Falling

I'm still here, but not quite whole.

The old year ended and the new one began badly. I have a cast from the middle of my upper left arm to my fingers. On the Monday after Christmas, I tripped on a sprinkler head and went face first into an asphalt driveway. I tried to keep my arm safe, but it didn't work--the ulna broke close to the elbow and the radius cracked there. The x-ray technician said it probably would not have broken but for the metal in my arm from when I broke the ulna 8 years ago.

It was ugly when I tried to get up, but I realized I was in trouble right away, so I sent my niece to get wood and Ace's leg-wraps and we made a splint and headed home. The girls kept asking "Don't you want an ambulance? Don't you want to go to the hospital?" Been there, done that. No thanks if I can avoid it. We managed to figure out the name of the surgeon who took care of me last time, and Len and I headed to his office/clinic where I was x-rayed and put into a cast. On Monday, we'll see if I'm going to avoid surgery. Keep your fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, as we got the house ready for what was supposed to be our holiday party last weekend, Len had a bit of a scare that saw a four-night stay at Cedars Sinai. We were lucky that friends were at the house, since I can't drive very well with the cast, and that we were able to bypass most of the people in the Cedars wait room to get into the ER. The treatment stopped the acute problem, but our personal doctor came in and outlined a series of things which would need to be done before Len got released, so he was admitted. He looked great and sounded chipper throughout, you'd never know anything was wrong except for the huge bandage on his neck.

We are grateful for friends who dug through the ruins of our house and who have provided transportation services over the past week. We've got a good support system. Special thanks to Bob, Becky, Kerry, Bob, Lisa Jane, Karen, Chase, and the much appreciated Dr. Michael for helping us through this round of trouble.

So my 11 days off from work wasn't quite as much fun or as productive as I planned. My horse won't remember me when next I see him. We are moving everybody to a new barn at the end of the month, and I feel I will be unable to help. And I do miss my pretty boy right now. I'm glad I got his Christmas cookies to him before this happened.

What's His Line? A Great Steve Jobs Impression

We lost most of Father's Day waiting for the carpenter who never showed up, thus denying Len his Father's Day brunch. Finally, we realized we needed to head over to Hollywood to do a day-late birthday get together with J. Keith Van Straaten (who was filming a still-secret project on his birthday), make a drop off to my friend Karen, and then head over to the Acme Theatre for What's My Line Live on Stage.

This week's panel is shown sitting in the photograph above: Teresa Ganzel (the "Tea-Time" hostess for Johnny Carson), Jimmy Pardo, Annie Wood, and Andy Zax. Standing is this week's Mystery Guest, Fred Armisen from Saturday Night Live, and WML host J. Keith Van Straaten. The other guests were the announcer for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Los Angeles Kings, J. Keith's father who is a forest ranger in Colorado (it was Father's Day, after all), and a dance instructor who did a demonstration of "The Hustle." When guessing the "Dance Doctor's" line of work, Andy asked "If you do this on Saturday night, do you get feverish?" I just keep asking "do people still dance 'The Hustle'?")

For information about next Sunday's show, click here. My husband Len Wein will be a panelist on July 1 along with the hysterically funny Ms. Ganzel, so don't miss it.