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In addition to seeing Prince, I have now lived life. Thank you Purple People!!
was just listening to this after looking at prince xmas pictures in another thread 
beautiful in it's depressing sort of way.
Ruth Morris of Rantoul sits in a recliner in her room at Prairie Village Retirement Community. A stuffed reindeer is perched on a table next to her — a gift from Julie Hardy of Hardy’s Reindeer Ranch.
“I think I ought to turn it around,” Morris said with a laugh. “It’s looking at me.”
Morris is slowly recovering from injuries she received last week when she was run over by a reindeer at the ranch west of Rantoul.
She lost quite a bit of blood, she said, and she still doesn’t have much energy.
“I’m surprised,” Morris said. She thought she’d be feeling better by now. For someone who is 89, Morris is about as active and alert as one can be. But the reindeer incident took a lot out of her.
The octogenarian never much cared for the song “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Now she likes it even less.
Yes, she is a grandma. She has three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. But the thought of being bulldozed by a doe named Daisy that was in heat doesn’t elicit fond memories.
“I never want to hear it again,” she said with a chuckle. “Too close to home.”
Not that Morris doesn’t have a sense of humor. Yolanda Keefe, Prairie Village activity director, said when Morris went down, she tried to calm everybody.
“She was trying to make us feel better,” Keefe said. “She was talking and laughing.”
Not that the injuries weren’t serious. The deer’s antlers caused three wounds in Morris’ arms, which she raised to protect her face when the deer came at her.
She lauded a former EMT who was at the scene, John James, and a friend of his for keeping her arms raised to help slow the blood loss until an ambulance arrived.
Morris was transported to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, where she said her wounds were cleaned, she was given a tetanus shot and was bandaged up. She was back at Prairie Village by 6:30 Wednesday evening.
The incident happened Wednesday afternoon when Morris and some other residents of Prairie Village were visiting the reindeer ranch. They had been in an area where visitors could feed the reindeer. As they were leaving, a tour guide asked for the last person out to close the gate.
That was Morris, and as she turned to close the gate, she saw the deer come at her, determined to get out.
“I don’t think she was after me,” Morris said. “She just wanted out.”
The deer knocked Morris over but didn’t trample her.
Owner Mark Hardy said the deer has since been moved to another area away from the public.
Morris said she was disappointed she had spoiled the trip for everyone. She also wanted to see the reindeer ranch’s new pumpkin cannon. That’s the way she is, Keefe said. Always thinking of other people first.
Someone grabbed Morris’ cell phone, which had fallen out of her pocket, and called 9-1-1. Keefe said the ambulance was on the scene “seven or eight minutes” later.
