Sometimes, Adults Have Scabby Knees, Too

If you looked closely at my knees, you could see the scars of a childhood of running (and falling), leaping from swings, and careening across sidewalks on roller skates. And falling. Once (as a kid) while bathing, I noticed a strange round mark on my big toe. I rinsed away any soap and rubbed my fingers across the mark. Oh yeah, I remembered. I had stumbled and scraped the top of my toe, which developed a big scab, which had recently, finally, fallen off.

Many years later, as an adult, I was sick and stayed home from church one evening. David had moved our small television into the bedroom, so I could be entertained while recuperating. A comedian was on, and he was talking about childhood, and how he and his friends all had scabby knees all the time, but, thankfully, as adults, they were pretty much past that. I looked down at my knees, which were scabby. I’d had several tumbles and we finally realized it happened because the rubbery portion on the heels of my (inexpensive) sandals had worn away and the  newly revealed rear edges of those heels were indeed slick. I got rid of those sandals. And my knees healed up.

Which doesn’t mean that the rest of my life has been stumble free. But, for the most part, my knees have been scab-free.

Meanwhile, the weather has warmed up and I worked in the yard. Last Christmas, the family gave me a little plastic greenhouse. They had to put it together themselves, and it was a great space to protect my more tender plants throughout the winter.

Not everything made it through the winter. Bougainvilleas are just too tender. But everything else lived! I’ve been working the last few weeks, replacing things, buying new things, getting everything in place. And getting ready to take down the little greenhouse. I don’t start lots of seed early. Maybe next year I’ll try that, but for now, I’m just happy to have my old friends back out onto the patio.

I got the instruction sheet that Kevin gave me in December, when the greenhouse was up. And I’m thinking that I’ll just start at the bottom and take things apart in the reverse order in which they went up.

I pried up the stakes that held the bottom edges to the ground. I opened up both screen doorways and removed the supports at both ends. I went to work on the edge supports and the roof supports. Now, I really do know what’s going to happen when all the supports are out. But there are some around the front and back edges that don’t appear to be removable (the printed instructions don’t seem to mention those). So I’m just trying to wrangle (and wrangle does seem like the most appropriate word) the structure down to the ground.

And I do finally get it down, sort of. I accomplish that by falling out one of the doors onto the concrete patio, along with the structure itself. Remember that scene in the movie Jurassic Park where the scientist and the boy have been up in a tree and their smashed-up car careens down on them and they slide down to the tree roots, and the kid says: “Well… we’re back… in the car again.” That’s a little how I felt. “Well, I’m back in the greenhouse again.” I’m sorry there wasn’t anyone there to take a picture of the up-ended greenhouse with my sprawled-out appendages around the edges.

Which brings me to:

Yes, scabby knees. Well, a scabby knee. And, just above that tiny scratch on my shin, is a pale bruise and a very tender lump.

There is also a little sore spot on the inside of my elbow.

I don’t know. Do scabby knees keep you feeling young? Or do they make your family members think about going ahead and sending you to a retirement residence where nothing dangerous can possibly happen. I doubt it. I find that I can push the “nothing dangerous can possibly happen” envelope wherever I am.

Meanwhile,