Susan drove into Brooklyn, USA to visit her girlfriend, GP.
A week earlier GP had driven to Brooklyn from South Dakota to visit her son's family; six people and a mother in law in a narrow apartment.

Susan loves driving in to Brooklyn because she gets to see the Manhattan skyline, bridges, the Statue of Liberty and some inner city graffiti. She also has a history of snagging great parking spots; like directly across the street from her destination or a short one block walk from a very well attended street fair. And it's not like Brooklyn isn't crawling with bearded hipster men in ill fitting clothes with full color back tattoos and infants swaddled against their chest in hippie slings taking up parking spots. Because they are.

Susan and GP ate Indian food, fried dough covered in powdered sugar, ducked into cute little over priced Park Slope shops and had to enjoy each other's company enough to hold them till the next trip.

It's been ten days since Susan crash landed on her living room floor, she's been stiff, bruised and sore ever since. Her ribs took the biggest hit and as a result she hasn't been able to sleep in her preferred position; curled up on her left side like a little green inchworm. Instead, she sleeps flat on her back, stretched completely straight, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to roll over she can't because it hurts.

The bruise on her hip started out the size of a fist. After four days it exploded into a purple splotch shaped like a steak. It was pretty intense. Now it's simmering down and is only about half a steak with a bump.

Discomfort notwithstanding, Susan has only eaten about a half dozen Advil, and not all at once.

Susan and her son were horsing around in the living room, he's eighteen with a wrestler's physique and she's an elderly woman. Shortly after the son's cell phone hit the floor and Susan faked like she was going to stomp on it she found herself flying sideways through the air. She's not sure what happened, but her brain sped through a checklist of everything in her way and she knew it was going to hurt.

She crashed into it all and slammed to the floor.

The son and husband were on her in a flash, but Susan was in no condition to move. Lucy the dog came over and licked her face, Susan didn't care, her immediate thought was of the old bottle of Vicodin she found in a kitchen cabinet yesterday.

After a few minutes of wondering if she had broken anything other than the IKEA table, Susan was hoisted to her feet nauseous and in pain. She limped out the back door to get air, and to make sure she could walk.

The pain was concentrated in two areas; her left hip & ribs. Nothing was poking out, so that was a relief, but she couldn't take a deep breath or bend without wincing then crying. The hip turned a purpley black and was quite impressive getting a wow! from the daughter. The son stuck around long enough to wait for his ride to the movies then he was gone.

Feel better soon, Susan.

Susan did a shockingly uncivilized thing today, she ate a cookie while sitting on the toilet.
She's never done that before and can't guarantee she won't do it again.