Judges score... 2.5 out of 10

Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky? I think so Brain, but where will we find a Slip ‘n’ Slide at this time of day? (I just love Pinky and the Brain… my sister is Brain and yes, I get to be Pinky!)

It has poured most of the day, and all I can think of is flume rides and Slip ‘n’ Slides! (I must be feeling better, after 4.5 days of sick time for stomach ailments, half a bottle of ibuprofen for menstrual cramps, and innumerable frozen pea packs along with the resultant iced-out crotch for a pulled groin muscle thanks to Wii and the love of a cat named Butchie. I think this logs Wii injury #3.)

Curious about this happenstance? Of course you are. What happened was…

I was playing a really stupid Wii game named Dancing with the Stars, which actually involves more arm flailing than anything approximating dancing. I had almost beaten the game in about 2.5 hours (it was pretty weak, and I have since returned it to the store for credit) and there was a particularly busy patch of jabbing and wiggling and shaking and left-ing and right-ing and upping and downing, and I was concentrating, and Butchie (Big Handsome. Twinkie is Pretty Little) wandered into the living room to see what all the fuss was about. But I didn’t know it, and when he began winding in and around my legs, looking all fluffy and snuggly and purring and generally being his good-looking, eye-catching self, he startled me, and I lost my balance. He continued looking up adoringly at me, but I was falling, and he was still winding, and the music was playing, and I was about to tip over, and he must have gotten bored because he began to saunter away behind me, and I was afraid I would fall onto him and squoosh him to death. So I shot my left leg out pretty far behind me to steady myself, and the next thing I know, there’s a loud pop! somewhere in my right, I dunno, groin, and I suddenly had an unexpected feeling in that general location. It took me a minute to even figure out what had happened. (I’m not the most athletic person in the world, have I mentioned?) Then I realized I was in a little pain and that I couldn’t really walk properly.

Let me give you an idea of the kind of scrapes Butch gets into (and gets me into). Firstly, he is not the brightest bulb in the box. This is the cat who somehow managed to get stung by a bee on his furry kitty butt inside the house (he brushed up against a curtain that had trapped a baby bee in its billowy white clutches. The bee was dead at the time it stung him.) He burned a forepaw on the electric stove in an old apartment when my back was turned for a moment. He was the one who jumped into an open toilet, as a kitten. Once, he twisted his rear leg jumping down from where he was showboating and strutting back and forth atop a bookcase (that was a fun emergency trip to the vet). He nearly jumped into menorah flames to see what it was all about. This is the one and only Butch. Also, (and this was probably part of the issue, at least this time) his eyesight is not so good anymore (he has kitty-racts.)

Coincidentally, all this happened at the end of the song and so I was left there standing uncomfortably in silly, deeply dipped “jazz hands” pose, with a popped crotch (ooh, that sounds sooo gross) right as the song ended. It was like that scene from Not Another Teen Movie, at the end of the “Prom Tonight” musical sequence, except I was hurting.

Anyway, it turns out the injury was not so very bad and I am already getting psyched for the beginning of salsa lessons again, in August! And perhaps I will set up my very own slip and slide in my bathtub later…