And, by the way...

....there is no sympathy for the wicked. My husband is a night person, and before around ten in the morning, as I've claimed many a time, you can tell him the same joke day after day. It will be funny each time because his mind doesn't kick in until later.

However, I thought it might be a good idea this morning to let him know I was developing a black eye. Otherwise he would alarmed and horrified at lunch time when he sees me.

"Hey, I hit myself this morning and I'm getting a black eye," I stated, trying to hide the exact circumstances.

He put on his reading glasses and peered into my face.

"What happened? My God, what did you hit yourself with?"

"The ground," I replied. There was no getting around it, but maybe the story could be avoided.

It took him a while to register my reply; as I say, it was much earlier than ten o'clock.

"The ground??? How did you hit your eye with the ground?"

So, I told him I fell down. He wanted to know if it had happened in the back yard, where most of my misadventures take place--cuts, spider bites, blisters from using a spade, etc.

"No, I fell while running, out on the Calzada..."

It just disgusts the hell out of me that he chortled, even though I couldn't help laughing myself while I told the sorry tale. Dang it, I wanted more sympathy than that. Maybe at lunchtime.

Back to the daily grind...

This is Gitano. We got him underworked and overfed, so right now he is with Weight Watchers. When he gets in shape, he'll be quite handome. He is very sweet, even with small children.

And now, back to the daily grind.

There is a place on the running path, right where the path and a crosswalk meet, that causes people to trip. It is not evident what the problem is, since the paving is not more uneven than other places, but day after day I see runners trip, stagger, and fight to remain upright.

Today was no exception; as I trotted up to the fatal trap, yet another runner coming in the opposite direction caught his foot on some invisible obstacle and projected himself into the crosswalk at a ragged, wobbly jiggle before recovering. As I wondered what the devil was happening at this particular crosswalk, I proceeded to trip and fall flat. No one was close enough to offer to help me up, but I rose like a rocketing pheasant from sheer embarrassment and dashed away. My main concern was my knees, but they seemed fine. Nothing else hurt, so it wasn't until I got home that I discovered I had managed to clobber myself on the eyebrow, of all places, and now I have a large, colorful lump right under the right eyebrow; the hemorrhage is leaking down, so in a couple of hours I should have a black eye. I'm going to have to think up something more entertaining that falling flat while running to account for it.

On another front, my muscles are sore as all get-out from riding a horse which still needs training. Pure non-stop isometric effort, but at least my abs are getting a good workout. The whole running project seems terribly uphill to me right now, both literally and figuratively, but if it is going to include falling down, well, this is the pits!