Pentecost

When I was a kid, I didn’t understand what Memorial Day was.  I just thought everyone took Monday off so we could have a cookout for my father’s birthday.  We didn’t cook out all that often in my family, so this was always a big deal.  We’d clean the house, and Mom would bring her old-fashioned coffee maker up from the basement – the kind that percolated the coffee in what looked like a stainless steel jug.  We would cut up veggies for what Mom called a “relish tray,” complete with olives and pickles carefully arranged on special serving platters.  Aunt B would make her special German potato salad, the forerunner of my own German potato salad, and there would be an endless stream of hot dogs and hamburgers from the grill.  It was pretty cool.

Last year, instead of having a cookout, we had a wedding.  It was a lovely wedding, but it sortof overwhelmed dad’s birthday.  This year, Dad, who is usually very laid back about birthdays & Father’s Day and things, let it be known that he would like to have his own birthday celebration this year.  So today everyone in town gathered at the Family Homestead.  Where a certain little lady stole the show.

She’s a whole pound bigger than she was at birth, though she’s still all long, skinny arms and legs, and funny facial expressions.

Including smiles.  And coos, She’s awfully good at them.  It’s pretty awesome.

It seems that once her parents figured out how to burp her properly, she became a much more cheerful baby!  And now her aunts and uncles are learning how too.

Seriously, kids are the best entertainment there is.

Pope St. Celestine V

I was going to go swing dancing this weekend.  I’d paid my registration, RSVP’d for my housing assignment, figured out my budget for gas, started planning my packing list, even informed my family that I would not be available.  I had been looking forward to this for a while, hoping that it would be the weekend that would remind me of why I love swing dancing so much, something that’s been hard to remember lately as it’s gotten progressively more and more buried under a load of relationship & community dysfunction.  It was kinda like when a couple’s relationship is strained, so they go away for the weekend to rekindle that old spark.  I figured, a weekend away, maybe a few really good dances, the kind I haven’t had in a while, seeing some old friends, and I’d be good to go again, at least for a while.

Alas, instead I am currently sprawled across the futon in my living room here in Dayton.  There is no dancing anywhere remotely near, and I couldn’t participate even if there were.  You see, on Wednesday I did Something Bad to my leg.  I was at the usual Wednesday Night Swing, dancing with Bounce.  It was my first dance of the night, to Madeleine Peyroux’s I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate, which is my favorite version of one of my favorite songs of all time.  We were maybe a minute into the song, when I stepped back on my left leg, and felt/heard something go “pop” in my calf.  And that was it.  I was done dancing.  Bounce helped me get over to one of the chairs at the side, and then stood near me offering me water and grapes and anything he could think of to make things better.  It was very sweet.

Unfortunately, since the sudden pain was making me a bit nauseous, grapes and water weren’t much help.  However, soon after I was able get Swing Snark’s attention, and asked her if she would take a look at the problem.  Swing Snark is an Athletic Trainer, so she knows about these things.  She moved my foot and leg around, did the whole “Does this hurt?” thing, and told me that it appeared that my tendons & ligaments were fine, so it was probably either a muscle strain or tear.  I should ice it relentlessly for the first 24 hours, take ibuprofen, start stretching it after a day or so, and if it didn’t get significantly better in 3-5 days, see a doctor.  I found all of this extremely reassuring (I had been trying to worry through whether or not I could afford to go to the ER, and then which one would be best), and I’m so grateful that she was there.

Once I knew what the problem was, and that it wasn’t, like, life threatening or something, I had some other problems to deal with.  Like how I was going to get home.  My little car is a stick-shift, so I couldn’t drive it if I couldn’t use my left leg.  And then, if I could get someone to come get me, how would I get my car home?  And then how was I going to get to work in the morning?  Things like that.  As it turned out, the answers were as follow: Dad and Indy came to get me, the car stayed out by the dance studio until Thursday night when Johnnycakes and Pippi teamed up to help me retrieve it, Mariah volunteered to get me to work, and Pippi brought me home again.

Being a little bit disabled the last few days has made me realize how much crankiness and pride I have lurking under my usually sweet surface.  It’s hard for me to ask for help, even when I genuinely need it.  On Thursday I nearly didn’t get any lunch at all because I was too prideful to ask one of my co-workers to go get me a salad from the cafeteria, and too cranky to make the trip myself, knowing that I was going to have to be nice to all the people who would want to stop me to ask what happened.  And then, I know that compared to what some people deal with every day, this isn’t all that much pain, but it still has me completely worn out by the end of the day.  So I’m also getting a lesson in exactly how whiny I can be.

It also reminds me how much work dealing with a disability is.  For example, I need to go grocery shopping.  However, while I think I could do the actual shopping (I’d have a cart to hold onto after all), getting to the grocery store is a problem.  I haven’t tried driving again yet, and I’m worried about whether or not I’ll be able to make it both there and back.  And then once I get the groceries home, how will I get them into the house?  The answer to this problem seems to be to get someone to go with me, but I’m so unused to having to coordinate my schedule with anyone else’s that it’s taken me a few days to arrange things.  So far the plan is that Johnnycakes will go with me, both to help carry things, and to drive the two of us home if I can’t, and we’re going to go just as soon as he gets up from his nap.  Any time now.  I think.

The bright side is that little by little, my leg is getting better.  Today I’ve been able to walk around the house without the cane, and with only a few mishaps.  I’m starting to be able to stretch my calf muscle.  My steps are still slow and halting, but I’m getting there.  Hopefully by Monday I will be able to get myself both to work and home again.  And maybe before too long I’ll even be able to dance again.  I’ll look forward to that.

Bl. Rose of Viterbo

Sometimes I get restless.  I get bored.  I start feeling sortof… on edge.  Without realizing it, I start wanting to take risks.  Cut corners.  Do something… inadvisable.  I’m itching for an adventure, a jolt of adrenaline, something different enough to break up the routine.  I want something fun.  Sometimes I find what I’m looking for, and I end up, say, watching high speed car chases in the police office, or trying to plant a light up manger scene king and headless cow outside my sisters’ house late at night, or, you know, stuff.  It doesn’t have to be something big, just a little something kinda stupid, and then I’m good for a while.  Sometimes I don’t get what I’m looking for, and I’m just vaguely cranky and dissatisfied, thinking dark thoughts about how boring and dreary my life is for a little while until I snap out of it, and all is well again.  At least for a while.

Last week I was feeling restless.  I wanted something, and I didn’t know what it was.  Combined with the usual birthday “you’re getting irreversibly older, and are really old now instead of just sortof old like you were last birthday” angst, I was spoiling for something big.  For a while it looked like I would be disappointed.  Everyone else in my life seemed bent on being, like, respectable.  Responsible.  Boring.  No one seemed at all interested in breaking out of their routine.  It made me sad.

And then, on Wednesday, things changed, and without realizing it, I embarked on, not one big adventure, but a couple of small adventures that served just as well.  It happened while I was sitting in Dublin Pub, having a CL Leadership Team meeting.  We had pretty much finished the business part, and were mostly sitting around talking.  A man started making a circuit of the bar, stopping at each table and talking to the people there.  When he got to our table he told us that he had four tickets to the Dayton Dragon’s game that night (that’s our minor league baseball team).  He couldn’t use them, and he was willing to give them away to anyone who would be willing to use them.  At first, all of us turned them down.  Everyone had plans, or obligations, or things they really ought to be doing on a Wednesday night in order to be responsible citizens.  I even thought guiltily of Wednesday Night Swing, which I’d skipped last week due to my sprained ankle (still not completely healed, btw), and turned them down.

After the man left, those of us still at the table kinda looked at each other.  Sugar Ray confessed that he would be really, really tempted to go if someone else were willing to go too.  Then Flo pointed out that, since she’s still on leave after her ankle surgery, she didn’t have to be at work the next day.  And little by little, I started letting myself be tempted until finally I said I would go home to change my clothes (I had no intention of attending a ballgame wearing my lovely, lovely polyester work uniform), do my best to find a taker for the fourth ticket, and meet them at the ballpark.  We asked the waitress if the guy with the tickets was still around, he was, and just like that, we were going to a baseball game.

It was a perfect night for baseball.  The sky was blue and clear, there was an early moon out, the air was soft and warm, and there was just enough breeze to make things entirely comfortable.  It was lovely.  The view was markedly improved by the opposing team’s third base coach.  Flo particularly enjoyed that part so much that towards the end I took a video of him running from the dugout to his post just for her.  And then while the three of us were talking, somehow we got around to the fact that The Avengers was coming out that weekend, and that all three of us really wanted to see it.  Sugar Ray said that his weekend was really booked up, but that he could maybe go to the Thursday midnight premiere.  Flo again mentioned that she didn’t have to get up for work the next day, so she was game for just about anything, and just like that we had a plan to go see Avengers late Thursday night, and I started texting people to see who else wanted to come along.

In the end, we were able to assemble a small company.  The first person to really commit was PM, whose initial weak protests that he would be all sweaty from lacrosse practice were easily overcome. (Him: “Midnight is really late for me… If someone volunteers to let me shower at their place, and if I can somehow feed myself and keep myself busy until midnight… I am willing to forego all sense of reason, I will ignore all responsibility and prolly show up to work on Friday as a zombie, I am willing to go.” Me: “I like your spirit, sir!”)  In the end both Sugar Ray and Flo ended up bowing out, so it was myself, Indy, Pippi, and PM who headed off to the movie theatre on Thursday night.

Friends, Avengers was awesome.  So awesome.  I won’t say any more about it because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet (which – why not?  Go now!), but it was worth staying up stupidly late, paying a ridiculous price to see it in 3D, getting three hours of sleep before getting up again to go to work, and having to fight my way through the day.  It was worth all of it.  It was that good.  Also, remember back last August when I was IMing with Zanzibar, and we decided that I was going to marry Captain America, but Z could have Tony Stark for his awesome eccentric uncle, and we’d split Thor as our big brother (tickle fights with Thor.  Nuf said.)?  Yeah, Ryan Gosling may still technically be the man for me, but sigh… those tall manly men with the blue eyes and sterling characters are sure tempting.  And just like that, I’d had my dose of adventure for a little while.

Also, I should mention that my birthday was Tuesday, and it was a good one.  I got ridiculously spoiled at work.  When I arrived, I found the hugest balloon boquet I’ve ever seen, plus roses and a card from my boss & coworkers.  All morning people kept popping in to say Happy Birthday, which puzzled me, because how did they know?  The volunteer services ladies brought me a very sweet present, and the head chef from the cafeteria personally brought me a special birthday cupcake that looked like the archetype of all cupcakes, with three inches of pink icing and sprinkles.

My parents and Pippi came to have lunch with me, and that was when I discovered how so many people somehow knew that it was my birthday.  It seems that one of my work friends had taken a birthday card around to half the people in the hospital and gotten them to sign it, and had it waiting for me in the cafeteria with another balloon (Me as I’m shepherding my parents out into the cafeteria seating area: “Now let’s find a seat… oh, it looks like I already have a seat!”)  And then there were more presents, including Star Wars Lego watches from Pippi.  She had originally been going to just get me one watch, but then she realized that the included figures came complete with lightsabers, so she had to get me two so they could fight. For the rest of the day my work desk was one big bower of balloons and flowers and gift bags.  It was rather amazing.

I am loved.

Bl. John Alcober – the 5th day of Christmas

The past few days have been full of Festivity.  First there was my parents’ Anniversary (they’ve been married now for 41 years).  It was a laid back sort of affair – hanging out at the Family Homestead and watching movies all together.  Mariah brought over most of her truly impressive alcohol collection, and we mixed Gin & Tonics with St. Germaine, and concoctions of ginger liquer mixed with Creme de Cacao or orange juice, plus many, many Shirley Temples for Fleur.  We watched A Muppet’s Christmas Carol together (I cried at the “Life is made up of meetings and partings. That is the way of it. I am sure that we shall never forget Tiny Tim, or this first parting that there was among us. “ part, and so did Mariah), and then we watched Raising Arizona, which was much more cheerful.

On Wednesday we had our Family Gift Day, which was mostly lovely, the first part, anyway.  This year AnniPotts and Boy-O collaborated on their presents, which included cleaning out the used book store.  Apparently they found a whole series of really ridiculous romance novels with nerdy heroes (The Nerd Who Loved Me, Nerds Like It Hot, Talk Nerdy To Me, My Nerdy Valentine, etc.), and gave one to each of the girls in the family.  Except Fleur.  She’s not old enough for even the most ridiculous romance novel.  Mariah had already given me my Christmas present (two very nice cardigan sweaters when I was freaking out about not having an office-y enough wardrobe), but she threw in a license plate cover from Fiber Works that says “I’d Rather Be Knitting.” I thought that was pretty cool.  I gave up on trying to finish Mr. T’s cabled socks, and instead gave him a gift card to Olive Garden.  I figure the socks will have to be a birthday present after all.

The hard part was that after we’d done all the fun present giving, Mariah brought out the last of the boxes of Jacob’s stuff, the ones that have been sitting in her living room for months, ever since we moved them out of Sae’s basement.  It seems like no matter how much of Jacob’s stuff we go through and distribute, there’s always more.  Or there was.  I have it on reliable authority that this was the last.  And it better be.  It took us five and a half hours.  It felt like infinitely longer.  At one point I thought we were never going to get out of there.  But we did.  I now have custody of what was Jacob’s stuffed R2D2, his George R.R. Martin books, the letters I wrote him while I was on NET, his The Tick figurine that used to balance on a bit of plastic wall until somehow we lost the wall, and his Baptismal candle, among other things.  And now we’re done.  I think.  I hope.  Please, God, let us be done!

Thursday was better, though I felt like I had a hangover most of the day from the emotional overload the day before.  I kinda just wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and not come out again until the next day, but CO2 was in town for Christmas, and had volunteered to lead our Catholic young adult group in a Posada.  This is a Mexican (and other Spanish speaking countries) tradition in which you act out the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem.  Afterwards you have a party, complete with a pinata.  I love pinatas!  So I packed up the vat of Buffalo Chicken Dip I made in my slow cooker, crackers, napkins, rope, and a whiffle ball bat to hit the pinata with.  And I was glad I did.  There’s nothing like whaling on a pinata to chase the holiday blues away.  And our pinata, a very jaunty blue pony, put up a fight!  Everyone got a turn blindfolded, and then we started whacking on it without the blindfold.  It was pretty sweet.  Once it was finally eviscerated we cheerfully adjourned to our meeting room for food & hanging out.  And it was good.

Tonight, in a few minutes I’m heading out to the Welcome Back Dinner for PM (my long lost Minion).  After dinner people are heading over to Tank’s, but I don’t think I’m going to.  I’m just tired.  I want to stay in and, I dunno, paint my nails.  Or something.  Tomorrow is Mariah’s Big New Year’s Eve Party, and then New Years Day is another family day.  We’re not having our Huge Family Party this year.  (We’ve thrown three weddings this year.  That’s enough parties for a while.)  But we’re still going to get together and hang out, and probably go watch Tin Tin.  And somewhere in there I swear I’m going to get some sleep.  Really.

St. John – the 2nd day of Christmas

First, I feel the need to make it clear that today is the second day of Christmas, not the third.  You don’t start counting the 12 days of Christmas on the 25th, but on the 26th.  This is why January 6th, also known as Epiphany, is the 12th Day of Christmas, also called Twelfth Night (see also: Shakespeare’s play).  If you doubt me (why would you do that?), get out a calendar and see for yourself.  See?  I’m right.

Anyway, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, why, yes, we’ve been having a very nice Christmas.  :)  It’s been an odd Christmas.  Quieter.  Different.  We’ve got kids in the family again, particularly a treasured step-niece who has four families to divide her Christmas between, so we went to the afternoon Christmas Eve Mass instead of Midnight Mass.  This small change meant juggling around our whole schedule for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  For the first time ever in my life we opened our Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve instead of waiting for Christmas morning.  Christmas Day became an odd, formless day of hanging out with the family in between meals.   The most excitement we had was when Boy-O and AP ganged up on me Christmas morning, turning what had been a comfortable coze on the couch into me being tickled mercilessly, while wheezing helplessly with laughter and making a token attempt to defend myself by sortof flailing one arm around in the air.

A lot of us have been moving a little slower this Christmas.  Rosie fell down the steps at Aunt B’s house the day before Christmas Eve, scraped up her arm pretty badly, and twisted her knee horribly.  She had been over there helping paint Aunt B’s living room, her Christmas present to Aunt B and Uncle J.  So she spent her holiday walking with a cane, and icing her knee every twenty minutes.  Yesterday she was able to bend at least mostly comfortably for the first time in days, which was great.  Between her knee and her still-recovering back, she’s been giving the ice packs a work out this December!  I fell also, on the same day.  I caught my foot somehow when I was at the top of the steps on Mom & Dad’s front hill.  I couldn’t catch my balance again, and when I realized that I was about to take a swan dive down the steps, I managed to tip myself sideways into the ivy-covered slope of the hill.  This would have broken my fall almost entirely, if it weren’t for the small terraces Mom’s made in the hill, edged with river stones standing on edge.  Still, I got off pretty easily, with a bruise on my hip and missing some skin on one forearm.  It’s funny – when I get injured, after the being shook up part passes, I feel like a little kid showing off their latest scab or scar or whatever.  I take it around to everybody and make them admire it.  Of course, then I get things like my Dad kissing it to make it better, so maybe there’s a method to my madness.

I had grand intentions of Getting Things Done on the day after Christmas (aka The 1st Day of Christmas).  I was going to maybe finish knitting Mr. T’s socks, and at least get started on sewing myself that gray wool skirt I’ve been daydreaming about, and do some housecleaning, and maybe even a load or two of laundry.  Needless to say, none of that happened.  Well, I did clean the house some, but unfortunately just to that point where the uncleaned parts of the house look even worse, before anything looks any better.  And then somehow it was 6:30, and I needed to get cleaned up before I headed out to Mick’s birthday celebration.

Today has been one of those days at work where time just disappears, like it’s been one long, gray movie montage, and suddenly it’s five o’clock and time to go home and you think, “How did I get here?”  Because of all the holidays and things, I only have one more day here at Job2, and one more at Job1.  Today I got accidentally copied on the e-mail announcing my going away luncheons, and the collection for my good-bye gift.  I’m very excited about my new job, but still, this is hard.  I’ve been very fortunate in my co-workers every place I’ve worked.  I’d like to say that I’ll keep in touch with them, but the truth is that I’m really horrible at keeping in touch with people.  I have the best of intentions, but I never remember to call.  I write letters and then don’t send them.  I still care, I’m just awful at showing it.  So this really is good-bye.  I hate saying good-bye.

Still, it’s Christmas, and a good Christmas, a better Christmas than I’ve had in years!  Tonight is my parents wedding Anniversary (over 40 years – woot!).  All of us are going to gather at the Family Homestead, and make hors d’oeuvre-like things, and hang out.  Maybe we’ll watch a movie.  Mr. T and Sae will hopefully make an appearance, though I heard this afternoon that The Duchess and 007 won’t make it to Dayton in time.  But still, we will be together, and it will be good.  And then tomorrow there will be presents.  :D