I sprained my butt.

Well, so the latest health news is that I sprained my butt.

And I must say I'm a little huffy about the fact that the family response has been nothing but glee.  Chortles, snickers, guffaws, smirks, knowing glances at each other -- this is the response I get every time I say, "jeepers -- my butt really hurts, y'all!"

I'll wait while you concoct all of your "pain in the ass" jokes here.  Take your time -- I have no plans.

Why is this?  Why do they mock?  Is it perhaps because I sound like every single caricature of a little old lady as I say, "OOF!" and "Owww!" and "Blaarggh!"  and "Oh, sweet mother of mercy, kill me now!" while trying to stand up, bend over to load a dishwasher, check my blind spot in the car, or put on a pair of blue jeans? I sound like I'm being beaten up by Batman or Green Lantern or someone else who says "BIF!"or "POW!"

It's a real pain in the ass.

Small pleasures: when two happies collide

So I read this book this past summer and just adored it.  It's like nothing I've read before.  I've been pressing it on all of my friends ever since, because it's just lovely.  The girl in charge had to be convinced to give it a try, but then proceeded to stay up all night, devouring it in one big delicious gulp.

It's that good.

So my girl and I were both so happy when we discovered that the audio version of the book has been recorded by someone we regard as an old friend. 

Jim Dale narrates all seven books of the American editions of the Harry Potter series -- and he is a chameleon-voiced treasure.  The British editions are read by Stephen Fry, a delicious treat of a different flavor -- but we are faithful to the version we have been listening to since the urchins were very small.

We have even been known to listen to books based solely on the fact that they are narrated by Jim Dale -- which is how we discovered this fabulous novel, which concerns an American acting troupe, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and some time-traveling magic!

Well, so I loved reading the book version of The Night Circus, and I love to listen to Jim Dale read anything, so throw the two together and it makes the happies explode!

Snapshot: Spa Day!

So Coleen and I took ourselves out for a spa day last Friday -- fabulous! And no.  The spa we went to did not require us to share a water bed with a weird Marie Antoinette drape and a comforter from the early 1980s.  We had to go all the way to England to hit that.

The spa we went to was a little more upscale, and we didn't wear our p.j.s -- although I would have been totally down with that.

Then we went out to lunch, and ate delicious food, and when the waitress came by and asked us if we wanted another glass of wine, I said, "No thanks, we're fine."  And then Coleen gave me a sad face and kicked me under the table -- and I said, "Well, maybe just one more."  And the waitress nodded approvingly. "It's Friday, ladies."

Voter-palooza!

I was so happy to vote with the tall boy today.  Check out that sticker, people.  The tall boy is very proud -- it's his first one!

Here in Virginia, we had huge turnout everywhere.  On the radio and on Facebook, everyone was talking about how crowded the polling places have been and how long they waited.  My boy and I stood in a long, snaky line for over an hour.  And you know what?  That was fine with me.  It was a privilege to wait with my friends and neighbors (I said "hi!" to my Contractor's husband, the deacon's wife, our County Supervisor -- standing in line with his son, just like I was -- and the realtor who sold us our house).

I was honored to be voting with everyone else in the nation -- including the citizens of Staten Island, who mean it, y'all.

And I will never take the privilege for granted.  We are so lucky to live in this time and this place -- where we call the campaign a battleground, but no one will vote with a gun to his or her head.

Today is a great day to choose a President!

IMAGE CREDIT:
"Staten Island Voters" -- Seth Wenig/AP (2012)

Bring it, Sandy!

The sunny girl and I hit our local grocery store one last time before we began to seriously hunker down and wait out Hurricane Sandy.  We were already bored and stir-crazy, and felt the need to buy those last minute emergency supplies that would help ensure that we will make it through the storm unscathed -- staples like brownie mix, potato chips, and wine.

We did notice that our fellow citizens had emptied certain key shelves . . . .

While the store still had water in gallon jugs, there is no more individually bottled water to be had.

Do you need AA batteries?  You're in luck!  Also available:  AAA, 9V,  and C batteries.  But if your flashlights and lanterns take D batteries, you are so screwed.

And as it turns out, you are also screwed if you need tortilla chips.  Apparently nachos, and chips with salsa, are necessities for sheltering in place.  Good thing the sunny girl and I snagged the very last bag of Tostitos Scoops in the store.

Because that would have been a catastrophe.

Here's what I love:

 

Well, so this past weekend I packed up the sunny girl and the husband, and took them along with me on a little mini-vacation to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to meet up with some of my besties from college.

People, we had a fabulous time!

My friends and I have seen each other only sporadically over the years.  Partly this is because they settled down over there, and he lives way up there, while I came back to my hometown down here.  It's also true that life and stuff happened (as it does to us all), and there were some lean years when the money for a get-away seemed (at the time) to be better spent on rent or the mortgage, and braces for the kids, and dance lessons, and a new car to replace the POS, and college tuition for the urchins, and a new softball bat, and summer camp and medical bills and . . . . You get the picture.

But this year we all turned fifty, and we (by which I mean Allison) decided that to celebrate, we needed to lay eyes on each other in person, and not just on Facebook.

 So Allison is quite the cruise director as it turns out.  She found us the most fabulous house that is the farthest thing from a shack you can imagine, and waved a magic wand so that both her girl and my girl could take the PSAT at a time that didn't ruin our plans, and nudged Terry and me into confirming those plans and packing our bags and actually getting our asses into gear -- all without raising her voice once.

I just love Allison!

Check out this awesome house!

There were the most comfortable, nap-worthy sofas . . . 

. . . including this one that the two teenagers decided was the "best sofa ever" and plotted to sneak into a duffle bag.  I never said they had good spatial relations.

There was a most excellent porch off of the bedroom assigned to the husband and me . . .

. . . and king-sized beds for both of the loving couples in the group.  Dennis and Allison needed a ladder to get into their bed, and worried about nosebleeds all night long -- but tell me the glamour of this room is not worth a nose bleed??

Terry cooked for us in a beautifully appointed kitchen (words like Viking and Sub-Zero can be bandied about here), and provided -- single-handedly -- a meal that included roasted chicken, mushroom risotto, salad with creamy goat cheese, and white chocolate mousse.  For real, y'all.

It did not suck.

We watched old movies (Oklahoma! and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, because we do love the show tunes), and played cards (and Terry just appears to be sweet, but really is a ruthless, Hearts-dominating bastard, which I say lovingly even though I got my ass kicked), and strolled along Rehoboth Avenue . . .

But mostly, we just loved spending time together. 

These are the people who helped me grow up.  We all met on the very first night of Freshman Orientation, in August of 1980, and have been friends ever since.  They have known me at my worst and my best, my silliest and my most earnest, drunk and sober, happy and sad.  And they have loved me all along.

How lucky am I?

The tall boy is my hero -- and so are you.

OK, so I am sorry to report to you that my tall boy is back in the hospital.  You may remember that he had some pretty significant and scary (not to mention painful) surgery last month.  The universal thinking six weeks ago was that a procedure called a pleurodesis would save the world, cure cancer, re-kill Osama Bin Ladin, ensure that pandas live forever, and send our tall boy out into the world with permanently fixed lungs.

Well.

As it turns out, his continuing pulmonary woes are -- well, they are continuing.

The ways that this sucks are multiple and varied, and I could go on for days about how crappy this is, but frankly, I'm too tired.  But the sunny girl told me that I could blog the lazy way, and show you some screen captures of the texts that I have sent to various people as we have sat with our boy, while he hears super-smart, super-confident, super-experienced cardio-thoracic surgeons and pulmonologists and interventional radiologists (which I didn't even know was a thing, but it is) -- plus Uncle Doctor (who is an OB-GYN) -- say, "damned if we can figure this out."  Tragically, I'm not even paraphrasing.

Then the sunny girl talked me through the whole "screen capture" thing, which I didn't even know was a thing, but it is.  So any successful screen captures are thanks to her.

So -- here's what happened this time:

So -- that's pretty much where we are right now.  The tall boy is in the hospital, tethered to a chest tube and a pleural pump, with no end in sight.  He could be -- justifiably -- so depressed and cranky and mean.  But he is my hero because he has repeatedly said, "It is pointless to get pissy about things I cannot control."  We should all be wearing this on a t-shirt.

SHE (who is turning out to be the world's greatest girlfriend) has been his only bright spot in a really very discouraging turn of events.

Well, HER and his grandpa -- who brought him a fabulous Italian sub and ate lunch with him while talking about the Redskins game and Eisenhower.  Oh -- and his cousin, who is studying to be a nurse and was really nice about not asking to see his chest tube up close and personal, and who brought him a balloon that is basically a dead fish (which cracked him up).  And Lisa and her husband, who have visited every single day.  And Grandma Carol and Aunt Heidi, who brought him a watercolor set (people -- this tall boy is BORED).  And his professors at Catholic University, who, to a person, have been so supportive and gracious and have made sure he concentrates on getting better instead of on papers due and classes missed.  And all the people (Coleen, Sheri, Judy, Susan, Kathy, David, Lissa, Andrew, Carolyn, Mary) who have joshed and joked and jollied with him on Facebook and via text, as he faces a frustrating and frightening turn of events.  Plus the prayer warriors:  Annalisa and Jim, James and Betty, Carol Jean and Jim, Steven and Terry, Holly, Bonnie, Cristie, Bob and Elaine, Katey, Jane, Randy, Meghan, Lourdes, Mark, Lissa, Scott, Rafe, Alan, Jana, Saskia, Wendy, Matt, Rosemary, Joe.  And my dear, dear blog friends around the world: Polly, Heather, Maureen, Diane, Rena, Holly, and others I don't even know about.

He is a lucky, lucky tall boy.

We love you all very much.