Brett and Ryan fall victim to their Uncles with the Lung Tester.

I should have looked out the window this morning before I walked out the door.  When I pulled out of the garage I was very surprised to see all of the snow.  Now had I paid attention, I would have left for work earlier and not been caught up in all the traffic that made me arrive at work to find the ramp where I always park full, not one single space open.  And I was late.

If I had not rushed across the snow filled lot and across icy 10th Avenue in my Nike sandals, (yes sandals) then I probably wouldn't have slipped, fallen, and splayed myself like a windmill smack dab in the middle of the avenue with all of that slow traffic driving by.  Thank goodness there was no traffic in the lane where I was, still laying in the middle of the street, gathering my purse and tote bag to cushion my bruised ego.  And of course, when I fell, I fell on my already sore, bone-on-bone right knee.  How I ever got back up off the ground I will never know, I just remember saying prayers of thanks that I didn't have to crawl to the sidewalk to pull myself up.

So I am sitting here at my desk, with an order for a knee X-ray that I was supposed to have done last week but ran out of time, thinking that maybe it is better that I did wait to get the X-ray done.

And now I have to go buy coffee from the cafeteria because the innards of my thermos sound like a rattle.  My day can only get better... 

On this day in 1867 Charles Dickens gave the first reading of his American tour. All but a few evenings over the five months were a sell-out, with some sleeping out overnight to beat a ticket line almost a half-mile long. Among the few who were not impressed were Emerson, Twain, and the little girl on the train who told Dickens she liked his books, though "I do skip some of the very dull parts, once in a while; not the short dull parts, but the long ones."