It was an exciting weekend in all sorts of ways. On Friday afternoon, Konnie, Miz M and I headed over the mountain pass towards Corvallis.Konnie had scored us tickets to watch the NCAA meet between OSU’s gymnasts and the Air Force team. The trip also meant that I was going to get to see the Corvallis grands which I haven’t seen since before heading to the UK.

Of course it started snowing on Friday morning. The days prior had been all sunshine and lollipops. I’d even gotten out to prune the roses. But make plans to travel out of Central Oregon and you can almost count on the weather turning.

We arrived Friday early evening, checked into our hotel, and headed out to meet several of Kon’s OSU coworkers for dinner and drinks. By noon on Saturday we were at the Beaver stadium finding our place in line. It was a sold-out crowd. It was wild being back in Gill Coliseum where as a fresh-faced college coed straight out of Georgia I used to watch Steve Johnson and Charlie Sitton, Ray Blume and Mark Radford play in what was arguably the best BB team in OSU’s history. Gill has been renovated since those days but I recognized the stairs as being the same ones I climbed all those decades ago.

We were there to see the girls perform this time, though, and specifically to witness Olympian Jade Carey in her last OSU meet. Never as a college coed would I think that Gill would sell out to watch girls in any sport, much less gymnastics, but despite what this current administration is trying to do, we have progressed. It’s the women drawing the crowds these days at OSU.

Carey scored two perfect 10s on Saturday, two of her career’s dozen. Needless to say the crowd was ecstatic. Miz M got a wave from Jade moments before the meet started as we first entered the gym and Jade was doing warm-ups. She noticed Miz M’s sign and gave her a smile and a wave. We took our seats along with 25 or more of Kon and Shelby’s OSU’s coworkers who helped pass the kiddos back and forth over the chairs throughout the meet, which OSU won.

On Sunday we were meeting the Corvallis kin for coffee before driving back over the mountain pass where it was snowing pretty heavily. As I zipped up my overnight bag, our biggest worry was the road conditions. But as I turned away from the end of the bed, unbeknownst to me my foot was entangled in a bed sheet. The turn, a step forward and suddenly I was propelled forward like Carey off the end of a balance beam. We were in a suite and the only thing between me and the floor was an oversized entertainment center with the TV tipped out.

I face-planted on the TV, then every shelf on the way down. The two grands in the room began screaming the minute they saw the blood squirting. Konnie had the presence of mind to turn them around while grabbing me a towel. The pain was intense. I am sure my screams rivaled anything Jamie Lee Curtis ever faked.

I’ll spare you the rest of the trauma, which included all the usual – a 911 call, an ambulance ride, scans, concussion, broken nose, black eyes, busted lip, etc. Let’s just say I was busted up enough I could easily replace Linda McMahon as Department of Ed secretary. And no, I’m not going to post photos of the aftermath. (This one was taken just moments prior.) I always dislike those trauma pictures and knowing the way the MAGA crowd is, they would undoubtedly use such photos for some nefarious purpose to discredit me or Tim.

The girls have taken very good care of me as has Tim. We would never have made it home over the mountain Sunday anyway, since the snows were so bad they shut down the pass. I tell Konnie I took a header to protect her from being stuck on the mountain. Levity helps.

I’ve been in bed all week, reading articles on how eating pineapple helps bruises to heal faster, and listening to book podcasts because my eyes aren’t much fit for reading. Konnie says my duck lips look like silicone injections gone wrong.

The physical trauma aside, I am heartbroken to announce that I will not be appearing at the Appalachian Studies Conference in Tennessee this week. My dear friend and collaborator, Ellen, is going to fill in for me. We were doing most of our sessions together fortunately, so she’s well-prepared to do a brilliant job. Please go to the sessions and cheer her on.

The staff from Mercer University will be there selling copies of The Devil’s Pulpit & Other Mostly True Scottish Misadventures as well as copies of No Perfect Mothers. Please go by the table and pick up copies. Your support makes it possible for folks like Ellen and I to keep writing the stories of people this administration is trying to erase.

I am going to be fine. Honestly. I can hike all over the UK but apparently walking out of a hotel room is a challenge. Pick up those bedsheets at home and in the hotels.

The only kind of tripping I want to do in the future is on a jet plane far, far away from the MAGA cult.

Karen Spears Zacharias is an author and a klutz.