Once again I have fallen from grace. I do believe this one tops all of the previous falls, except for the time I fell on my face in the main lobby of the Cincinnati Convention Center by the escalator just as all the sessions ended and most of the attendees were there to observe my lack of coordination.

That time I couldn’t decide which would be better, playing dead or unconscious, and letting their rescue squad remove my body from my embarrassment. As the security guards gathered around me, I realized I could do neither because I had to go to another session to introduce the guest speaker.

This time I went down in my own front yard from an abundance of Christmas spirit.

Remember those days of beautiful weather when everybody was out stringing Christmas lights they might regret in January when it’s sleeting and time to take them down?

Well I waited until the last day, intending to do the decorating early in the day because the rain was not supposed to move in until after noon. As daylight came late, I realized the weatherman had failed me. Rain was just hanging in the atmosphere, 100 percent humidity.

Did I give up? Of course not! Warm rain beats cold rain anytime for me, so I gathered the decorations, piled them on the porch chairs, and went forward to wrap the handrail with evergreen and red berries. It looked pretty good, so I decided to move on to the shepherd’s hooks on the top terrace.

Ivy has been growing in that terrace for many years. It’s not great, but it sure beats the mud that used to be there. We cut it back several times during the summer to keep it from taking over the whole front porch.

Usually I use that path to get to the hooks, but not this time. I just grabbed some decorations and charged toward the hooks. Oops, big mistake! The ivy grabbed me around the ankles, and I fell hard on my knees, catching myself just in time to keep from burying my face in the wet ivy. I did grab one hook and managed to take it with me, bending it to a 90 degree angle from the ground.

My first thought was, “I hope nobody saw me!’ Then when I realized I couldn’t get myself up, I wished somebody would see me. There was a lot of traffic, but nobody seemed to notice the old woman wrestling with the ivy.

My knees were too sore to crawl out of the ivy, but I finally managed to sit up and scoot over to the water meter, which I figured would be solid enough to allow me to pull myself up. Well, that didn’t work. I got part way up, but my knees collapsed and I was back on my seat.

Then my neighbor stuck her head out her front door and finally noticed that I was yelling and waving at her. She looked shocked and then went back into her house.

I’m thinking, “Please don’t call Rescue, I don’t need the lights and sirens right now.” She didn’t. Bless her heart. She sent her husband over to help me.

He wanted to pull me up, but I had visions of both of us tumbling through the ivy, so we compromised. I scooted over the ivy and the cement to the steps, adding more mud to the seat of my slacks to match the muddy knees. Still the traffic rolled past, and nobody even noticed us.

Once on the steps I just wanted to sit still in relative comfort. With the neighbor’s help I finally limped back to the porch and called my daughter who called my son so they could double-team me to force me to ER for X-rays. Really, I’m glad they did, because then we knew nothing was broken but my pride.

Now, two weeks after the fall, I’m almost back to what passes as normal for me. However, it’s only fair to warn you that when I go shopping I use the motorized carts more often. Watch out!