fun times at curling

How to know it's long past time for a new gripper: Your gripper leaves your shoe on a whim of its own while you are sweeping a rock, and your foot flies out from under you and you go down backwards with no chance to break your fall and your head bounces off the ice.

I'm okay. Saw stars for a couple of seconds, left the game (obviously), and my in-laws brought Himself up to the club so he could drive my car home. We stopped in the ER, where I had a CT scan that showed nothing extraordinary inside my head, which is good. Concussion, yes; worse than that, no.

Today I did not go to work. I've got muscle aches from tensing up against the inevitable impact, and my head hurts, but the dizziness is almost gone. As scary episodes go, it's been about as smooth as possible.