It’s not her fault.  I blame all the people that have been using the F word for the last month.  It is one thing hear talk of “fall” in September, but quite another when people start mouthing about it in August. 

Yes mid August nights turned suspiciously crispy and cool.  Yes there were sightings of geese winging about in a V formation.  Yes a few trees showed a sprinkling of yellow leaves.  There was still no need to leap to crazy conclusions that fall was coming early and so would (brace yourself for the W word) winter.

What a terrible thing to say to a woman with a garden full of green tomatoes and wheat.    As some of you might recall, I went a bit berserk this spring and decided it might be a fun challenge to try and grow everything I needed for Thanksgiving including wheat for the pie crust and pumpkin for the filling. 

When I presented my plans to Darcy he was sceptical.  “So we’re having peas and potatoes?” he asked, those being the only two vegetables he knew I always managed to reap a healthy harvest from.  

Boy was he wrong.  By mid July my peas had all succumbed to powdery mildew and had to be ripped out.  But he was right about one thing – I didn’t have what it took to raise up a turkey and chop off its head.  For one thing, I didn’t have a turkey.  It’s pretty important to have a turkey if you are planning to chop off its head. 

What I do have is four plump roosters and a deal with a neighbour to slay and pluck them for a price.  In preparation I have done my best not to name them, but recently realized I had given them monikers nonetheless.  The one with rust coloured feathers is Rusty, the black one is Blacky, the biggest one is Big One and the little one is Little One.  Okay, so they’re not clever names, but they’re still names. 

What’s worse, I have visions of arriving at the hit woman’s house on execution day with Rusty, Blackie, Big One and Little One perched along the vehicle seats, each strapped into their own seatbelt. 

For the most part I try to focus on the vegetable harvest instead.  Despite the powdery mildew, I did get a few packages of peas and I have oodles of raspberries, strawberries, beans, carrots, potatoes, cabbage, onions, beets and turnips as well as some herbs; parsley, basil, tarragon, lemon balm, sage and mint.  And I managed to get several jars of honey from my hives; not a bumper crop but enough.  If fall holds off a few weeks longer I will also have tomatoes, sweet corn, brussel sprouts, popcorn, wheat and possibly a pumpkin. 

Right now the pumpkin is about the size of a softball and very, very, green.  It would have been bigger if I hadn’t been forced to start over in July.  Early on I had carefully selected the biggest pumpkin on the vine and then plucked off the rest so all the nutrients would flow into the makings of one magnificent golden orb.   In July I was proudly examining my fat little pumpkin when horror of horrors, it snapped off in my palm.  I have been watching its successor from a safe distance ever since; no more pumpkin petting for this gal.

And so now we wait.  For a long lasting summer, for rains to fall gently in the night, for the sun to shine hard in the day, for the killing frost NOT to come and for the harvest, at long last, to be had. 

In the meantime if everyone could please refrain from using the F word I would sure appreciate it.

I have bee hives in the corner of my garden.  I would love to call myself a beekeeper but I am reserving that distinction until I get through my first year and have actually managed to keep my bees.  That’s what I think makes you a beekeeper.  Otherwise you’re just a bee-loser.  Or a bee-used-to-haver.  I desperately want to be a beekeeper, but only time will tell.

I almost bid adieu to all hope of retaining beekeeper status in late July when one of my two hives swarmed.  The only thing that saved me was that I was out in the yard and heard the roar as 30,000 bees took flight and I was able to watch as they settled in a nearby willow tree.  It was an incredible sight – the explosion of  golden bodies hurtling themselves into the sky before being drawn back to the queen like a ten pound magnet.  Once they formed a cluster they were so quiet I could have walked within a foot of the tree without knowing they were there.  If I hadn’t been outside when it happened I would have been a bee-loser for certain. 

As it were, I was able to saw off the limb and shake them into a box and set them up in new hive; so now I have three hives altogether.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that they swarmed so late in the season it will be all they can do to gather enough honey to get themselves through the winter, which means there won’t be any extra for me. Like the saying goes, “A swarm in May is worth a load of hay, a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon, but a swarm in July ain’t worth a fly.” 

If you’re going to be a beekeeper you need to learn how to provide your bees with the kind of conditions that make them want to stick around. I knew the hive that swarmed was boiling with bees and suspected it should have been divided, but I just kept topping it with supers hoping that would give them the extra space they needed.  I suspect that’s just the first of many rookie mistakes I will make in the years to come.  And I do hope they will be part of my life for years to come.  I knew having bees would be interesting but I never suspected I would fall in love with them the way I have. 

Whenever non beekeepers find out I have bees they seem to only have one question – have I ever been stung?  It astonishes me that the answer is still no.  As a newbie I check my hives far more often than I should and even though I try really hard not to be, I am a bit clumsy but so far the bees have been forgiving.  And it no doubt helps that I usually wear the full bee suit complete with gloves. 

When I say I have never been stung I mean I have never been stung by one of my honeybees.  This summer I have, however, been stung by three bumblebees and most memorably, a wasp.  The bumblebees were in our house crawling around on the floor when I accidentally stepped on them.  Not all at once, but one at a time over the space of a couple months.  The wasp stung me just last week when I stepped on its nest while working in my garden.  I really need to start watching my step.

After treading on the wasp nest an enraged resident catapulted out, bounced off my forehead a couple times and then tangled itself in my hair.   As the wasp fought to free itself it became increasingly agitated, revving its motor up to a fine tuned whine which made me feel quite concerned.  Then it started to sting.  And that’s when I noticed the rain barrel. 

Racing over I plunged the top of my head into the water until the enraged buzzing and biting slowly ground to a stop. I would have felt sorry for the poor drowned wasp if my head didn’t hurt so much.   But I have to say, my hair has never felt more silky or soft.

If you are familiar with the fairy tale you might recall how desperate times had fallen on Jack and his mother so she sent Jack off to market to sell one of the few assets they owned – the family cow.  Poor little Jack is taking their cow to market when a man swindles him into trading the cow for a handful of magic beans.  Enraged, his mother flings the beans out the window and sends Jack to bed without his supper.  In the morning the magic beans have erupted into a vine that climbs right through clouds and into the sky.  Jack, who is obviously a tad impulsive, climbs up the vine to see where it will take him.

He ends up in the home of a giant whose wife kindly feeds poor hungry Jack before the giant thunders into the kitchen yelling out, “Fee Fi Fo Fum I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.”

The wife hides Jack, shushes her husband and Jack makes his escape, but not before snatching a bag of gold coins.  As a child I was happy for Jack getting a chance to redeem himself to his mother and they sure needed the money, given they were about to starve and all.  A bag of gold coins!  How wonderful!

But as I worked my way down my row of beans it suddenly struck me that stealing the giant’s gold was a pretty crappy way of repaying the generous hospitality of the giant’s wife.  To be sure the whole “I smell the blood of an Englishman” thing is a pretty provocative statement and I’m not trying to excuse the giant for his questionable culinary tastes.  But it was his house after all and it doesn’t follow that issuing death threats is a good enough reason to steal someone’s hard earned gold. Stealing is never okay. How had I never thought of this before?  As a child, my sympathies had always been with Jack.  It was hard to feel sorry for a child crunching giant. 

To make matters worse, Jack doesn’t stop at the bag of gold.  The next day he climbs up the beanstalk once again.  And again the wife is kind to him and hides him from her Englishman sniffing spouse.  This time Jack snatches up the giant’s hen that lays golden eggs and scampers back down the beanstalk to safety.

So now Jack and his mother not only have a bag of gold, but a hen that deposits a golden egg into their bank account day after day.  Life is good; but apparently not good enough for greedy little Jack.  Back up the beanstalk he goes.  This time the wife is understandably ticked and not so pleased to see Jack and neither is the talking harp that catches his fancy. Tucking the harp under his arm, Jack goes to make his exit but the harp cries out for the giant who arrives on the scene just in time to see Jack making his latest thieving exit.

As a child, I remember being filled with terror as the giant started down the beanstalk after Jack.  “Go Jack go!” I would yell as the giant’s huge legs appeared above Jack’s head. When Jack neared the ground, he shouted for his mother to bring him the axe and proceeded to chop down the beanstalk causing the giant to fall to his death.  The giant fell so hard his fallen body buried itself in the earth creating a small mountain next to the nearby village.  Jack and his mother live happily ever.  The giant, well, not so much.

Meanwhile, somewhere up in the clouds, the giant’s widow is wondering where it all went wrong.  She welcomed young Jack into her home, fed and protected him and where did it get her?  She’s lost her gold, her hen, her harp and her husband.  Honestly, it’s enough to put a person off beans and fairy tales altogether.  And me with two more rows to pick.

It was the second occupation to capture my young imagination, the first being a server at the Woolworth’s cafeteria where I dreamt that I would one day, among other titillating tasks, run the French fry basket and milk shake machine. 

All that changed the first time I flew in a plane.  I watched; mesmerized, as the flight attendant stood at the front of the cabin and used sure, sharp movements to point out the emergency exits and the washrooms.  Reaching into an overhead compartment she brought out first a piece of seatbelt and then a face mask and revealed their inner workings to the passengers like a magician pulling a rabbit out of hat. 

Her makeup and clothes were impeccable and when she finished speaking into the microphone in English, she repeated the entire spiel over again in French.  Later she guided the food cart down the aisle with gentle authority, kicking down the brakes and kindly asking what the passengers would like to eat or drink.  Even the way she flipped the napkin out along with a bag of peanuts and a plastic cup of ginger ale was flawless. 

Here was a beautiful woman who could speak two languages, serve people food and then turn around and toss the emergency door to the tarmac and guide people down the wing to safety.  If need be, she could even land the plane.  And she could do it all with her hair in place and without as much as a chip in her manicured nails.  She was both helpful and heroic.

For months afterwards I practiced being a flight attendant – or a stewardess as they were called back then.  I would line up all my teddy bears and stuffed toys in two rows of chairs and then take my place at the front where I would point out the exits and demonstrate the snapping pull down motion to activate the oxygen in the face masks.  “If you’re travelling with young children first secure the mask on your own face before assisting others,” I told my furry audience.

I would repeat my speech in imaginary French before briskly walking up and down between the chairs to make sure all the stuffed animals had fastened their seatbelts properly for takeoff. 

As the years went by I got over my dream of being in charge of the French fry basket and milkshake machine at Woolworth’s, but I never quite put away the one about being a flight attendant.  Not even when friends and family expressed dismay that I didn’t dream of being the pilot instead. 

It was a tragic day when I got on a plane and discovered that the flight attendant no longer spoke but instead relied on a tape recording.  Not long after that even the hand motion part was taken over by a video machine on most of the flights.  

I also had to face the fact that I was challenged to put on sunscreen without smearing it on my shirt, so to come off all perfect and polished day after day was probably not in my cards.  I am far better suited for crawling about in the dirt weeding vegetables or herding sheep or working at my desk where few people ever have to see me. 

And would I really have enjoyed it?  Or would I have ended up smacking some poor businessperson across the head with a newspaper for pressing the flight attendant button one too many times?  How much glamour can there really be in collecting someone’s puke bag?  Or passing out peanuts and coffee?  Even so, every time I hear a jet go by I pause in the farmyard to look up and watch the white streams trail through the sky and think that could have been me. 

As serendipity would have it, just as I was finishing up this column I read about Steven Slater, a flight attendant who got so fed up with his job that shortly after landing he announced his decision to quit over the intercom, grabbed a beer from the beverage cart, deployed the emergency chute and slid his way to an early retirement.  Somehow it made the demise of my own flight attendant career easier to take.  Thank you, Steven.

While it’s true that when we first moved here there was no yard at all, just poplar trees right to the doorstep, it doesn’t excuse the fact that we have lived in our home for a dozen years now or that I have been a gardener all my life.  Things should look better than they do.  I am starting to think I have attention deficit disorder of the gardening kind. 

A beautiful landscape requires careful planning.  I’m afraid I am more of a doer than a thinker.  No sooner do I have one area finished than I change my mind, rip it out and start over again. For example, the garden behind the house started out as our vegetable garden, then turned into an herb garden, then a wildflower garden and is now being worked into an ornamental garden. 

The other night I wandered outside to check on the chickens and while walking past the rock arrangement I was creating up against the house I decided it was nothing but an eyesore.  I stood there envisioning a flower bed filled with tall blooming things set against the log walls.  How beautiful that would be!  So I immediately started removing all the rocks. 

A couple hours later all the rocks had found new homes in various places of the yard and I was back down to bare dirt. I was rushing for the wheelbarrow to start bringing in soil for the new flower bed when I remembered our roof is so steeply pitched that rain pounds everything to the ground while the overhang prevents what doesn’t get pounded from getting any moisture at all, making it a challenging place to garden.  In fact, the only thing that could both hide the ugly foundation and put up with pounding rain and dry conditions would be a pile of rocks.  Like the pile I had just removed.  I tell you, it’s enough to send a person screaming into the woods. 

To mess things up even more, over the years I was too often enticed by the idea of an instant transformation when it comes to gardening.  I wanted to make my new garden look like an old established one but without the wait.  This translated to invasive plants.  Older gardeners would offer them up to me with trembling hands that had nothing to do with their age. 

“Are you sure you want some of this?” They would ask for the third time in as many minutes.  “It will take over your yard.”

In my head the words ‘take over’ translated to ‘full, lush and fast’.  I would rush home tucking the weed-like plants here and there while visions of botanical gardens danced in my head.  Of course I lived to regret it, just as the older gardeners knew I would. 

Mix garden ADD along with all those invasive plants and you’re headed for a disastrous situation.  For example I planted a bunch of goutweed on the clay bank of our pond.  Goutweed is beautiful, but as its name implies, it is also very much a weed.  However, I wasn’t worried since it had nowhere to go except the lawn, where mowing would keep it in check, or into the pond itself, where it would drown. 

Then the pond leaked and went dry and we decided to have it levelled and made into a garden spot.  I never dreamt that the goutweed would survive all the cat work.  When the first sprout popped up its head in my new garden it’s hard to say which of us were the most surprised.  Me, because I had forgotten all about it or the goutweed who suddenly found itself chin deep in rich garden soil.  I could all but see it flexing and wiggling its hardy little roots in anticipation of a full throttle invasion.  So I hacked off its head.  But the roots run deep and I know it will be back.  One day a young gardener will look at my lush drifts of goutweed in delight and ask for a piece of it and I will say with trembling hands, “Are you sure you want some of this?  It will take over your yard.”

Tip One: Wash your hands and use your finger to press down on the piece of shell and slide it up and out of the bowl – quick and easy!

Tip Two: Cracking the egg on something with a sharper edge like a tea cup makes it less likely to get any shell in the bowl in the first place. If a shell still falls in you can use a spoon to pin down the shell as you pour the egg from the tea cup into the batter.

Tip Three: Crack eggs in a separate bowl. The shells will quickly sink and stick to the bottom. Now you can simply pour the eggs out leaving the shells behind.

Tip Four: Use part of the eggshell to scoop out the broken piece. For some reason, it will slice right through the white and the stray bits will adhere to it.

So there you have it, all eggshellent advice! The good news is that being armed with all this knowledge makes it far less likely that I will erupt into a Gordon Ramsey moment the next time I drop a piece of eggshell in my batter. The bad news is that all the tipsters were unanimous in declining a rooster as a prize for sending in their hint.

Two finally did agree to be owners, but in name only, meaning they get to name the roosters and own them from afar, but I will continue to look after them. One named her rooster Reginald and the other chose the moniker Marty. Sadly both balked at sending me support payments to cover feed bills and such. I have heard of other farmers getting by with that sort of thing and have always been intrigued. Lord knows I need an inspired way to make all my homesteading enterprises pay. Or at the very least come out even. I am reminded of that old joke where a man is asked what he would do if he won the lottery and he gets this dreamy expression on his face and says, “I would farm until it was all gone.” That’s me in a nutshell. Or maybe I should say in an egg shell. No, I’m definitely more of a nut. Whatever you call me, it won’t be profitable.

Even if I could find investors willing to pay the feed bills in exchange for the dubious distinction of owning a distant farm animal it wouldn’t add up to much. Hmmm . . . unless I could sell interest in my bees! I have three hives of bees and at full health each hive contains 60,000 bees give or take a thousand. At just a buck a bee I would be doing pretty well. And unlike roosters or other livestock, people would be far less likely to want to visit their purchase, leaving me free to work without a bunch of interruptions.

That’s an added bonus to beekeeping. Don a bee suit, light a smoker, stand in the middle of your bee yard and even the most dedicated salesperson will wilt and walk away. If that doesn’t work you can always shout out, “Oh no! Killer bees! What are they doing in my hives?” That should put the wiggle in their walk.

The surprising truth is that honeybees are really quite gentle. Stay calm, move slow and send out your love and its unlikely you’ll ever get stung. But start flinging spoons around and screaming about eggshells in your batter and anything could happen. Lucky for me I don’t bake muffins in the bee yard. But now that I know how to quickly and calmly get egg shells out of the batter, I could.

Marty the Rooster

Reginald the Rooster

I even used to wish life came with a fast forward button. I figured that if I could just zip ahead to the end and find out how it all turned out, then I could rewind my life back to the present and be free to enjoy the here and now without worrying or wondering so much about the future; sort of like scanning the last chapter of a book before settling in to read it from the beginning.

Of course, if I knew how my life ended I’d also know all the bad stuff that might happen which would make it hard not to try and change a few things along the way. And if I changed things, then the end wouldn’t be what it originally was and I would have to keep punching that fast forward button to see how the ending had been altered. It wouldn’t be long before the knowledge of the future would change from a gift to a burden. It would only be a matter of time before I’d end up on some street corner yelling at strangers who would pretend I didn’t exist. The standard response we give to people we suspect of being mentally ill.

This has never struck me as a very helpful reaction. Imagine standing in the midst of a sea of humanity in your darkest hour and not one of them will even acknowledge you’re alive. You talk to them but they look right through you and just keep marching by. It would be like entering the twilight zone. You’d start thinking, “Maybe I’m not really here. Maybe something wild has happened and I’ve turned invisible. Or I’ve entered a parallel plane of existence!”

It makes me wonder who the so-called “crazy” people really are; the ones reaching out to people who really are there, or the ones pretending the people reaching out aren’t there at all. But I digress.

The reason I don’t want find out about my future isn’t just to prevent me from growing a few rows short of a full garden. It’s more that as I get older I have learned to embrace the mystery of life. A little mystery can be a beautiful thing.

I was recently reading a book about garden paths. I’m a bit of a rebel and frequently read books of that sort of riveting nature. Anyway, the book featured all sorts of walkways of varying widths and materials. Some were wide and grassy, others narrow and paved. Some were very natural such as flagstones set into the earth, while others consisted of crushed white gravel. Some had archways or overhanging trees, while others were flanked by beds of tall flowers. A lot of them sliced their way straight through the heart of the garden slamming into a wall on the other side. Since it was possible to stand at one end of the garden and easily see where the path finished there was little to compel a person to set forth. It was the sort of path that makes a person plunk themselves down on a bench and be satisfied with just looking.

Ah, but then there were the winding paths; the paths with no visible end. They curved gently around a bend and continued on out of sight, all but yanking a person off the bench and propelling them down the pathway just to find out where it would take them.

So here’s my point (and you were beginning to think I didn’t have one!) – if our life’s path contained no mystery would we even want to walk it? Or would we just park ourselves on a bench, stick out our stomachs and watch the world go by? Knowing myself the way I do, I have to confess I’d be on the bench.

So thank you God for giving me curves in my road. But if you could shoo away any hungry bears that might be hiding around one of them, I’d sure appreciate it.

“Have you noticed all those Muster Area signs outside stores and such?” Deena asked.  “What is a Muster Area anyway?”

“It must be a condiment thing.” Moira said.  “Maybe it’s where they have barbecues during sales and such.”

Deena and I stared at Moira.  “What are you talking about?” I asked, not a little fearfully.

“Oh.  Forgive me.  I forget who I’m with and tend to use big words sometimes.  Condiments are just a fancy word for fixings.  You know, like mayonnaise, or relish or ketchup.  That’s what they should have put on those signs.  Ketchup Area.  Get it?  You still have your condiment but now it has a double meaning.  It’s both a place to add fixings to your hamburgers or hotdogs, and a place where you can catch up with each other.  Get it?  Catch up?  Ketchup?  Relish Area would work too.  That could mean an area to relish the moment as you eat your hamburger.  I don’t know why they’d call it a Mustard Area though.  Maybe that’s our nation’s favourite fixing.”

“It’s a Muster Area,” Deena explained.  “Not a Mustard Area.”

“Well that doesn’t make any sense at all,” Moira said. “I’ve never heard of a condiment – sorry, a fixing, called muster before.  Maybe it’s a spelling error.”

“Muster isn’t a condiment,” Deena said, her left eye starting to twitch.

“Well then what is it?”

“It’s a word, you know, as in ‘muster up your courage’.” Deena told her.

“If you already knew what it was then why were you asking us about it in the first place?” Moira asked, rolling her eyes at me.

“I know what it means but I don’t know why suddenly there are signs everywhere with ‘Muster Area’ on them.” Deena replied.

I had been wondering the same thing myself, but was reluctant to admit to it.  Furthermore, the last time I had heard anyone use the expression “muster up your courage” was back in the seventies.  Muster is not a word you hear every day. 

“Well that’s it then,” Moira said sipping her coffee.  “It’s a place for insecure people to go until they manage to work up some courage.”

“In a parking lot?  What?  How would that even . . . Moira, you’re an idiot.”  Deena sputtered, but not without affection.

“Kidding.  If muster means to gather up, then it must mean a place to gather up.  Like if there’s a fire or an emergency or something,” Moira said, setting down her mug.

That’s the thing about Moira.  Her pendulum swings from strange to smart with very few stops in-between.  It’s just one of the many things I love about her. 

Knowing what a Muster Area is still begs the question of why they would use that word in the first place.  Why not have the words “Emergency Gathering Point” on the sign instead?  It seems to me that an emergency sign is a poor place to be using language no one has ever heard of.  If terrorists attack or Bill throws a lit cigarette in the bathroom waste paper basket, you don’t want to have to think too much about where it is you’re supposed to go.  Running for your life is no time to be asking someone for a dictionary. 

“Maybe it’s a government conspiracy designed to wipe out the illiterate.” I said. “While all the book smart people are safely gathered at the Muster Area everyone else is stumbling around in the streets getting hit by cars and taken out by terrorists.  Or maybe it’s just the opposite!  Maybe it’s a youth conspiracy to gather everyone old enough or smart enough to know what the word muster means all in one place and then take them out.  It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Now it was my turn to be stared at.  Moira used her index finger to make discreet circular motions on the side of her head.  Then we all ordered a burger.  For some reason we were suddenly in the mood for mustard.

Personally I have always been a bit disturbed by the sign, even in the summer. If I go for coffee to someone’s house and they refill my cup while walking around in bare feet, I’m not the least offended. If I go to a barbecue and the guy in charge of the grill chooses not to wear a shirt under his “Kiss the Chef” apron, I’m okay with that too. What disturbs me is while everyone is so deeply concerned about shirts and shoes; they don’t seem to care about pants. I care about pants. I want people to wear them. If I’m standing in line at Tim Horton’s and the person ahead of me is wearing their shirt and shoes but no pants, I’m going to have a hard time ordering my mocha. Bare feet, bare chest is one thing, but a bare bum is quite another.

All this talk of exposed skin makes me think of the obvious. Sunscreen. You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but I’m a red head. Or I used to be before gray hair and salon foils streaked me into a blonde. But in days gone by there was no mistaking my true hair colour and I have the schoolyard scars to prove it.

“Hey! Did you mother leave you out in the rain too long? Your head’s all rusted!”

 “Quick! Someone grab a bucket of water, Shannon’s head is on fire!”

Ketchup Head, Cheezie Hair and Tomato Top were also bandied about. I used to like it best when someone called me carrot top, because then I could look at them with great disdain and say, “Carrot top! Carrot tops are green stupid.”

But then they would just reply, “I’d rather be stupid than have red hair” and there wasn’t a lot to say to that. Except that I could dye my hair, but there was no changing stupid.

 However, giving back as good as I got only made people wonder why red heads had such vicious tempers. The same thinking behind poking a dog with a stick and then when he finally bites wondering what makes him so mean.

Despite the teasing, I never really minded having red hair, but I did hate having red skin. Even when tanning was in fashion and all my friends were dunking themselves in cooking oil and lying in the sun to fry their skin to a rich mahogany, all I ever did was burn scarlet and peel. I started wearing sunscreen long before it was the right thing to do, simply as an alternative to the lobster look.

I should feel good about that now, but I bet there were chemicals in those old sunscreens that were far worse than soaking up the sun. There are still some pretty scary ingredients in the sunscreens we use today. I hate how we have to worry about this stuff. If it isn’t safe we shouldn’t be able to buy it.

From what I’ve been able to glean the thing you definitely do NOT want to see in the ingredient list is oxybenzone. This just happens to be the key ingredient in the kid safe sensitive skin sun block I have been using for the last 20 years. Sigh. The fact that it is marketed for kids’ was one of the reasons I assumed it was safe. And it’s also what makes it even more disturbing to find out that it isn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think a safe sunscreen is important for those pieces and parts you can’t help but expose to the sun, but for the rest of your body maybe the best sun screen of all is floppy hats, long sleeved shirts, socks, shoes and oh my goodness – pants! Don’t leave home without them.

Of course, the only trick my ankle really performs is failing to keep me on my feet. While I find these impromptu nods to gravity somewhat amazing, I doubt I could sell tickets or hire a man in sparkly tights with rippling six-packs as my side kick, even if he would come in handy for helping me back on my feet again. And he’d be awfully fun to look at. A distraction from the pain. However, when I’m hurt, the only thing I want is to be left alone.

Take last night. Please. I’m outside watering the planters around our deck. More precisely, I’m outside dragging a reluctant garden hose around the yard. A hose that’s behaving like a dead work horse on a string. Every time I pull, the hose refuses to follow, preferring to snake itself around plants, vehicle tires and rocks. I arrive in front of the deck, hose in hand and glance up through the patio doors. I can see Darcy sitting on the couch watching television. I look away, pull hard on the hose, the clown whistle blows and down I drop.

From Darcy’s position on the couch, he has a perfect view of my head bobbing along the edge of the deck, followed by a sudden drop from sight. It would be like witnessing a person stepping into an elevator shaft. Knowing this, I struggle to scramble to my feet. The last thing I want is for him to rush out onto the deck to peer down at me with concern. I detest sympathy when I’m hurt. I just want to be left alone to lick my wounds. I know why canines slink off into the woods to die. That’s what I want to do when my time comes. I hate the thought of lying in the pretty room at the hospital, everyone gathered around staring at me. Leave me alone already.

Struggle as I might, the pain is too great to get up. When Darcy comes out, I will simply have to yell at him to go away. I lay there, my mind bouncing from the pain in my ankle to the dread of hearing the patio door opening. The man is probably on the edge of the couch this very second, hands clasped, praying for his beloved’s head to reappear. If I don’t get back up in say, 30 seconds, he’ll come out. That must be it.

Okay. He knows I want to be alone when I’m hurt, so he’s giving me a good five minutes before coming out. Or more likely, he’s in the porch putting on his shoes right now, so he can help me back inside. I wish he wouldn’t. I’m okay. I just need a couple more minutes.

Maybe he’s gone to the deep freeze to fetch a bag of frozen peas. That’s so thoughtful. Annoying but thoughtful. He must have got the peas and his shoes on by now. What’s he waiting for? A commercial break? He could at least show a little concern. For all he knows I’ve just dropped dead from a heart attack.

The more I think about it, the madder I get until finally anger overtakes agony and I manage to struggle to my feet. I hobble slowly into the house, where I find my husband still on the couch but at least looking extremely concerned.

“C’mon. The bases are loaded, we need this one. Don’t choke. Hit the ball. . . Hit the ball . . . Argh! He struck out! Nooo!”

I hobble dramatically into the living room, clinging to walls, chairs and assorted furniture. I groan. Nothing. I groan louder and flop into the nearest chair, my ankle hovering in the air in front of me. Still nothing.

“Didn’t you see me fall out there?”

“You fell?”

“Yes, right in front of the deck. I think I might have sprained my ankle.”

“That’s terrible. Do you want a bag of peas? Should I take you to the hospital?”

“Don’t be a drama king. Leave me alone. You know I can’t stand any sympathy or attention when I’m hurt.”

Good grief. After 30 years together you’d think the man would know me.