INATTENTION

So we were watching this old British war movie... The Man Who Never Was--but more of that in a moment.  One of the benefits of watching a movie on the television set at home is that, when nature calls, you can press the "hold" button and take a break to do what needs to be done.  Which is what I did.  But then noticed a light that "someone"--naming no names--had forgotten to switch off in the bedroom.  With doors and windows wide open to cool the room down on a hot day, it would surely be attracting bugs.  Moths, for sure.  Daddy-longlegs, we have plenty of those.  Even, gulp, the occasional mosquito.  We are blessed to have few of them in Southern California, but they do have a special predilection for my tender English flesh, so I'm pretty obsessive about keeping them out.

I stopped by the bedroom on my way back to my comfortable place on the living room couch--to resume my potato status!--and switched out the light.  In total darkness now, and in some haste to get back to the movie, I strode back toward the living room and ran headlong--is that the word? full tilt?--into the edge of a low-lying table at the foot of the bed, the one placed there, strategically, to allow George, who is rather short and getting, frankly, a bit old, to jump up.  The result?  A shock of pain to remind me how foolish I had been; and a substantial gash--two of them, in fact--along the front of the shin.

Alas!  Another lesson in the karma of unskillful action!  Between us, Ellie and I spent a good twenty minutes digging out disinfectants, gauze pads and ointments from their long-forgotten hiding places and repairing the damage with make-shift bandages.  Then back to watch the movie to the end.  I won't say that it's the best of British war movies, but it has an intriguing plot: the subterfuge of using a dead courier, washed up on the shore in Spain, whose faked papers are intended to mislead "Jerry"--the German military--about the landing spot for the invasion of southern Europe.  Lots of stuffy British naval accents, smart uniforms, stiff upper lips, and smart, briskly efficient girls to keep things running.  If you like British war movies--as I do, having lived through that period in history--you'll find it suspenseful fun, but a shade less than brilliant.