For her birthday this year, my daughter Hazel planned and skillfully executed an elaborate Harry Potter party.  The invitees received acceptance letters to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and were requested to come in costume as their favorite Harry Potter character.  On Friday the 13^th of April, students arrived at Platform 9 ¾ (our house) and received timetables outlining all the classes they would attend throughout the party.  We then traveled by Hogwarts Express (my van) and flying car (a car) to Hagrid’s Hut (our cabin) in the Forbidden Forest (ta nearby park/forest.)  My husband aptly played the role of Hagrid (type-casting perhaps), our dog was Hagrid’s faithful dog Fang, and I was the prim and proper Professor McGonnagal.  The party progressed as uneventfully as a party of eight 12-year-old girls can, through the sorting of students into houses, raucous Quidditch matches, and classes in divination, herblogy, care of magical creatures, muggle studies, etc. 

As darkness fell on that moonless night, it was time for Hagrid to lead the Hogwarts students into the Forbidden Forest to discover what was harming the unicorns (a scene from the first Harry Potter book).   As they embarked on their trek, I, having secretly transformed into the evil black-cloaked Lord Voldemort, began to slink about 30 feet or so alongside the trail, in an attempt to frighten the poor little girls.  Five of the eight, deciding that the noise in the bush was not the evil Lord Voldemort, nor a giant man-eating spider, nor any such malign mythical creature, but was, obviously just Hazel’s mom, opted to depart from Hagrid to catch me.  The race was on. 

I plunged through the dark bush, with the flashlight-laden girls following my noisy attempts at escape.  My challenge was to stay far enough ahead of my pursuers so that their flashlight beams couldn’t capture my form, yet to remain close enough so as to ensure that I didn’t lose these children in the 800 square miles of parkland  (because parents don’t really appreciate when you lose their kids in the bush on cold dark nights.)  As I was nimbly maneuvering amongst the fallen trees and shrubs, I came to a small clearing.  I felt I needed to safely reach the far side of the clearing before my hunters reached the spot in which I now stood.  As I went deftly sprinting through the wee meadow, I hit a small log cleverly camouflaged under some dead grass, I heard a crack, and I dropped like a sack of potatoes.  Lord Voldemort had fallen.  The game was up.  I surrendered the contest, and my trackers were kind enough to help me stand so I could stumble the quarter mile or so back to the cabin. 

As it turns out, I did a pretty good job of mangling the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in my ankle, as well as breaking a bone in my foot and sustaining a stress fracture in my lower leg.  So far, after eight months of X-rays, cast, crutches, tensors, more X-rays, physiotherapy, big black ugly non-fashionable removable Velcro-strapped orthopedic walking boot, cane, bone-scan, occasional wheel-chair rides, more X-rays, MRI, and more physiotherapy, I am now free to hobble along on my own.  Ironically, the fateful mishap occurred just days after my 40^th birthday, and I guess that stumble was my warning that it is indeed time for me to finally grow up.  (Alas poor stilettos, I knew them well.) 

On the humorous side, most 40-year olds can’t say they broke their ankle while running through the bush after dark pretending to be Lord Voldemort.