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Julia has decided to give Rufus the dog a bath. It is a hot Texas late afternoon with a soapy dog in the backyard. She pulls up a plastic lawn chair, plops down into it hoping to wait the 10 - 15 minute required time for the truly anti-itchy dog when……………….whoa there!……………over she spills backwards!! (Rules for Texas #1: Always check for fire ants. Add another rule: #2: Always check that the ground is level before plopping down in a lawn chair) The back of her head strikes the edge of the glass tabletop. OUCH!! This does not hurt the table. She sees stars even though the sun is still far from setting. Up she runs to the freezer, ice pack in place, a call to Andy's answering machine at work. Back down the stairs. Mr. Soapy Dog has a confused look on his face. "What is going on here?", he seems to say with his head cocked. Waiting, waiting. She'd better try that other phone number for Andy's lab where he has been working. "Hi Sweetie, I've had an accident, yeah, I need you to come right away". He races home in an eternity of 15 minutes and finds her outside, in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, just as he imagined. Calmly he informs her that "We're going to take you to the doctor" and decides that there is enough time so she can take a quick bath and he can rinse the suds off Rufus and, oh what the heck, why not mix up a nice bowl of baba ganoush to take with us for dinner in the emergency room. We'll be waiting there at least a couple of hours anyway. When he brings out the cloth napkins in the crowded waiting room, one woman says, "I want to find a man like that!" Right on schedule, and 2 hours later, we're leaving the hospital with 4 staples in Julia's head. The part that hurt the most was the shots to prevent the hurt. OUCH!

Pre-Peru
One day before.

Ms. Staple-head makes her way back to the emergency room to have them removed. This task is not on the "Things to do to get ready for our trip" list. Oh well, traveling for 3-1/2 weeks with 4 staples in the back of her head doesn't sound so great either. The darn things are uncomfortable at best. Another wait of only one hour this time and off she goes home to put the finishing touches on the packing. Andy calls several times that afternoon to say, "The project I've been working on is almost complete." "Another half hour ought to do it." "I'm almost there now." "I'm turning off my computer now." "Really, this time I'm leaving! See you soon." And then that last call. The phone shouldn't be ringing again. This one can't be him. What now, for goodness sakes? Where are you?

"I've been in an accident. My car is wrecked. I'm okay I think. The ambulance is here. Please come."

It's Julia's turn to race to Andy. It is only 5 minutes away from home (the place where most accidents occur). The emergency vehicle lights are spinning. Police. Ambulance. Two tow-trucks. The traffic is heavy on Friday at dusk. She is on the side with the poor little broken Honda Insight. The tow-truck man wants to load it up. Andy is across the busy highway, trying to tell them not to do it. But we have no choice. Andy rides in the tow-truck and Julia follows. We can't believe this. With $130 of our travel cash in hand, Mr. Tow-truck drives out of our neighborhood. We are stunned. Trying to eat dinner. "I think we'd better go get me checked out," he says. Again we're off to the emergency room to put in another 2 hours. (Julia could've saved a trip and just had the staples removed now!) We wait again until 2 a.m. at the all-night pharmacy to have an anti-inflammatory drug filled. Nothing is broken. His kidneys are fine. He's got some soreness and bruising. We are both alive and well. We count our blessings. This accident could have been so much worse. We count our many blessings and try to sleep, for tomorrow we are going on our wonderful vacation to Peru.