My husband and I drove a few miles north tonight, to have dinner at a “good, consistent, reliable” steakhouse. We didn’t know that ‘consistent’ and ‘reliable’ covered a multitude of sins, only one of which was that if no matter how a customer requests a steak cooked it comes back well done, that can be considered ‘consistent.’ If this happens more than once, that can be considered ‘reliable’ as well. And if the outside lighting isn’t very good, and I step on a piece of red lava stone that got kicked onto the sidewalk, and go down like a ton of bricks, that can be considered a ‘good fall,’ though not necessarily a ‘good thing.’ On the bright side, I gave everyone in the glassed-in patio room of the restaurant a show along with their dinner.

I don’t fall down gracefully. The earth moves, when I fall down.

Other people use that expression to describe something else.

To all the nice people who asked if I was all right, whilst stifling their guffaws, I thank you all. And I don’t blame you one bit for laughing. You have to pay out the ass to have a Cirque du Soleil clown fall like that for you.

On the way home, we picked up our son so he could spend tomorrow with our refrigerator.

We like to drive home on a small country highway, which cuts through a National Forest. Naturally, we see a lot of wildlife along the side of the road, some of which is still alive. Tonight, we saw some wild turkeys, and some deer. My husband mentioned that the turkey sure looked tasty. I replied that I can not IMAGINE looking at a live animal and thinking it “delicious.” My son chimed in with the old oft-repeated notion that a cow was merely a steak wrapped in shoes. I sighed a few mom-sighs, and then gave up and watched for Bambi’s mother to jump out in front of our headlights.

Did I mention that the waitress brought our salads to us after our meal was already served? It’s understandable that she was flustered, though. After all, a table of two old coots couldn’t BEGIN to compare with that big corner table of football players.

Think twice next time, sweetie. Us old coots usually tip big. Not this time, but usually.