Oops ...

I broke one of our everyday cereal/dessert bowls the other day. Dumb, really. I dropped something on it. Crack. Buh-bye.

The manufacturer no longer uses that pattern and design, so I got onto one of those websites dealing with china replacements and paid something ridiculous to acquire a bowl. It arrived the other day, packaged as if it were a Tut artifact.

So many Oops Moments in my life--it's just the damnedest thing, being human and fallible. In the summer of 1969, before we were even married, Joyce, who'd driven with me out to Des Moines, Iowa, to meet my parents for the first time, broke a glass in the kitchen. Horrified, she insisted I take her to a department store, where we bought an entirely new set of glasses for my parents.

Joyce is far more flawless than I in virtually every way, so I'll not comment about her recent smartphone accident--will not describe the splashdown. That would be unkind of me. And I am not unkind.

One of my worst Oops Moments was in high school. At home, I whipped a little couch pillow across the room at my little bro and hit, instead, a lamp--and not just any lamp but one with a beautiful Tiffany shade showing a mountain scene. It had come from the estate of my mom's uncle. Broke it.

And for not the first (or last) time, Mom was not ... thrilled with her middle son.

Another time, I used a cheap aluminum pie pan to bake a lemon meringue pie. As I was removing it from the oven, it folded in half, dumping its sweetness right back into the hot oven. I said a bad word. Mom was not happy about any of it.

Sometimes the Oops Moments are physically painful. Last week--when my brother was visiting (the same brother at whom I'd aimed that long-ago pillow)--I went downstairs late at night. I've lived here for nearly twenty years. I know where stuff is, right? Like that little ledge under one of our bookcases, the one that, I discovered the other night, is sharp, the one that gouged my arm so badly that I dripped blood half the night. The one that has no doubt scarred me for life--not that there's all that much of that remaining (Life, that is). I saw the dermatologist this week (see Tuesday's post), and he removed the bandage. Grimaced. Said it should heal okay. Yeah, we'll see ... He put that bandage back on very quickly.

There are worse moments. I'll not share them.

And then ... today ... the news that this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is ... Bob Dylan.

I've loved Dylan's work since the 60s, when I bought his LPs and listened to them myriads of times. I saw him perform in Cleveland, many years ago, when he was making the transition from acoustic to electric. (First half of the show: alone, guitar, harmonica; second half: The Band.) But as much as I love his songs, the Nobel Prize for Literature?

Today, Joyce Carol Oates (and so many other deserving writers) are probably wondering if they should pick up the guitar ... maybe earn a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award?

Oops ...