I blame this on a combination of factors - the holidays, in-town guests (related to the holidays), and just being really tired. And not just generally tired, but also tired of the computer by the time I get home from work. My eyes, fingers, and wrists hurt from it. This week it's just been an intense desire to be asleep. There were a couple of nights I was about to update, and then I was seduced by sleep - sleep is a smoothie, that one. In fact, it's hard for me to believe I'm up right now.
So I'll have something I'm going to write about, and then I'm too tired, or busy, and then tired again, and before you know it I've forgotten it. Or remember a little but not enough to know why I wanted to write it down.
So let's see what I do remember, ok?
Last time I wrote I was whining about how I might be getting sick, and you know what, I was right! I had some kind of throat infection and a nice high fever, which made me oh so pleasant to be around when my brother and sister-in-law arrived for Christmas. Just when I was turning the corner, my sister came in with her germ-carrying daughter - the one that gives me a stomach virus with almost every holiday. And guess what? She walked in the door that night, that night when my fever finally broke, covered in vomit. But praises be, we all survived without spending 24 to 48 hours puking! Yay! It was a Christmas miracle.
Here's what I remember about my niece over Christmas:
She's getting older. She looked bigger, as always, but what struck me the most was that she gave bigger looks. I mean, she had more facial expressions. Not just the simple baby ones anymore: sad, happy, surprised, angry, staring blankly - those are old hand. Now she had: devious, sweet, bossy (ok, bossy came early to her), annoyed, exasperated, crafty, sassy, flirtatious. Crazy. And her vocabulary - that had grown, too. Oh, and her imagination!
Let me give you a little example: My niece is not big on sharing. She thinks everything is hers. So I imagine she has been getting some talks on the importance of the sharing. Well, I go over to see the family one night, and she's playing on the kitchen floor, and my mom says, "Sara Beth, tell Ju-Ju (that would be me) what you did with her stocking today."
(We each had a Christmas stocking. Mine had a some hershey kisses, a chapstick, and a shoe-shine kit in it. Can you guess which one my dad picked out?)
And this kid, this kid who is not even 3 years old, she knew she had to answer this carefully! And this is how she did so: She smiled at me and did a little fluttery laugh, looked down, looked back up again, cocked her head to one side, and I swear, she batted her eyelashes, and then she said in the sweetest voice possible: "I sharing."
In other words, the kid had been nabbing my candy. And had already figured out how to put a spin on it, and look cute while doing so.
As you can see from the photo, she was no candy-nabbing novice. Here she's using a knife (what? 2 year olds can totally be trusted with a knife) to pry m&m's off of some chocolate frosting.)
As far as an example on the imagination... One night out of no where she started trying to prevent people from walking by her. She would spread out her feet and arms and stick her little body in front of the big ones, and declare "no no no no!" and as we tried to move aside, she would scuffle her little self back into position to head you off again (she was surprising quick.) After being around this for several minutes, and brushing her aside and not really even glancing at her like everyone else was doing, I knelt down and said, "What's wrong? Do you not want us to go upstairs?" And she shook her head very seriously. So I asked why not, and she turned around and took a look back toward the stairs, looked back at me, and with huge eyes, pointed toward the stairs and whispered, "A LION!" Yes, there was a lion at my parents house. So I explained to her that I had a lion catching net, and that we could creep very quietly upstairs together, and you know what? It worked. No more yelling no and trying to impede my progress. And I got to pretend I was on a lion hunt. Definitely more fun.
As for what I remember about New Year's: Mona came!!!! And that was great! Mona lives in Alaska, so when she called me on the 30th, and said she'd like to fly in the next day and stay for a week, I considered that quite a treat. In fact, I am trying to figure out how to get her to move here. You know those friends you've known long and well enough that you know they'll always tell it to you like it is? Mona's one of those. Take for instance this conversation we had New Year's Eve:
me, trying on clothes (which were Veronica's - because she TRICKED us into going to a party that was dressier than we had been led to believe!!): "How does this look?"
Mona: "You look like a whore who found some nice shoes."
me, in different dress: "What about this?"
Mona, considering, "...it's fine..."
me: "Do I look like I'm going to work?"
Mona: "If you're one of those slutty people at work you do."
See how I need her? And who else would agree that we must go rent The Big Easy at midnight on a Tuesday night with me? (margaritas) And not care that I fall asleep within the first 2 minutes? (margaritas)
As for more recent happenings, here's one:
Last Friday was a bad, bad day. It started with many many lay-offs at work. And I found out that more would be coming in 90 days, and that my job would likely be one of them, and that there will be no severance pay, and that insurance ends that day. yay. And have I mentioned that I just moved into a more expensive apartment? yay again. And really, seeing that many people lose their jobs was just emotionally and physically draining. At least I felt completely drained by the time I got home. Which is how I explain what happened next: I was starting down some hardwood stairs in my trusty old Strawberry Shortcake slippers (what?) when I guess I slipped (I've worn those things out - who could blame me?) and I fell all the way down the stairs. I remember trying really hard to stop myself, and I couldn't. Shouldn't that not be that hard? I also remember wondering if I was going to die alone at the bottom of these stairs, out of clumsiness. Did anyone see the 30 Rock where Liz agrees to go out on a blind date after Jack tells her that he though her worst fear would be choking to death alone at home? And then she almost does and has to Heimlich herself against her kitchen counter? Kind of like that. Except I wasn't even close to dieing. But that shit hurt. A lot.
So, the next morning I fly out to meet my most wonderful friends who sponsored a birthday trip for me (yay, friends!) and by the time I got there, I realized I had a pretty impressive bruise coming in. So what did I do? I made sure that everyone there that weekend got a good look at my ass. Because if I have to fall down stairs out of pure clumsiness, at least I should get to show off my wounds. (Which reminds me, my sister-in-law, who's in medical school, thinks that I need a check-up and some vitamin level tests, because such bruising did not seem normal to her. I think that it's more likely that I just weigh a whole, whole lot, and therefore the force of my fall was more than she could imagine. That's always good to find out.)
So, that's all well and good, but here's where I messed up: A couple of nights ago I went for a run, and quickly discovered that that really hurts a large butt bruise. So after getting it all stirred up, I thought it would be a good idea to take a hot bath. Just let it soak in that hot water for a while.
Know what this did? This created swelling. That was 2 nights ago, and the swelling was still continuing today. What I now have is a butt that is sticking out more on the left side than the right side. As if being pear-shaped weren't bad enough, I am now a lopsided pear. Seriously, I even had someone at work notice it.
The moral is, I am clumsy and dumb. Learn from my mistakes. Don't grow a huge left butt.
2 comments:
Jenn - is your butt OK now? I couldn't believe that bruise!
It looks better, although I can still feel it! But yeah, I don't think I'm going to die from bleeding out into my butt.
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