So, Friday night I got out of my recliner at 11 o’clock to take the dog out for one last walk before bed. I have a fenced yard, and I usually just open the back door for this purpose, but my dog has an affinity for mud puddles, and on this particular Friday night puddles were abundant. Bruno, a nine-month-old German shepherd doesn’t drink out of puddles, or step daintily over, around, or even in them. He digs until they are as thickly muddy as possible, then he pounces, paddles, slaps, and jumps in the puddle until he has sandy, icky mud dripping from his muzzle, underbelly, tail, and most of his body. The very top of his back, MAY be a mud-free zone, but the rest of his hairy carcass bears more resemblance to the back yard, than to a dog.

Ergo, the leash walks when it is or has recently been raining. I put on the leash, grabbed the umbrella, slid my feet into flip flops and stepped out into the downpour. With the second step, my left foot went flying down the steps along with the umbrella, while the right foot, the leash, and the dog tried to stay put. I landed sitting at the bottom of the steps with the umbrella in the yard and the rain beating on my head. I stayed there, stunned, for a few moments then realized the right foot had followed, though more slowly and forcefully, and was resting two steps above with the leg twisted back at an angle it hasn’t seen in 40 years. The dog, however, had not moved and seemed confused by this new mode of exit.

My first thought was, “Now what?” and my second was to reflect with kindness and a hint of longing on the Life Alert commercials. I could send Bruno for help, but even if he could be counted on to run the mile to my sister’s house, bark at the door, then announce, “Timmy’s in the Well,” he couldn’t unlatch my back gate. So, with adrenaline and willpower, I got up and back into the house, where I took off the leash –the potty walk forgotten –and kind of thump-drag, thump-dragged my way back to the recliner. Bruno, seeing this unusual ambulation, decided it was some kind of new chase game and he was ready to play. I made it to the chair, punctuating my slow progress with, “No, Bruno, leave it. Stop, Bruno, I am not playing. Lie down, Bruno.” Once I plunked back in the chair, Bruno seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation and exerted amazing bladder –and everything else—control and lay quietly on the floor while I pondered my situation.

My injuries did not warrant a 911 call, and as it was 11:30 by now and still raining heavily, I didn’t want to ask family or friends to get out in the night, plus I was hoping I had gotten away with abrasions and contusions (sounds more impressive that scrapes and bruises). My foot was red and mottled, my ankle hurt all the way around, my leg hurt all the way up to my knee and my knee wouldn’t bend without prohibitive pain. I thought about using an icepack, but where to begin? So, I just sat there until I mustered up the courage to put Bruno in his crate and Hashimotoed (or Igored –yes, master) down the hall to bed.

I awoke at 4:30 Saturday morning and quickly gave up on the idea of a simple sprain, thump-dragged to the kitchen and made coffee, then, fortified, took a shower and got dressed. Then I sat down to wait until a decent hour to call someone to take me to Thomas Hospital for X-rays. My sister, Wanda, was the first one to answer so we went to the ER, where I was told I had broken the fibula, the smaller leg bone. With a morphine shot under my belt and a bottle of hydrocodon at hand, I settled into a recliner at Wanda’s and tried to watch television. I am not sure of the programming, but the commercials penetrated my fog and a plethora of attorneys kept asking if I had had an accident and urging me to call quickly to get the compensation I deserved. I agreed I was injured, but I couldn’t figure out what compensation I deserved or from whom I deserved it.

I fell out the back steps, so maybe I should sue the lumber mill that produced the materials the steps were made with, or the carpenter who built them, or the contractor – maybe even the people for whom the house was built. But then I realized that the wooden steps were not an issue in and of themselves. It was the rain. I thought about calling the Weather Channel to task, but realized that forecasting the weather was not really causative. I didn’t think anything good could come of suing God, so I moved on. It was the dog’s fault I went out the wooden steps in the rain, but Bruno didn’t own anything but kibble and a squeaky toy. Thinking further, I realized that Bruno would have been thrilled to go out in the rain—and mud—without me, so that brought me to the breeder. Aha! She bred – and sold to me – a dog with an affinity for mud puddles, laying the groundwork for this whole fiasco.

Dog breeding is not a lucrative profession, so what could I hope to gain? Punitive damages? You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip, they say. At best I might come out with turnip juice–a litter of eight or ten more mud-happy little furballs who would want to go out in the rain. Still the televised attorneys pleaded with me to get what I deserved. Not wanting to leave anything to chance, I watched both Perry Mason andMatlock to observe procedure. I looked up voir dire and habeus corpus and, just in case it came up in court, accident.

I read the definition of accident: “an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally; an event that happens by chance or that is without apparent or deliberate cause. Unintentional, not deliberate. Sanity returned –maybe the morphine wore off. What compensation did I deserve for flying out the back door on a flip flop? None. So I turned off the television and tried reading. Even with no lawsuit looming, Bruno did offer a settlement. He brought me his squeaky toy.

I hate to have to do it, but it has become apparent that I am going to have to take an issue before the Court.

I was wrestling with the decision this morning – to sue or not to sue – when a commercial interrupted the morning news. Just the fact that I was watching the news at all is portentous. I usually get all the news I need on the weather report, as the Paul Simon song says. Anyway, in the midst of this internal battle, a commercial came on. Apparently, if you watch an advertisement for some new drug that touts its efficacy in lessening a health issue and decide to try that pharmaceutical wonder — even after listening to two seconds of efficacy proclamation and two minutes of possible and/or likely side effects — and if you further actually experience one of those side effects, you may be entitled to significant financial compensation. It was like a sign.

So, I am going to have to sue my granddaughter. Not for something so innocuous as listed side effects. No, this is far more insidious. We are talking reckless endangerment. Contributing to the health delinquency of an elder. Cruel and unusual temptation. Need I go on?

While, clearly, the child is at fault, I wouldn’t be so unfair as to place an unmanageable burden on her or her family. I will allow her to make restitution in weekly payments. The kid gets an allowance after all. And she has no bills. She can afford to fork out the coins to pay for my stairclimber/treadmill to undo the damage she enabled.

In a way, I am doing her a favor. She will learn to put her money to use to help someone instead of egocentrically throwing it away at garage sales for toys or books that will just have to be sorted through and disposed of at some point. Plus, she won’t have decisions to make. She will know exactly how her money will be used.

And it isn’t like it will last forever. I mean I am not seeking punitive damages for my pain and suffering. I figure by the time she is old enough to go out and get a job, she will have paid off her debt to society at large and to me in particular. And she will have a slimmer, trimmer grandmother and will know that, even though she contributed to the problem, she was also instrumental in the solution.

The basic premise is this: she sold Girl Scout cookies. I bought them, then I ate them. She had to know when she offered them to me that this was the likely outcome.

It’s like that poor woman who sued because she spilled hot coffee on herself. The purveyors of the coffee knew it was hot. They advertised it that way. Hot, fresh coffee. They should have figured that one day someone was going to spill the hot beverage. So they should have served the hot coffee kind of cold to prevent harm. Of course, it would have tasted nasty and they wouldn’t have sold much and they might have lost a bunch of money and gone out of business, eliminating countless jobs across the nation, but they wouldn’t have caused bodily harm.

Or what about that prisoner who sued because his peanut butter was creamy, not crunchy. The warden should have figured that serving only creamy peanut butter would someday offend somebody. They wouldn’t make crunchy, after all, if some people didn’t prefer it. So the thing to have done, I guess, was not to have served peanut butter at all. Or hot coffee.

That opens up the question of what do you serve in a prison? If it’s oatmeal, might there not be some grits lovers who take exception? Would you not trample all over the rights of a prisoner who likes bean soup if you serve up chicken noodle? It could get a little dicey planning the menu, but hey, if you open up a prison, you have to know going in that you might be playing host to some discriminating incarcerates who don’t take kindly to being served the wrong peanut butter.

So, the point is, the girl let herself in for this law suit when she not only began selling Girl Scout cookies, she willingly, knowingly – with malice aforethought? –offered them to me. One look at me should have told her it was risky business. Just a little bit of introspection should have warned her that harm could be done here. Obviously, I have no discipline or I would still be pencil thin with muscles instead of fat lumps. And equally obviously, Girl Scout cookies are really, really good. She had already sold hundreds of boxes before she paraded them in front of me.

So let’s review the facts. She is almost eight years old and smart – clearly she has reached the age of accountability; she is well aware that Girl Scout cookies are yummy; she made the cookies available to me, when it was readily apparent that I 1) should not be eating yummy sugary calorie laden things, and 2) I have no more restraint than a bull elk in mating season. The thighs alone should have given her pause.

I rest my case.

Actually it was not failure to plan that thrust me into the middle of sheep pastures in a foreign country with no car, no telephone, no cell, and no Internet. The hard truth is, plan A failed. I had no plan B.

If you recall, when last we spoke I was in a pub in Dublin raising a pint to the approach of my 60th birthday. Well, in truth I wrote that blog before I left town and set it to publish on my regular blog day. As it unfolded, on Friday the 26th I was actually in a bed and breakfast in Dublin gnawing on Atkins bars and swilling tap water.

You may also recall that I was toying with the idea of going back to a kinder, gentler day of less technology. Be careful what you ask for.

As I alluded to last time, I’ve been talking about going to Ireland for years, then decided to just do it. I told a friend I was going and she said, “Not without me, you’re not.” So we found a flight and set about trying to figure out where to stay and how to get from point A to point B in a foreign country with narrow little roads and people who drive on the wrong side. My travel buddy had a brainstorm and arranged for her son-in-law’s brother to come over from England and drive us around. I quit twitching almost immediately.

An Internet search yielded a charming little cottage in Cashel, County Tipperary, “A quaint town situated ideally for touring southwestern Ireland.” I reserved it. The day of departure arrived and our driver called to say there was a family emergency and he had to cancel. The twitching resumed, but we pushed trepidation aside and agreed we would just go and then take time in Dublin to make arrangements for the rest of the trip.

I will make this part of a very long story short and say that we soon learned that: 1) it is not so easy to understand train and bus schedules in Ireland, 2) not far means the average athletic 20-year-old can make it on foot, and 3) never, ever listen to anyone who advises you to leave your cell phone at home to prevent international phone charges.

(Let me digress and tell you of a bright idea I had last June when I decided to do some traveling alone for the first time in my life and set out for Midlothian, Va., by way of Enterprise, Ala. and Winston-Salem, N.C. After a series of minor misadventures, I decided there should be some sort of how-to manual so that other senior female single unseasoned travelers could learn from the mistakes of others. I would do a travel blog, I thought, and call it, “Old Broad on Tour.” While I did not start it then, now seems an opportune time to begin. Rule number one: Make a plan, research to make sure the plan is viable, then have a backup plan and a backup to the backup. Rule number two: Take a cell phone everywhere when you travel.)

Back to Ireland. After leaving Dublin, with no backup and no cell, I, the Old Broad (Ob for short), and the Other Old Broad (Oob) found ourselves sitting on a wooden bench at a train platform in the Irish countryside with no stationmaster on duty and only one or two other passengers milling about. The landlord of our cottage in the quaint town of Cashel was not waiting to pick us up at the station as we expected. Through a miscommunication of some kind in our emails — sent whenever we had Wi-Fi for the iPads — he thought we had it “all sorted out” and had no need of his services. Oob did a quick study on how to use a pay phone with Euros and too many numbers and called him. We were instructed to take a taxi (something we had been told NOT to do by our travel advisor) and he would meet us at the cottage.

Handing over the address to the taxi driver, we soon learned that our cottage was not actually in the quaint town of Cashel, it was “not far” from Cashel in a picturesque sheep-farming community called Dualla. Metropolitan Dualla boasts a pub and a church. And sheep. Our kindly landlord met us at the cottage, listened to our tales of woe and drove us to Cashel for groceries, telling us to email him about going into town on Monday.

This was Saturday night. We discussed the idea of renting a car, then decided neither of us was brave enough to take on driving. We decided we should contact our families to let them know we were alive, but found there was no Internet. There was also no land-line phone. We couldn’t call home; we couldn’t email the landlord; we couldn’t even call a forbidden taxi. On the bright side, we had food, and the Atkins bars stayed packed away for emergency purposes.

Sunday was spent enjoying the beauty of the sheep fields and horse pastures, walking through the garden behind the cottage, eating a home cooked meal and conjecturing what our children were thinking happened to us and how the inevitable episode about us on A&E would play out.

On Monday, my birthday, the landlord came by wondering why he hadn’t heard from us. No Internet, we pointed out. Didn’t we bring iPads, he asked. Those require Wi-Fi, we explained. “Oh, right,” he said cheerfully. “My wife is always tellin’ me I need to be getting’ Wi-Fi out here.”

A sweeter man you’d never meet, and he cheerfully drove us to Thurles to a shopping mall, as Oob said she wasn’t spending another day without a cell phone. With the little packet of communication magic in her purse, we were suddenly at peace and allowed the landlord to drop us off in Cashel, the “quaint town situated ideally for touring southwestern Ireland,” where we explored the shops and the Rock of Cashel and a private, self-styled “museum,” before finding the Brian Boru restaurant for my birthday dinner, where I did indeed lift a pint of Bulmer’s in honor of the day.

For anyone who missed my last post, I officially resigned as KOW (Keeper of the World). As I am no longer the KOW, I thought I’d update you on how that’s going.

On the second day free from the responsibility of all humankind — and much of the animal kingdom — I found I had some time to think about my own life. A landmark birthday was coming up and with my preoccupation with keeping all creation happy, I had pushed aside the niggling thoughts of age, retirement, personal goals, and dreams. With massive amounts of brain space now freed to devote to my own business, all those points came rushing in. What happened to those dreams I had when I was 20, 30, or even 40? What about all that adventure I had yearned for over the years, but was too busy with the day-to-day to go for?

I sat back and realized nothing in the world was stopping me, except me. I have recently been pondering the god of technology, and to paraphrase: the god giveth and the god taketh away. Technology giveth access to information, instant communication, and boundless entertainment. Technology taketh away privacy, solitude, and muscle mass. I wondered what it would be like to go back to a simpler time. So I turned off the electricity.

I then felt around for the lighter by the fireplace, lit a candle, and hunted for the emergency oil for the antique oil lamp on the mantle. I found it, filled the lamp, and lit it. I admire Abraham Lincoln. It’s hard to read by the light of an oil lamp and I imagine a fireplace wouldn’t be much better. I was getting hungry. No problem. I had cooked turnip green soup in the crockpot and it was still piping hot. What would happen when it cooled down, though? And what about breakfast? Should I plan to build a fire in the fire pit and cook eggs in a cast iron pan? Like Scarlett O’Hara, I decided to think about that tomorrow.

After I ate my soup in the ambiance of the flickering oil lamp, I returned to my book. The eye strain made me sleepy and I gave it up. So THIS is why they went to bed with the chickens, I thought. It was too dark to do anything else.

I slept well, as my bedroom had no blue or amber glow emanating from the television, cable box, and clock radio. All was unplugged. When I awoke before first light, I had no clue what time it was so I just got up. I stumbled into the kitchen, lit the candle, and debated the merits of coffee in a sauce pan over the fire pit. I plugged in the coffee pot. Once it was going, I got out the cream and a cup, drank a glass of water and looked out the window. Still pitch black. Then I happened to catch the clock on the stove (too hard to unplug). Four a.m. That might be great if I had a cow to milk, but as it was, it was just too early. But I was awake, so I made the best of it and got to work an hour early, where I dried my hair and put on makeup in a bathroom with electricity. My commitment, such as it was, did not exceed the boundaries of my own home.

After work, I went home and automatically turned on the air conditioner. When I realized I had again violated my back-to-basics ideal, I felt a brief qualm, but since I didn’t plug in the television or the microwave, I figure it balanced out. You don’t bite off pioneer life all in one big gulp. Then I sat down to think some more about what was ahead in the next phase of my life.

I had always wanted to ride a horse on the Appalachian Trail, camping along the way. I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen. So what could I do to break away and have an adventure? I could sell my house, buy a camper, and be a nomad. But my day job as a mild mannered office coordinator is not conducive to nomad life, so how would I be able to afford the gas or the campground fees? I marked nomad off the list. Besides, I’ll be able to travel after I sell the great American novel. Right?

My contemplation turned to where I hoped to go in my life, which led to where I came from, all the way back to the earliest ancestors I had been able to trace. Then the perfect idea came to me. I could do something radical for my next-decade birthday. I could explore my ancestry and fill the need for adventure all in one fell swoop. (What the heck is a fell swoop?) I could go to Ireland, meet Sullivans and McCraws, and let my genetic memory bask in total recall.

But what would my family think? What would they like to do to celebrate my birthday? IThen I remembered it was not my job to please the world, only to be loving and considerate. So now, it is three days before my birthday and I am sitting in a pub in Dublin, Ireland. As I raise my glass of cider, I realize that living my own life did not cause even one little bird to go hungry. To all you potential KOWs out there, let it go. It’s not your job. Sláinte.

A couple of weeks ago, three of my granddaughters were over for the day. I was tidying up in the back of the house and they were all in the living room. My ears perked up after a little while when I realized I heard — nothing. No sound at all.

Now if they were under the age of five, that would be alarming, indeed, but since they are eleven and older, I wasn’t really concerned. I kept cleaning, but became more and more curious, as there continued to be an absence of laughter, conversation, or even arguing.There wasn’t even the sound of Saturday morning cartoons blaring from the television. Just quiet. That may be natural for a mausoleum, but in a house with three girls, it didn’t feel right.

So I went to investigate. One was on the couch, one in the recliner, and one in the swivel rocker. The common denominator was the presence of electronic devices. Each had ear phones; and one was using a kindle, one an iPod, and one a laptop.

I gently suggested they do something physical and was greeted with astonished stares. I checked to see if I had bats flying out my ears, but no, it was my suggestion that had rendered them, well not speechless since they were already there, but utterly disbelieving. Since my fairly recent resignation as Keeper of the World, I decided it wasn’t my job to channel their energies into healthier avenues. Grandmas get to be the good guys, right?

I went in to the kitchen, but stopped in my tracks when I heard one of them speak. And it was like real live conversation, not Skype or FaceTime. I wanted to enjoy this, so I peered around the corner. The headphones were all off and the youngest, Courtney, looking immeasurably sad, was saying to her sisters, “I feel so bad for ‘Suzanne.’” We all knew Courtney’s friend, and immediately asked in unison, “Why? What happened?”

Had the girl’s parents had a tragic accident? Did her aging Chihuahua say Adios to this world? I had almost made it to the phone to call my daughter, when Courtney answered, “Her Chromebook charger broke.” The other two girls nodded in apparent sympathy, empathy even. They understood the depth of this loss. There was a moment of silence, then they all put their earphones back in. I just stood there with my mouth open.

Her computer charger died? When did we reach the point where these devices became our best friends? It was bad enough when they became hobbies, recreation, and entertainment instead of tools and conveniences. Do we now mourn the death of a charger? Will there be services? Will the child go into therapy to learn how to cope with her grief?

I was indignant on behalf of the entire younger generation. Then my annoying sense of fairness kicked in.

Lately I’ve been wondering why I have such trouble maintaining a healthy weight and fitness level. I have read books and articles on every theory from high carb to low carb diets, to eat for your blood type, to reset your hypothalamus,and on and on all the way to miracle herbs that melt off fat while you eat Butterfinger bars and watch Bones marathons. (Personally I would vote for the Butterfinger diet, but all that did was add to the cushioning over my own bones.) I used to be slender and fit, effortlessly, and despite Butterfingers.

Confronted with this computer dependence, as I watched the children sitting on the couch, motionless except for their eye movement and rapid keystrokes, I had an epiphany. Effortlessly? Really? Back in those effortlessly fit days, I cared for children, kept my house, worked in the yard, did laundry, hung things out to dry, ironed a little, kept flower beds, grew a few vegetables, occasionally did some canning, cared for and played with the dog, played with the kids, went swimming or hiking through the woods from time to time, played badminton fairly often, went to the kids’ school and sporting events, did the shopping, and for a time rode and cared for horses. When I added a job to the mix, I didn’t stop doing those things, I just added in doing interviews and going to the newspaper to type in the articles. I would have an occasional sit-down break during the day and a couple of hours in the evening were spent watching television, playing board games, or reading.

Over time, as the kids left home and my duties lessened, my routine evolved to get up, make coffee, and sit on my backside drinking it and planning the day. Then I shower and go to work, where I sit on my backside until lunch. Then I move to the table where I sit and eat lunch then go back to the computer. In the evening, I sit at my home computer and write, then move to the recliner where I sit for a couple of hours reading or watching a movie. Where I used to try to fit in a sit-down break, I now try —and usually fail —to schedule in stand-up breaks. I think I see a connection.

Accordingly, I have devised a five-week fitness plan. First you start with how much you are taking in, then work on your output.

• Week One: Byte Reduction. Unplug the Internet modem. You may have some fatigue and depression. Just work through it. It will lessen as you get stronger.
• Week Two: Family Fitness. Build a fire outside. Gather hotdogs, buns, relish etc. Throw all large electronic games onto the fire. Go inside and eat the hotdogs with your family. All at the same time. It may be a bit awkward, as conversation skills have atrophied. Again, work through it.
• Week Three: Upper body strength. Pick up all the small electronic devices you can hold. Game Boys, DSs, IPods, cell phones, etc. Lift them over your head. Lower them. Repeat: lift, lower. Then hurl them as far as you can, preferably into a lake or river.
• Week Four: Lower body work out. Gather computers, modems, laptops, tablets. Place these devices into a hopscotch pattern. Young people will need to ask a grandparent what a hopscotch pattern is. Then with all the force you can muster, jump on these electronic hopscotches until the devices are non-functional. You will note that the ending point in hopscotch is called heaven. It may not seem accurate at first, but work through it.
• Week-Five: Stretch and Tone. Gather land-line phones that plug into the walls. With feet hip width apart, lean forward, stretch, and plug the phones in. If missing phone calls is a concern, pick up an answering machine that is a comfortable weight, lift, stretch, hook it up.

Keep in mind these are just the basics. As you get comfortable with this program, begin to add age-appropriate and/or health-appropriate activities. Young children may try playing outdoors (chase, ball, tree-climbing, etc.) Older children and adults may walk, bicycle, swim, play tennis, garden, etc.. This part of the program may be individualized, as long as you have to make a real effort to find time for sit-down breaks.