that sort of thing. Avoid the "paté": aside from looking like wildlife turds, it's very dry. I think they use the leftover horse. I'd say donkey, but it's too expensive for this place.

Oh and the tortillas. The tortillas are good. Why they have tortillas when the rest of the menu is Italian is beyond me. Don't look a gift horse and all that.

The other thing they have is Latin music, and they encourage dancing among the tables. This makes the Latin Contingent very happy-- happy enough for the Argentines to overlook the meat, in any case.

We had quite a crowd, and it was nice to see everyone. The Latin Contingent got up to salsa, and I wandered about, taking pictures. I had my camera in one hand, and U2 and Maria's in the other. I went round to the back of our long table, looking down very carefully so as not to trip over a chair or someone's handbag on the floor.

Instead, I fell over a wall.

Well, more like a bench or a window seat. It jutted out about 8 inches or so, and was tiled just like the floor. Needless to say, I didn't see it.

And since I was carrying the cameras, one of which was not mine, I couldn't stick a hand out to break my fall.

The cameras are fine.

I'm not.

I could do an entire inventory, mostly painful bruises of varying sizes, mostly on my arms and legs. I got those from banging into chairs and the table on the way down. Standard for me, I'm afraid.

What is not standard is the one on my thigh. I landed on the tiled whatever it was really hard. So hard that it split my skin open in places. The bruise surrounding it is black and red, and measures 20 cm by 15 cm.

Actually, it's bigger now, as the small lake of blood drains down my leg and around my thigh.

It comes complete with a lump the size of half a grapefruit, right where women get saddlebags. I don't have much in the saddlebag department, actually, so I look pretty damn lopsided.

It keeps bleeding, probably to release some of the pressure. It hurts to sit down. I have to use the toilet with just one buttock in contact with the seat, which is seriously detrimental to one's regularity, if you know what I mean.

I immediately started looking on the bright side. Hey, I can wear my bikini now! Who is going to be looking at my stomach once they get an eyeful of that mess!

"Don't be embarrassed," said everyone. Actually, I wasn't. I have long ceased to be embarrassed at my klutziness, as long as I don't manage to injure anyone but myself. I never did claim to be coordinated.

But my dear friends, while trying to make sure I was going to be OK, kept trying to make me feel better about it as well.

"I almost fell over that myself when I was going to get into my seat."

"Yeah, it's easy to do."

"Didn't someone do that last time?"

"Oh yeah, I remember. Who was that?"

They discussed it for a while, but no one could remember.

I did, though.

It was me.