Like a penguin

I was darting through the web, looking for places that produce good content, and I came across a reference to this from Boston.com - a graphic guide on how to walk on ice.

I was particularly amused by the illustration of the man falling (slide 3). I never look that graceful when I'm falling - and I tend to fall at least once every winter.

I once fell down the icy steps at the Symphony T stop, in Boston. Because no one else was around, it wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the time, as a teenager, I fell in the icy road right before getting on the school bus in rural Michigan, in front of my fellow students.

My skirt flew up as I went down. Back then, girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school, not to mention that my mother wouldn't have let me, even if they had.

As I was saying to someone just last night, I fell this year on Christmas Eve, in my parents' yard in Gloucester (it was like an ice rink out there).

I fell forward, which in a way was my saving grace. The rest of my person was rescued by my huge tracts of land ... that wasn't the descriptor that either I or the woman I was talking to used to describe our feminine bits.

We were using the word that rhymes with "tubes."

The discussion came to a lame halt when a man entered the kitchen (the site of the discussion). He seemed a tad discomfited, so I explained what we were talking about. He muttered something about how it was probably best not to ask any questions and fled the scene.

I once fell not once, but 3 times walking up Newbury St. in Boston several winters ago. Three times on my left knee, upon which I had had surgery when I still lived in Michigan. Ouch.

There really is no "good" way to walk on ice, unless your boots have spikes. I'm sure even penguins slip, sometimes (Don't they slide around on their little butts? Or am I confusing an animated movie with reality?). Penguins don't have spikes, so they just go with the flow ... or floe ...