brainstorming always comes back to the cat puke
You know how right before you fall asleep you think of something so totally freaking brilliant you’re sure you’re going to remember it in the morning? And you wake up and don’t even remember you thought of something much less what that something actually is. I swear that’s why I haven’t written anything here for weeks. I always come up with great topic around 11pm. When I was a newbie blogger I would actually get up and write it out as soon as I thought of it, and then I would hit publish at 2am and no one would read it. By the next day I was happy that no one had read it because my middle of the night ramblings were never quite as good as I thought they were going to be. Usually I wrote stuff about cat puke. Wait, that’s not a good example because cat puke is actually funny. Unless you’re the one cleaning it up. Or stepping in it. Especially when it’s cold. And the ickyness of it makes you hop around on one foot, in the dark, when your muscles are already screaming at you because you went to Zumba the day before. Okay that didn’t really happen. Stepping in the cat puke after Zumba that is. That was a hypothetical situation that I made up to illustrate the typical things that befall me. Stepping in the cold cat puke in the middle of the night was actually 2 weeks ago, and well, the week before that too. Going to Zumba was only a few days ago, and although I couldn’t walk for days I laughed my butt off while I was there. If only that were true, right? That you could actually laugh until your butt fell off? I would be sooo dang skinny. But then I wouldn’t need to go to Zumba. And I wouldn’t be able to laugh with my friends there. And then I wouldn’t be skinny anymore. It’s a vicious, vicious cycle I tell you. Obviously Zumba is bad and I need to get my exercise some other way. Like shoveling the driveway. Which I am certain to have to do again tomorrow. Because of course it’s going to snow again, again, again. And January is never going to end. And I am going to have to rake the stupid roof one more time and my arms will fall off and we’ll get killer icicles. I won’t be able to defend myself from the killer icicles because I won’t have any arms and that is much, much worse than not having a butt. In conclusion, snow is even worse than Zumba and the only good thing about this post was the cat puke.
And I didn’t even write this in the middle of the night.
Go ahead I dare you to comment.
Filed Under blogging, humor Tagged blogging about blogging, humor, inner workings of my brain
the night I fell down the stairs
I have a funnyish story to tell, but I don’t know how to say it. You see, it’s so mixed up with the sad story of the last weekend that I spent with my father that I can’t tell it without writing that too. Pop always loved a funny story, so here goes…
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So, I was at my parent’s house, wearing (as I now know) the slipperiest socks on the planet I own, and I fell down the dang stairs. Landing on my ass. (If you know me you know this is not a first.)
It wasn’t funny for that split second it was happening, you know that moment when your life flashes before your eyes and you’re sure you’re going to die? In this case when it was the ceiling flashing before my eyes, and the certainty that I was going to break something. Or yes quite possibly die. Or both. Obviously I wasn’t dead. (I don’t think I broke anything either but it sure hurt bad enough!) Once I knew I was still alive, well, then it was funny.
One minute I was walking and the next I was sitting on a step with my butt on fire and the breath knocked out of me. I heard my mother freaking out. She was in the next room on the phone with one of my brothers, and probably freaked him out too. I think they both thought I was dead. You know, since lack of oxygen = no talking = must be dead. I started laughing hysterically.
My dear husband and darling son, who know I am the klutziest person on the planet, didn’t even move from their respective chairs ten feet away to check on me. Ahem.
Anyway. I told my mom I was fine and just needed to sit there for a moment. The moment came and went and the fire in my butt became an inferno and I couldn’t sit any longer. So I crawled up the dang stairs, creeped like a snake into the living room, and lay down on the floor. Laughing. Because really sometimes you have to laugh at yourself. Or you’ll cry.
I asked begged screamed at Damon nicely to go get me an ice pack, and stick it in the back pocket of my jeans. That right pocket was exactly where I had landed. Two inches more towards the butt crack and I would have been in the hospital with a broken tailbone that night, probably in the room next to my father. But I digress.
Let me tell you right now, I have never had a bruise as big as that one was. Two inches tall and about 8 inches across. It was a perfect painting of the edge of that step, in vivid purple and yellow. Oh, and the lump? Was like a double butt. One that I couldn’t sit on for almost a week.
This was on Saturday night, two days after Thanksgiving.
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I’ve no doubt it went unnoticed here that I didn’t write about Thanksgiving this year. I haven’t written much about much lately so who would possibly notice? I didn’t write about it because we didn’t really have one, and frankly, I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful. In fact, every time I saw a cheerful blog post, or holidayish tweet, or sappy Facebook message, or really anything remotely happy, I just wanted to smash something. I did all of my holiday shopping, what little there was, online so I wouldn’t have to talk to chipper freaking salespeople.
We had found out in October that my father’s lymphoma had spread to his bone marrow and his lungs. He was trying a different chemo in hopes that it would knock it back, again. It was a last resort and although we weren’t sure yet, it didn’t seem to be working. Talking about it, much less writing about it, or anything, was the last thing I wanted to do.
I’d been trying for weeks to go north to see him, but we’d all been sick here since before Halloween with one cold after another. Visiting someone with a compromised immune system when you have a sniffle, cough, or anything other sign of illness is out of the question. We made do with lots of phone calls, until finally we were well and able to drive up on Thanksgiving weekend.
We went up on a snowy Friday morning, to find that Pop was at the hospital for the day having yet more blood transfusions. Since my mother was heading back after lunch there I grabbed my crocheting and went with her. I sat and chatted with him for hours, hours I’d hoped to have with him at home, but that was not to be.
Later that afternoon he had a bad reaction to the transfusions, just minutes after we had gotten him back to the house. We didn’t know it, but his lungs were filling with fluid.
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I spent most of the next day at the hospital again. In the morning I sat in his room, chatting with my mother, and with Pop when he was awake. He dozed some but was talking more than I expected, and we even had a few chuckles over a joke about ice cream. I was just happy to have a laugh with him, and I was well aware I needed to cherish every moment. All too soon he needed a real rest so while he slept I quietly wandered the deserted halls of the hospital. This was a holiday weekend and few but the sickest were there.
In the early afternoon, one of my sisters arrived and we stayed in the waiting room together, both of our crochet hooks flashing. When it was clear he would sleep the rest of the day, I went back to their house. I was tired, the kind of tired that gets into your brain and shuts you down. Mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted; and yet not as exhausted as he was, not even close.
That was the last day I had a conversation with my father. It was the last time I heard him laugh, and the last time he looked at me. But I didn’t know it then. How do you know something is the last until it’s already over?
That was the night I fell down the stairs.
jalapeno burn
Duuuuude. Here is my very best New Year’s advice: never ever cut up hot peppers with bare hands.
Oh, really, you all knew that already?? Then how come no one told me?!!
I made a really amazing three bean turkey chili for lunch yesterday and of course it included a couple of freshly chopped hot peppers.
I thought that I had washed my hands pretty well, until around 5:30 last night when the burn started on my left hand under the fingernails, and then traveled down the 2nd knuckle of the inside of each finger. Oh my hell.
I’ve had a jalapeno burn before, but never like this. One of those peppers must have been really freaking hot.
I tried everything the online forums suggested; vinegar, milk, rubbing alcohol, baking soda and water paste. Well okay, I tried almost everything, I didn’t have any vodka in the house, and frankly I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to rinse my hand in it or get drunk to dull the pain, either way I wasn’t about to make a liquor store run on New Year’s Eve anyway. Oh, and I didn’t pee on my hand either, as one forum commenter had suggested, because, well, I don’t really think I need to explain why I didn’t want to do that.
Anyway, I finally combined the milk and the baking soda into a thin paste and soaked my hand in it for about half an hour. Then I dumped the stuff, made more, and soaked for another half hour. Thankfully that combination actually worked, and it gave me a good excuse to sit on the couch and watch tv for an hour. Oh, wait, it was New Year’s Eve – I already had a good excuse to sit on the couch and watch tv!! Dang wasted excuse.
Anyway, my next shopping list will include rubber gloves. And more baking soda.
Happy New Year peeps, let’s hope 2011 is better than 2010…
ps. The things I do for really good food…because honestly, I’d suffer all over again for that chili. 
pss. These sorts of things happen to me all the time. I really am a walking disaster and I finally feeling like writing about it again.
psss confidential to F & S. That was the best lobster I ever had, and it’s a good thing it was so big because Josh ate half of it. Thanks!!