Scabs

Not the strike busting kind of scabs. The other day I was remembering how when I was a kid, I'd fall down and skin my knees, usually just one knee, often bad enough for it to bleed and a scab to form. Sometimes an elbow or two. Once I had a spill on my little red bike I called Beelzebub where I slid on asphalt with gravel and got scabs on both elbows and both knees. I was remembering those chapters in my life fondly and I wondered how long it had been since I'd had a scab. I couldn't remember the last time. It almost seemed like they can only happen to a kid.


Sidewalks here are frequently uneven to an extreme, sometimes with gaping holes one could fall in - because the sidewalks usually have deep runoff drains below them and the access blocks will break and fall in or just be gone. A while back I read in the Bali advertiser that a high percentage of the hospital admissions here for foreigners are from people having falls on the trecherous sidewalks. We're pretty careful walking. One tends to get more conscious about not falling when one gets older. But we'll have occasional little trip-ups from part of the sidewalk sticking up higher or, more so, from a short stretch of sidewalk that veers down at a steep angle, especially if it's wet. There are places where the sidewalk goes down so the pavements is street level - for a motorbike or car to enter - and then the sidewalk goes back up. Those will be up and down and up and down. Every once in a while my sandal doesn't grip on the down side and slips out from under me and sometimes when that happens I plop down on my butt. Twice recently I fell down and skinned my right know on dry pavement. The first from tripping on a little on something while dogette Bali was pulling ahead on her leash cause she saw a cat. Just two days later I fell forward from sandal slipping down one of those steep places. Now I've got the first big knee scab I've had in a long, long time. It's been a week for thinking about scabs.