A Speckled Trout

On our travels last week we went to the New York Public Library.  It was quite grand and beautiful and oh so far from the maddening crowd.  It was the perfect oasis on a hot afternoon after miles of walking the city to see the sights.  On the way up the steps I glanced to my right and there was a card table with a Meet The Author sign taped to it.  I was fervently waved over but instead smiled and waved back and we went inside.

When we were leaving the library I said to Mark, “Let’s go meet the author. I don’t know why but I think we should go over there.”  We approached the table and were greeted warmly by two men.

The author launched into his sales pitch.  I was expecting there to be a single book but instead there was a variety of neatly stacked books to chose from.

As I perused them I asked “Are you self-published?”

“Indeed I am.  Like all the great authors are – Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, Rubyard Kipling, to name but a few.”

“Well you’re in good company,” I said.  “Which one of these is your newest?”

“This one,” he said picking up the one titled Zoe.  “It’s the story of a teenager traveling the country and writing letters home to his Zoe.  Letters about life and love.”

“Is that one your favorite child at the moment?”  I asked.

“Oh no, it would have to be this one,” he said picking up the one titled Martha.  “The story of a dancer told in poetry.”

“A dancer?  Really?  We came to New York to see our daughter in a performance tonight.  She’s a dancer.”

“I am of the opinion,” he said, “that a dancer is the most disciplined of all the artists.  That in most cases they give up everything to dance, especially their youth and their bodies.  That the slightest of gestures, the delicate placement of their hands when every muscle in their body is under extreme stress is discipline that takes hours and hours of practice and is over in the fleeting minutes of a performance.  But you know all this right?”

I was taken aback.  Did I know that?  I don’t know.  Maybe.

“I thought about this story for years but couldn’t figure out how to write it.  Then I went to a live performance and it all came to me when the announcer came on stage before the show started.  Do you want to know what he said?”

We nodded.

“In humanity I see grace, beauty and dignity.  Here.  Let me show you.”

“That was my inspiration for my story and I started writing.”

Mark and I stood there spellbound.

He continued. “Then the curtain lifts with the rush of Niagra.  The music moves, filling the openness with consoling tones, a melody of the woods twirling ribbons of wind and gently, the dance begins.”

“A perfect description,” I said.  “That is what I feel when I watch our daughter dance.”

I turned to the man who had been quietly sitting there this whole time and asked, “Are you his friend?”

“Every Saturday I come to the library and I kept seeing this man with his card table selling his books. The first time it was bitter cold and he was here for hours.  The next Saturday the same thing, and the next and the next. Finally I walked over to talk to him and I’ve been keeping him company ever since. That was two years ago.”

He reached into his wallet and pulled out a tattered photo.  “See her?  That’s my daughter.  She’s four years old.  I take her to dance every week.  You and me are alike with our dancing girls. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”

We bought the book (as if there was ever any doubt) and bid farewell to this author and his companion.

“I don’t know what to make of all that,” Mark said as we walked down the steps,”except that I feel like crying.”

Kindred spirits on the steps of the public library.

It was the most divine intervention.

***You can read more about Garrett Buhl Robinson here

Maggie was recently talking about when she was in high school and wanted to work at the Rainforest Cafe but I said ‘YOU CANNOT WORK THERE.  IT IS AT THE MALL.”

I don’t remember this conversation but it sounds like something I would say.  I hate most malls.  No window to the outside world, the Abercrombie smell from fives store away, the Dead Sea scrub stalkers, the flat-iron kiosk where they eye me so eagerly with their hair tools, and all that stuff.  I will think of any alternative to avoid the mall (including shipping charges) and so the thought of sending my kid there every day must have sent me over a maternal cliff.

She also said I told her she couldn’t work at Culvers because the location was sketch and those places don’t close until at least 10:00.  This also sounds like me except the location isn’t sketch and I am up and down that street at least 2-3 times a week.

Oh the poor firstborn with the drone for a mother.

Will worked at a bagel shop all through high school and on college breaks.  This was acceptable until he had to work on Easter.  “EASTER?  YOU HAVE TO SELL BAGELS ON EASTER?  THAT IS RIDICULOUS AND TELL THEM I SAID SO.” But that place usually closed by 4:00 and so that was okay because he wouldn’t be coming home after dark and I wouldn’t have to go on anti-anxiety meds.

Mal has worked for the last couple of years at a restaurant in the KC shopping and dining district. She often gets off work past midnight.

Oh the third child with the mother who has surrendered.

For two years Mal has talked about going to New York City for an intensive dance program.  She worked like crazy and saved all the money to pay for it herself.  I tended to think (or maybe hope) that my youngest one wouldn’t really go to that big city for a whole summer, and so when she’d haul in another big check and I’d see her bank balance online I’d think, “Well good for her.  Look at all that money she’s saving.”  Then she applied, sent off a video of her dancing and got accepted.

I stuffed down every fear I had and breathed into paper bags.

We talked over and over about her going there by herself.  I tried to enlist her brother to accompany her but he started a new job and had no vacation time.  Mark had a grant deadline and couldn’t take off work.  Taking me and my sense of direction would have been a hindrance instead of help.  She insisted she was perfectly capable of going alone.  I ordered a car to meet her at the gate and take her to her summer home and then put the fear of God into her about calling me when she got there.

Her summer dance program ended on Saturday and Mark and I went there to see her and the performance.  I needn’t have worried so much.  She has been more than capable of managing the city, her classes, her money, her future career and the subway.

In our conversation about working and first jobs Maggie asked me why I was always so goofy about launching each of them off into the world.

“Oh dearie,” I thought.  “Only a mother would understand the answer to that question”

In the blink of an eye all three of them have grown up and surpassed me in many ways when it comes to life experiences. The hard, day-after-day work of raising them is behind me.

My new job is to stay out of their way.

My gardening friend had come over and we were surveying my flowers.  We chatted for awhile at the end of my plot about what was doing well and what wasn’t, perennials versus annuals, and what would make good filler for the empty spots.  We were having a typical gardeners conversation when we heard some rustling by the liriope.  We stopped talking, turned in the direction of the sound and the biggest rat I’d ever seen ran out in front of us.  We screamed, we jumped, we peed ourselves a little.

When our hearts stopped thumping out of our chests we wondered how long that thing had been hiding three feet from us, where it came from, and most importantly were there more.

“You need to call the city and tell them you have a rat problem.  They need to know about this,” another neighbor said when I told her what happened.  “They’ll send somebody out to bait the sewers.”

I wasn’t sure if one rat was a problem for the city but it was for me and so I called.  The guy who answered the phone at the public works department asked for my address and when I told him he said, “Oh I know exactly where that is.  We made some people clean up their yard of wood and other debris nearby and it probably disturbed some of the rodents.  I don’t think you’re going to see anything else.”

I described how big it was, how it ran right in front of us, how we dang near had a heart attack.  He  assured me that rats aren’t really a problem around here.  I wasn’t so sure since we live across from a creek but he insisted that this suburbia and rats don’t interface.

Much.

That was many years ago and this summer after a long, absent spell we’ve had a squirrel plague.  “They’re rats with bushy tails,” Mark says as he embarks on a one-man crusade to rid his garden of them.  Every morning he stands at the back door and counts them at our neighbor’s feeder.  Then he moves to the front door and counts more in our own yard.  He calls me over to the fence and points out something red high up in a tree.

“Do you see that, Kath?  Do you know what that is?  That’s another one of those effing squirrels eating my tomatoes.  I think the son-of-a-bitch has an heirloom.”

Since I don’t like tomatoes this isn’t my fight but every morning I hear the head count and the cussing.

Last weekend Mark decided to buy another trap.  One for the front yard and now one for the back.  We walked up to the hardware store and he came home and set it up with the bait inside.  Before long he had an occupant. 

And where does he take these yard rats after he traps them?  To the park near City Hall.

“The people running this town need to know we have a squirrel infestation,” he says as he drops one after another off on their doorstep.

At least he wasn’t trapping and drowning them like the old guy down the street did for years.  We always knew when he got another one because he and his wife would walk up to the shopping center after dinner with a plastic bag to toss it into the dumpster. 

No, this wasn’t a death panel but a humane relocation program.

I’ve only half-listened to most of this squirrel problem until the day I came home and saw two half eaten tomatoes in the front yard.  It was like empty Budweiser cans tossed from the car of a bunch of rowdy teenagers on a Friday night and I wasn’t having it. 

This war just got personal.

The next morning Mark went off to work.  As he does every morning these days the traps were set and ready.  That afternoon from an upstairs window I saw our cat crouched near the trap.  Ding ding ding!!!  We had a relocation winner!!!!  Then I saw two little girls stop their bikes and walk up to the trap.  I ran down the stairs and onto the porch.

Noting the concerned look on their faces I said, “It’s okay you guys.  My husband takes them to the park so they have more room to run around.  You know, that big one by the pool?  Plus it’s probably cooler over there for them.  Really, it’s fine.  They’re fine.  You’re fine.  No worries.  Nothing to see here.”

“Oh we thought it looked so sad and scared,” one of them said.

“Nooooooooo.  Why would it be sad and scared?  It’s going to a bigger yard.  It’s going to the Mayor’s yard!”

“Okay,” they both said and hopped on their bikes and rode away.

But it was too late.  While I was running down the stairs they had opened the door and released the squirrel. 

I felt like making another call to the city.  We had some renegade PETA do-gooders trolling the hood and they had no idea what they were unleashing on this neighborhood.  They were freeing the ones who have a lot of problems.  They bring those problems here.  The ones who bring crime.  The ones who bring drugs.  The ones who steal tomatoes.

And some, I suppose, are good squirrels.

Nah….. 

I asked the guy who’s out there every day securing the vegetable border.  He says every single one of them is a rat.

Ready for transport to their new home

                                     
                                           ~What breaks quickly generally mends slowly~


On the first day of the job I left this spring, I was escorted to the third floor where I would be working by my then supervisor.  Immediately upon arriving on the landing, it was as if every sense in my body was screaming GET OUT. By the time I got to my desk I felt like crying.

It was bizarre and scary and telling, and since I’m not some new-age, hippie chick that dances by the light of the moon every night I shut that business down pronto.

The first month, however, was such a struggle that when friends and family asked, “Don’t you just love it?”, I would offer a weak smile and say, “I can’t say yet.  There’s so much to learn and it’s really different than anything I’ve done before.”  What was unsaid is that from the beginning it was the most difficult work environment I’d ever been in.  If I were smart I would have turned around that first day and said, “Sorry, HR.  You’re not going to believe this but The Universe just sent me quite the warning and I’m going to have to go.”

Responsible people, though, don’t get a job and then walk out on a feeling.  You stick it out and hope that the karma you’re picking up on is dead wrong.

While there was a conflict that tipped the scale for me that week, I really hadn’t planned on quitting on the day I gave my notice.  But I walked up to the third floor once again and wondered, “How many more days are you willing to be miserable?”  I clocked in, put my stuff away, got a cup of coffee and went into my new supervisor’s office to give my notice.  We both cried because we had a mutual adoration society going and my leaving was going to break that up.

There were many people there that I adored and leaving those friendships was incredibly hard, but I felt that I was spiraling down so fast that it was scaring me.  There were attempts in the following week to talk me out of my decision but it was to no avail.  I did my best not to panic about losing a second paycheck around here but that was on the outside.  The inside was swirling and nauseous and checking multiple job sites over and over waiting to pounce on the right opportunity.

Six weeks later I broke my foot.

I went to two interviews after that wearing an orthopedic boot.  Was that why I didn’t get the job? Did they think my broken foot would never mend and they’d be stuck with a hobbling employee that is always late because she has to go to the doctor again?  For the third interview I stuffed my swollen foot into a regular shoe and had my daughter drop me off outside the building so I wouldn’t have to limp from a parking garage.  I didn’t get that one either.

Three “thanks but no thanks” emails in less than a week could make even the most optimistic job seeker a little shaky in their confidence.  I started out shaky.

When I first quit my job, my neighbor who works for the school district said, “Oh good.  Don’t get anything until August so we can hang out this summer.”

“August?  Oh no, I’ll have something before that,” I said.  Or so I thought.

It seems like destiny to me that I broke my foot.  The thought of repairing my damaged emotions after two tough years was not what I was planning to do this summer.  I was looking to dive right back into the work pool but was instead forced to prop my foot up with an ice pack and deal with my feelings.  Some days that felt like being forced to sit in the cafeteria with the popular cheerleader in high school that was dating the boy who dumped me.

When another neighbor who is a nurse asked me how my foot was doing I told her that it hurt most of the time, that I couldn’t seem to get anything done and that at some point during the day I would usually fall asleep. “Well, that’s because you’re in pain,” she said, “and pain is exhausting.”

It was as if my world cracked open and it was finally okay for me to take the time to take care of me.

Last week I saw my hairstylist and told her my summer saga of a broken bone, torn ligaments and dwindling job opportunities.  Then I showed her the picture my niece drew of the main character for the children’s book we’ve been conspiring to do together for more than a year.

She stared at the drawing and said, “Oh, she’s adorable.  Her hair!  I think I might already love her.”  Then she looked at me and said, “You know that you’re not getting the jobs because that isn’t what you’re supposed to be doing now?  That writing her story is the job you’re supposed to have?”

I do know that. 

In my still, quiet summer I have discovered that landing the next job was never part of the plan.  It was learning how to listen.

Over the the past few years Maggie and I have taken it upon ourselves to look for suitable candidates to date our Will.  He never asked us to do this (and would roll his eyes when we brought it up) but we decided that since we’ve both had success in the Cute Husband Department we were the perfect choice to help him out.

Both of us narrowed in our man.

Last year when I was going to the dentist weekly for a rogue tooth, I got to know the dental assistant. Besides being good at his job he was very cute and very funny.  He could talk about anything, but what sealed the deal for me was his advice on hair products to control frizz during the humid summer months.  I had met a soul mate.

Besides that, he wore a scarf fashionably tied around his neck with his blue scrubs.  I’m going to repeat that.  He wore a scarf tied fashionably around his neck with his blue scrubs.

After Maggie started going to the same dentist, our conversations always turned to Dan.  How fun he was, how much we liked him, how perfect he would be for Will.

“We need to work on this,” I said to Maggie, “and since I’m the one that’s there all the time it’s up to me.  I’ll get the scoop on him, figure out how he and Will can meet and then let love do its magic.” We discussed our strategy and how we could find out if he was attached.  “There’s no way around it,” I said.  “I’ll just have to come out and ask.”

So on one of my weekly visits I said to the dentist, “I need to talk to you about something.  Is Dan dating anyone because Maggie and I were talking and………..”

The dentist’s face fell as she put her hand on my arm and whispered, “I’m so, so sorry. That’s not going to work.  Dan is gay.”

I burst out laughing.  “Oh geez, I knew that with the scarf and all but I didn’t mean for Maggie. I meant for my son.”

“DANNNNNNN!!!” She yelled.  “Get in here.  We’ve got an opportunity for you.”

Dan came running in.  The other dental assistant came in.  The hygienist peeked around the corner. “Do your thing,” the dentist said to me as the crowd gathered around my recliner.  I presented my case my son and frantically tried to pull up a picture on Facebook.  They all leaned in to get a good look.

“We don’t always get good reception in here,” the dentist said and disappoint hung as lifeless in the air as a shot of Novocain.

“I’ll friend him,” Dan said.  “Tell him who I am so he knows and then we’ll see.  I can’t believe I don’t know him already.  I think I’ve dated every gay guy in Kansas City.”

The fact that he got around a lot was a little concerning but I ignored that and called Maggie with the deets.  “It’s in the works and before you know it Dan will be eating Sunday dinner with us. Maybe he can show us how he ties his scarf in that cool knot?!”

“I know, Mom.  Will’s going to thank us for this one,” Maggie said.

Before long they did end up meeting through a mutual friend.  In fact, Will met a bunch of new people all of a sudden but, alas, there was not even the slightest spark of a love connection.  “He’s not my type,” was all he said.

“Not your type?!!”  What do you mean?  He’s cute, he’s funny, he’s fashionable,” Maggie and I yelled. Will wouldn’t budge.  He moved on rather quickly from this plan of ours but we were having trouble doing the same.

I hadn’t seen Dan in over a year until I went in for a cleaning last month.  He poked his head in the room and said.  “Hey Kathleen, how’s it going?  Haven’t seen you in awhile.  Is Will doing okay?”

We got caught up on everything and I was a little sad it didn’t work out with Will.  He would have been a fine addition to the family roster.

The original cute son-in-law started going to the same dentist recently.  “Did you meet Dan?  Isn’t he so good-looking and fun?” Maggie asked.

“I can’t believe you and your mom ever thought he was a good match for Will.  Two minutes in and I knew he wasn’t the kind of guy Will would go for.  That was a bad idea you two had from the start.”

“What???  Of course it could have worked.”

“Nope.  Not Will’s type.  You guys don’t know what you’re doing.”

Will did meet someone recently, and what may be the biggest shock of all, Maggie and I had nothing to do with it. We don’t know how he did it without our guidance but he did, and we all like this cute, nice guy who makes Will so happy.

But what are we to do with our time now that our matchmaking skills are not needed?

I’m so glad I asked.

We think it’s time to teach the straight men around here how to accessorize.

On a Saturday morning when my mom and sister were in town, Mom was standing at the dining room table reading the newspaper and casually said, “A chipmunk just came in the house.” Just as calm as she could be as if she was saying, “There’s still some more coffee in the pot if you want another cup.”

Me, not being all calm-like shrieked, “A CHIPMUNK?  WHAT?  IN THIS HOUSE? RIGHT NOW? DID ONE OF THE CATS BRING IT IN?  WHERE DID IT GO?”

“I think it ran into the kitchen,” Mom said as she perused the Macy’s ad.

I looked at Ann.  “For reals,” I said nodding in Mom’s direction, suggesting that maybe now is the time we should look into that room at Shady Acres before she gets bad.  Ann shrugged.

“That can’t be, Mom,” I said.  “We’ve never had a chipmunk in the house.”

“All I know,” Mom said turning the page, “is that something with a little head and tail ran in here.  Do you think we can go up to Macy’s later on?”

Why is she always so freaking calm?

It wasn’t long before the cat parked himself in front of the stove with a twitching tail.  Mom was right. There was an intruder in the house.

I told The Big Daddy who matched my mom’s calmness.  “Don’t worry about it.  The cats will get him sooner or later.”

“No.  No.  That’s not going to work for me.  I can’t have that thing in here.  You have to get it out.  Now.”

Undeterred by a foreign terrorist on the homeland soil and a damsel in distress, he went outside to putter in his garden.

I stayed out of the kitchen for as long as I could, and wouldn’t you know that as soon as I went in there Alvin poked his head out from under the dishwasher to give me a fright.

I called The Big Daddy back in for a kitchen conference.  “You have to do something before this thing gives me a heart attack!!  It needs to go.”

“Oh c’mon, you know this thing is more scared of you.”

“I highly doubt that,” I said.

“Where’s my pioneer woman?”

“Well, she’s in Oklahoma,” I said, “cooking and writing that blog that makes bank every month.  You’re stuck with me and I don’t want a chipmunk in the kitchen.”

He and Mallory, who happened to be unafraid or very hungry, conferred on a plan, got the squirrel trap out of the garage, wrapped it in a towel and put some popcorn in the trap.

We waited.

There were a couple of things wrong with this plan.  Problem #1: The squirrel trap was too big and the chipmunk was too small to set it off so he just darted in and out snacking on some Smart Pop for lunch.  Problem #2: The hubs used a brand new bathroom towel.  “Really, Mark?  Two dozen crappy towels in this house and you have to use the one we’ve owned for a week?”

“You wanted a trapped chipmunk.  Am I right?”

“Righty roo bounty hunter.”

We scattered for the day – my sister and her kids to the shopping district, Mark hunched over a computer and Mom and I to Macy’s.  The chipmunk had free rein of the kitchen (my kitchen) and a darkened, comfy restaurant to enjoy his popcorn.

A few hours later we gathered together for dinner where I was forced to be in the kitchen.  I got my brave on and my stomping boots.  With that many people in there I was sure that Alvin would mind his own beeswax under the dishwasher and he did. We ate and left to watch a soccer match.

My sister and her carload were the first to arrive home that night and Wrigley (the Yorkie who’s a terrified chicken on four legs) was hiding in his kennel.  He was sporting his usual resting face grimace that said “something’s not right around here you guys.”  Since he’s worn that grimace from the day he came to this house last fall we don’t pay much attention.  This time, though, his grimace and his eyes kept darting from my sister to the kitchen. Over and over.  He’d witnessed something – something disturbing and he needed Ann to know about it.

Exhausted from all the days activities and wildlife sightings, we all went to bed with my sister camping on the couch. When Mal came home she sat on the couch talking to Ann when the cat started going crazy. They jumped up on the coffee table and screamed for Mark.  “THE CHIPMUNK!!!  THE CAT HAS THE CHIPMUNK!!!!”

I poked my sleeping husband and yelled at him to get downstairs before there was blood and chipmunk parts everywhere. Turns out the cat had a june bug.  It also turns out that, like me, none of the other women in the family share Mom’s state of calm.

Mom, Ann and her kids left early the next morning without a chipmunk sighting.  Apparently even rodents like to sleep in on the Sabbath.  I managed to stay out of the kitchen for a good part of the day (a most excellent weight loss strategy) until I couldn’t go any longer without some food.  And what did I get for my absence?  I got a chipmunk that ran right in front of my feet.

No longer willing to wait for our two lazy cats to take care of business, I sent Mark to the hardware store for a chipmunk trap.  It wasn’t long before we got our man.

“Take him across the street,” I said to Mark, “and make him cross a lot of traffic to get back here.”

“I’m not going to make the little fellow do that,” Mark said cooching-cooing Alvin in his trap.  He released him into the backyard where the chipmunk fam quickly gathered to hear about the meal plan inside.

From the safety of his kennel, Wrigley observed every second of this transpire with his darting, watchful eyes. Still grimacing and shaking in his furry boots, it was as if he wanted to say, “You guys wouldn’t believe the shit that goes down around here when you walk out the door.”

Come to Papa

I was born in the heyday of the Barbie doll.  She was ten years old when I was twelve, and though she was far more mature looking than I was we did in fact grow up together.

She was so beautiful with her perfectly coifed hair, her fashionable outfits and her I-mean-business-but-I-don’t-really-work-at-anything-but-me stilettos.  Who wouldn’t love that kind of beauty?

Well, me, for one.  With my sensible Catholic school shoes to go with my itchy plaid uniform, gigantic white underpants, a generously freckled face and flat chest I had a hard time relating to Barbie. Even at that young age I knew when someone was out of my league and Barbie most certainly was.

Thankfully her best friend, Midge, came to the rescue a few years later.  Midge with her practical bob and freckles sprinkled across her nose was the answer for this average looking little girl.  I was crazy about Midge.  She dated Allan, not that frat boy, Ken, with his stupid sweater tied around his neck. What kind of guy did that?  We lived in Chicago.  Either you wore a sweater ten months of the year or you didn’t.  But, Allan, in my dreamy dreams was going to college to get smarter and improve on his overall decency and devotion to Midge. Ken on the other hand was going to drink and hit on all the coeds even though everyone knew that he and Barbie were a “thing.”

Midge was my girl.

A neighbor who was a seamstress started making doll clothes for Barbie and Midge and my mom was a frequent customer.  She’d put in an order and a week later Evelyn would call and tell her the tiny, perfectly sewn clothes were ready.  Mom would send my sister, Jean, and I over with some money wadded in our fists to pay her and add to our vinyl Barbie and Midge suitcases.  If Evelyn’s husband was home he’d open the door and say “Come quick, Evelyn!!! It’s the Sipanski sisters.”  Seeing as how we were German and Irish I didn’t understand why he always called us by a Polish name but he thought it was funny.

A few years ago when Mom was still in her old neighborhood we got to talking about Evelyn and Ed. “They’re still in the same house,” she said.  Evelyn had moved from Barbie clothes to quilts and had won some awards for her pieces.

“I’d love to see them,” I said to my mom and so she called Evelyn to see if I could come over.  Later that day when I rang the bell Ed answered the door and said, “Evelyn!!!  You’re not going to believe this.  We’ve got a Sipanski sister at the door.  Whatever you’re selling we’re not interested,” he said and slammed the door in my face.  Seconds later he opened it laughing, grabbed me by the hand and said, “Get in here and tell me everything you’ve been doing the last forty years.”

Last week I ran into a Midge doll at an estate sale and all those memories came flooding back.  At $65.00 she was more than I wanted to spend for a bit of nostalgia, but like Ed and Evelyn it was a sweet reconnection with a favorite old friend.

On that blistering hot day the humidity had made her hair too big, her bangs too short and a bit of bloating seemed to make getting the zipper up on her jeans impossible.

Midge was still my girl.

For the last couple of months my little circle of friends has been swirling in turmoil.  One friend who had an ailing mother emailed me that things had gone suddenly bad for her and she was headed out of town to be by her Mom’s side.  We texted back and forth many times a day and one afternoon on the way to the hospital she called me.  “I need to laugh,” she said,”and you’re the girl to do it.”  We did laugh (over what I can’t even remember) until she arrived at the hospital where things got real just by pulling into the parking lot.  A few days later her mother passed away.

Many years ago I had to have out-patient surgery for an ovarian cyst.  If you’ve ever had one or know of someone who has, they will tell you that when one of those plants itself in your lady parts you are about to embark on one painful ride.

I was unaware I had a cyst until it was discovered during a routine yearly exam, and between that time, the testing and the appointment with the doctor to get it scheduled for removal, it burst (which is the painful part).  This is what the doctor told Mark when he finished the surgery and came out to talk to him. What was left was removed, the blood was cleaned out and I was sent home later that day to recuperate.

Recuperating wasn’t so easy as we had three small kids and no family here to help out so Mark was called upon to do a lot.

We also had a dog who was a runner and had a habit of bolting out the front door if the kids didn’t close it all the way when they were going to play down the street.  This usually resulted in both of us screaming at the dog, the kids, and the damn door that never closed all the way.

The day after my surgery Henry saw his opportunity for freedom and made a dash.  I screamed, “MAAAAAAARK!!!! THE DOG!!!  GET HIM!!!!”

Mark bolted out the door, flew over the hedge and missed the dog who took off running for the neighborhood kids who would chase him until they all ran out of steam.

Limping into the house Mark grimaced and said, “I almost had him but I smashed my toe on the ground and he got away.”  He managed to make his way to the freezer for some ice and his job of nursing me came to a screeching halt. He had a big toe to nurse.

The next day he and his big toe went to work where one of his coworkers said, “You jammed it.  That happens all the time to professional athletes.  It’s called turf toe.  Go see one of the docs and they’ll yank on it and unjam it.”

That night Mark came home and told me of his professional sports injury.  “Are you going to have somebody look at it?” I asked.  “Nah,” he said.  “That sounds too painful.  It’ll probably be fine soon.”

A few days later my mom came to town.  I was on the mend and her and I went grocery shopping. Mark hobbled to the car to help bring the bags in and Mom said, “Oh for God’s sake, you’d have thought he was the one that had surgery.”  This was a true statement as the injury to his toe would take far longer to heal than surgically sucking a cyst out of me.

Four months later I had to have surgery again, this time more involved and with a longer recovery, and so I convened a meeting with the hubs to clearly communicate my raging, homicidal thoughts. “This is all about me this time. I don’t care if you jam your toe or have a bone sticking out of your forehead. I get all of the sympathy because this time I’m getting stuff removed and stitches and I am not going to share that for some made-up sports injury.”

“Okay,” he said.  “But it’s not made up.  Turf toe is very, very real.  I don’t know if you remember me telling you that professional athletes get it and if you ever experienced it you would know how extremely painful it is.”

And like my mom I said, “Oh for God’s sake.”

Two weeks ago when I broke my foot Mark had a bit of nostalgia sweep over him as we sat in the emergency room. “Any time you injure your foot it’s painful, Kath.  Real painful.  Do you remember that time I got turf toe?  It’s something professional athletes get.”

“Isn’t there some kind of statute of limitations for the retelling of a stupid toe injury?” I asked.

There is not.

Last week my mom and sister and her kids came to our little part of Oz for a short visit.  I was a busy beaver spiffing the joint up for their arrival.  While the inside was in pretty good shape, the screened-in porch was not.  Between the buckets of pollen that have fallen from above all spring followed by buckets of rain, everything out there was a green, grimy mess – which tends to happen when you insist that the inside should marry the outside.  I got my trusty Clorox spray and a rag and went to town.

For about five minutes.

As I stood on the threshold of the kitchen door wiping the ledge on the porch, I noticed something that needed to be put away STAT and headed that way.  Whatever THAT was I cannot remember, and in my hurry to get to it I might have considered looking where I was about to step.  I put my dainty, little left foot down and shoved my clodhopper right foot through the handle of a basket that was on the ground just to the right of me. 

I went flying.  Or staggering-half-barreling-epic falling to the ground.

In my tumble I smashed my foot on the concrete floor which ummmmm, hurt like a mother.  Then I felt like throwing up.

Mal heard the commotion and came out.  I was having trouble saying much of anything with the foot pain and overall barfiness but I did manage to ask her to get me an ice pack.  I hobbled to a chair and put my banged up foot up on another chair and let the ice do its thing for awhile.  When I got up I put my weight on it and was mildly successful.  I heeled it to the ibuprofen bottle.

Maggie and I had already made plans to go to Target and Homegoods which was essential to my goal of creating the perfect family entertaining ambiance.  I needed a battery operated pillar candle or everyone was going to be completely miserable during their visit.  I found my cushioniest flip flops, slipped in one fat foot and one normal sized foot and got in her car.  “Are you sure about this, Mom?  You’re limping pretty bad.”

No, I wasn’t at all sure but I have always thought if you take your mind off your troubles you’ll feel better which explained the immediate need to get to Target.

I gimped myself through both stores with no luck in finding the battery operated pillar candle in the cool color I envisioned and thought I so desperately needed.  I covered a lot of square footage with that bum foot and had nothing to show for it except some outdoor lights for the patio that I was smart enough to realize weren’t going to get hung for awhile.  Or probably ever.

Mark came home and repeated what his daughter had already said, “You’re limping pretty bad.  You did a number on that foot, honey.”

By the next morning I was no longer limping pretty bad because I couldn’t put any weight on it at all and so we went to the emergency room.  I was reminded that a real ER has nothing in common with what is depicted on t.v. or in movies. There is absolutely no urgency – even for the guy who was sweating and clutching his chest while his wife pleaded twice for someone to look at him immediately.  “I see you,” the registration clerk said as if she was playing peek-a-boo with a toddler rather than a middle-aged guy with chest pains who already had a pacemaker.  “Give me just one more minute.”

“That one behind the desk is a cog in the wheel,” Mark said icily.  “You know what a cog does?  It f**** everything up.”

I nodded and said, “If I’m like that call an ambulance even if I say not to.   I heard that you get seen faster if you come by ambulance.”

“You’d bitch about the copay on an ambulance,” Mark said back and he was right.  I’d be at the mercy of Cog Lady which sent a shudder down my spine.

Just then I was called back and hopped the length of a football field to get to the exam room.  “I should have gotten you a wheelchair,” the nurse said sympathetically.  “Yes, that would have been helpful,” I said as I did a last hop onto the bed.  The doctor had the good sense not to touch my foot and was pretty sure it was a bad sprain.  “Does it hurt to walk on it,” he asked.  “Well,” I said nodding to the nurse, “she about did me in.”  They chuckled and offered me a Vicodin.  I declined.

We waited for the xray machine to show up.

“Mark, I can’t do crutches,” I whined in the meantime.  “Everyone who’s ever had them says they suck.  If I can get by with Das Boot I’d be so happy.”

We cracked up at my funny and his favorite movie about a German submarine that made me claustrophobic just watching it.  We watched the minutes tick by and twice somebody came in and said we could turn the t.v. on.  I couldn’t figure out what sort of t.v. one watches in the ER and instead I listened in on what the staff was ordering for lunch.

Eventually I got my xray and it confirmed that I did break a bone.  I also hyper-extended my toes when I fell and had some messed up ligaments.  “We’ll put you in a boot,” the doctor said and I about jumped with joy on my one good foot.  A Vicodin was offered.  I declined.  Someone came in for a fitting.  “What do you bet this foam thing gets billed to the insurance company for $800.00,” I joked to Mark.

But not really because it probably does.

When I stepped down I thought all my troubles would be over and my foot wouldn’t hurt a bit but that was not the case.  Mark went and got the car and I started the long, slow, painful trek to the pickup area, grateful that I relented and took a prescription for Vicodin.

Since then I’ve had to baby it some but have managed within the last week to go to an outlet mall, vintage market, pizza place, Panera Bread, the grocery store, another trip to Target and a soccer game.

What a trooper!

Or what a gigantic idiot for not staying off of it so it can heal!!

I won’t be able to tell until next week’s orthopedist appointment and follow-up xray, but on the agenda for tomorrow is a job interview.

Das Boot will be coming along.  My footwear is losing its charm in this summer heat and like the movie is making me feel a wee bit claustrophobic.  In the end, though, it may be very useful after all.

It’s hard to slam the door on a fat, overpriced padded shoe.

My what big handles you have.