::grumblemumbleStudentsComeBackTodaygrumblemumble::

I'm sorry about the 4:45 a.m. thing, Erin, but if that's what it takes to see you on the board, well then I'm not all that sorry.

I keep looking at the Hanna Andersson offerings on ebay, and it's all flea's fault. That's the story I'm telling my DH, anyway.

I think that's perhaps why I'm being hard on myself about the hot pan thing. I never had any major mishaps or ER-type visits as a kid. One that I can remember was my brother, AKA the Prince of Darkness, slamming the car door shut on my hand. The 1972 Dodge Polara which was an absolute land barge of a car, so you know the door weighed like whoa. He claimed he didn't know I was climbing out of the back seat. "Gee Mom, I just forgot she was back there..."

Asshole.

Luckily, nothing was broken. Beyond that, really, very few ER visits in my lifetime. I still (knock on all sorts of wooden substances) have not broken any bones. The worst thing that ever happened to me was ten days after eye surgery, Abby tripped and fell and gouged at the eye that had been operated on. It was fairly gruesome, especially since the operation had been a lensectomy, replacing the natural lens with a rigid fixed-vision lens.

With the current injury, kept the hand covered last night and slathered with aloe gel and it feels much better this morning. Kind of tight and a little sensitive, but not howl at the moon painful like it was last night.

I've been to the ER 3 times: Once when I fell on my head in college (fractured vertebra), once when I crash landed the hang glider (bruised ribs) and once 2-weeks postpartum.

The most dramatic family injury was when my sister got hit in the face with a softball, breaking her nose and occipital bones in various places, but that was as an adult. Her two year old son wouldn't go near her for a week because it looked so ugly.

eta: I hope the hand continues to improve today, Barb!

Oh, goody, ER stories!

My only trip thus far to an ER was in college, due to a rugby injury. I got kneed in the eye and it busted a hole in my eye socket. Had a wear a patch until I got surgery b/c the vision out of my right eye was skewed about 30 degrees, and why, YES, that was over Halloween. Why, NO, I was not thrilled by the 50 million times I heard "You should be a pirate!" (I was contrary and dressed as Eurotrash)

So I have a plastic thingy under my right eye, which you can actually feel the edge of if you know just where to press.

I never had anything serious enough happen to me to warrant an ER trip until I was 14 and put my arm through a window and then again 5 months later when I slipped and embedded a razor blade into the heel of my left hand. Once those happened, it seemed like I was there all the time. The most being between then and the spring before my 16th birthday, I was there every other month for horrific, severe abdominal pains. It took about 6 of these visits for my mother to put her foot down and tell them that we weren’t going home again and either find the problem or be sued. Turns out, it was an ovarian cyst about the size of a cantaloupe that had hemorrhaged and twisted around my f-tube. I got surgery for that one. Since then, its been pretty small potatoes, the dumbest one being when one of the cats scratched my eye while playing. The tetanus shot hurt worse than the scratch, but it bled so badly.

The most dramatic family injury was when my sister got hit in the

I can finish that sentence by saying

head with a pickaxe, wielded by my brother.

It was an accident. They were with my cousins, who said it would be ok for them to use the axe to clear out some old chicken coop from the empty lot next to my grandmother's house. My mom and grandmother had gone out shopping, so were not home when it happened. To sum up, my mother is fond of saying, "You know it's bad when they greet you at the door, saying, 'Now, Nancy, she's going to be ok....'"

Geez, Aims. I'm glad you finally got some help for that cyst. I can't imagine how badly that must have hurt.

Moving away from the ER stories, I need to come up with a topic for my Romancing the Blog column tomorrow.

I'ma stuck.

When Mary Sue-ing works and when it doesn't.

I'm afraid that wouldn't work so well. Too many of the readers lurrrrrrrrve Twilight and don't get how that's a prime example of Mary Sue-ism at its... worst? finest? I'm not sure, actually.