Karma

Now that the weather is getting warmer, it's time to pack away my tights until next year.  I know some people still wear them during the summer, but I am so incredibly heat sensitive, I would pass out if I wore them.

I have pantyhose, but a) they are not comfortable in the summer either, and b) apparently they are a big NO as far as style.  Not really a problem as far as I'm concerned, since I am all about being comfortable when I think the weather isn't.

Every year though, I feel really self-conscious about my legs.  Not because they aren't perfect as far as shape, size, etc., but because I have so many varicose veins.  I used to try self-tanner, but then decided that it was too much work to use it all of the time, when I was not necessarily wearing shorts or dresses all of the time.  (Laziness kicks in quickly for me.)  I have worn shorts or dresses a lot with my pasty-white, bruised, and varicose vein-y legs and lived, but I do feel very self-conscious about it, particularly when I am going to work or out someplace.

So this year, I decided that for the most part, I would do my best to just "own" it, and for the times I was going out or going to work, and wanted to wear a dress, I'd try this:

I'm willing to make the effort now and then, just not every day.  This seemed like a reasonable attempt on my part to somewhat calm my self-consciousness.  So I bought a tube at a local CVS this past Monday.

That evening, I took Dug the Doodle Dog out for his evening walk, and it was so pleasant, with a nice breeze.  We were going along on our way home nicely.  Then all of a sudden, I woke up and I was lying in the middle of the street, with him sitting next to me.  I sat up, and saw that my glasses were broken, and I was covered in blood, and bleeding.  A woman brought a towel over, and was trying to help me, and a young man came up and asked if he could call someone for me (I was with it enough to give him the number for The Tim at work).  Another lady was kind enough to drive me and Dug home for The Tim to meet us there.

So when he got home about two seconds after I did, we headed over the ER at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, which is really near our house.  They of course took me back to a room immediately.  Since I couldn't remember anything about what happened, they wanted to keep me overnight for observation and do a bunch of tests.  I got ten stitches in my upper right lip, some inside, some outside.  I broke off part of a front tooth.  There were no observation rooms available, so I spent the next 24 hours in my ER room.  I had approximately 1,000 tests of  all kinds, was poked, prodded, questioned, had blood drawn and my temperature taken approximately 100 times, and finally they let me go home.

Coming home and taking a shower - washing off the dried blood and cinders from the street - was one of the best things ever.  I still hurt, I missed a week of work which pains me since I already planned to be out next week, but I am OK.  I look much better than I did a few days ago, but would still likely frighten small children.

And though I will feel self-conscious about some of my injuries for a while, I think I should be fine.  However, I don't think there are enough tubes of the product above in existence to cover my "flaws" now!

And that, my friends, is called Karma.  :-)

On the bright side, I did get to wear every armband available ...