While we are skipping the celebrations today, we celebrated a little last Saturday. Not that it was truly a happy celebration, we are getting ready to say goodbye to our dear friends Chip & Jamie as they head back to the states. Mississippi has no idea what’s coming their way.
We spent the day up on our “mountain” the Schlossberg (6,000 BC) in Herrenberg. Winding it up with a couple of drinks at the biergarten just under the old castle. I love the history in Germany, almost as much as I love the beer. It was hot Saturday, but thunderstorms were threatening just over the horizon, so while Dave, Chip, Emmett & Jamie went back to the cars, Karen & I took the kids down the mountain and to the train, hoping to beat the storm home.
Of course the kids found a spielplatz (playground) right under the castle walls and couldn’t resist swinging from the monkey bars or racing down the slide a couple times. I couldn’t resist my camera and got some beautiful snapshots in. Luckily, despite the delay, we got to the train station in time. The last 100 yards home the rains started, but only when we were all safely home did the sky really open and the storms rattle our windows.
After dinner, as the kids were getting their blankets & pillows to doggypile in front of the tv for a movie marathon, we heard a scream. You know the scream. The one where something is wrong. All of us parents raced to the back of the house, we must’ve looked like a roller derby team, all trying to be first in our suddenly narrow hallway. We found Becca sitting on the floor, big tears, no blood, holding her foot.
Big sigh of relief that there was no blood, in fact there was really nothing. And then I saw it. A thread poking out of her big toe. A simple, skinny, thread. A thread that most definitely did not belong dangling out of her big toe. A thread I recognized as previously dangling from a needle Tess had been using to sew barbie clothes. I pulled gently on the thread. That thread was going nowhere.
“We are going to the emergency room.” I told Karen & Emmett. Both looked at me like I was crazy. No blood, a simple thread, emergency room? I explained that the thread was attached to a needle. And that the whole needle appeared to be embedded in Becca’s big toe. I think everyone got the willies at that point.
We got Becca to the hospital, and were seen fairly quickly. Becca was a trooper the entire time! X-ray’s soon proved my worst fears true, the whole needle was in her toe, slid in just under her toe bones. It took the doctor over an hour to find it and get it out. Two stitches later, and we were on our way home. Poor Becca is hobbling around this week as her toe heals, but she has copies of the x-ray to prove that once upon a time, she had a whole needle in her toe!
Ach, Toiny, erster machst du mich Heimweh fühlen, und dann machst du mich nur krank fühlen!
I only lived in Germany for just under three years, many years ago, but I felt more at home there than anywhere else I have lived. When I read things that take me back there, I just automatically think in German, even though I have forgotten so much of the language when I consciously try to use it. (I had to doublecheck “Heimweh” to make sure I was using the right word for “homesick”.)
And then, even though I have been sewing almost my entire life, (literally! I was a toddler when I was taught to sew,) I have an absolute horror of being stuck with needles, although I don’t really think about it, much less worry about it, when I am sewing. But when I read about poor Becca – well, “willies” doesn’t even come close to describing how I instantly felt. I’m sorry she had to go through that and glad she’s taken care of and, hopefully, healed.