7/27/05

* * * Written July 20, 2005. So the other night, I went upstairs to brush my teeth and get my book and come downstairs to talk to Fred on the phone, and so I headed down the VERY STEEP fucking stairs into my parents’ basement – the stairs I go up and down fifteen times a day while I’m here, and every single time I head up or down, I think god, I hope I don’t fall down these fucking stairs – and I got down the stairs almost just fine, until I got to the last step and stepped forward to go across the floor, only I WASN’T on the bottom step, I was on the second-to-last step, and so I tumbled onto the floor on my side, smacking the dehumidifier on my way down. I immediately bounced back up, and looked up to see my mother coming to the top of the stairs, and for some unknown reason I felt the need to lie to her. “What happened?” she said. “I dropped my purse!” I lied. “Oh. I thought you fell or something,” she said. “Nope! Just dropped my purse,” I lied again. I went into my room to drop my purse on the bed, and saw that I had a handful of blood. Upon closer examination, I saw that I had a gash on the index finger on my right hand, and as soon as I realized it was there, it started hurting like hell. I went back upstairs, held it under very cold water for a few minutes, and then asked my mother where the band-aids were. She handed me a box, and as I was taking a band-aid out, Brian wandered into the kitchen. “What happened?” he asked. “I dropped my purse and tripped over it,” I said. WHY I felt the need to lie, I have NO idea. It’s not like dropping my purse and tripping over it was any less embarrassing than tripping off the last step and falling on my ass. I reiterated the lie when the spud came into the kitchen, and they examined my finger. “It just looks like a paper cut,” Brian said, and they immediately lost interest. “Except it’s A LOT DEEPER than a paper cut!” I said, almost defensively. “You can almost see bone!” You couldn’t, but these days you have to exaggerate to retain the attention of these world-weary brats. They weren’t interested. So I’ve kept a band-aid on it for the last couple of days, and the cut is healing nicely. I figured it’d get infected, because that is JUST my luck, to go on vacation and get an infection, or possibly even a staph infection (please note that I’m not even sure how you get a staph infection, but I suspect my parents’ humidifier (which I’m fairly certain is where I cut my finger) doesn’t hold the correct germs, though of course I could be wrong), but I’m pleased to announce that as of yet, it appears to be infection- and staph- free. We saw this car on the way home from South Portland, and it cracked me up. Monday evening, the kids went over to Debbie’s for a while, and I hung out with my parents, watching TV and reading and writing out postcards. When Debbie and the kids came over, we all went out in the pool for a little while, until the mosquitoes got to be too much for us, and we fled indoors. At one point, the spud went down to the basement to do her laundry, and called up to me to come down and look at something. I did, and saw the hugest pile of dog barf I’ve ever seen, comprised of more grass than I’ve ever seen an animal eat at one time. I told the spud to go get my mother. She did, and my mother came down and checked it out, then cleaned it up. We decided the dog had eaten too much grass, and it made him sick, and we all went in separate directions. Ten minutes later, the dog did it again. He ended up vomiting until his stomach was empty, and then kept trying to vomit when there was nothing left to throw up. We all started to get worried about him, and that behavior combined with the fact that my father had sprayed some kind of poison on the grass in the yard, got us really worried. My mother debated calling the vet, but decided that Benji wasn’t acting quite sick enough to warrant a call to the vet or a trip to the emergency vet in Portland, and that she’d call and make an appointment the next morning. She’s not a spaz like Fred and I are, I guess. I can’t imagine any of our cats vomiting that much, that often, and not running them to the emergency vet (because, of COURSE, nothing like that would EVER happen during the week, during the day, when a vet is easily reachable). The next morning not only did Benji seem better, he actually seemed just fine. He was all perky and danced around when I came upstairs, and licked my hand and let me scratch him on the head. My mother called the vet anyway – she was thinking that maybe he had a urinary tract infection, because Brian had seen what looked like blood in his urine (Benji’s urine, that is, not Brian’s. Though that would be funny: “My grandson saw blood in his own urine last week, so we think the dog has a urinary tract infection!”) a few days earlier – and made an appointment for that afternoon. She was also given instructions to try to collect a urine sample. After my days of being on Poop Patrol, she definitely had my sympathy. Since the urine sample couldn’t be any more than two hours old, we decided to run some errands and do a little shopping. We got home a little after 1:00 – stopping at The Kitty Corner, maker of the absolute best ham Italian sandwiches in this entire world, to pick up lunch, on the way. My mother took Benji out as soon as we got home and was successful in getting a urine sample. Debbie called to see if I wanted to meet her at Village Candles in Topsham; I did, so I took my mother’s convertible and left. My mother and the kids took Benji to the vet (the diagnosis: nothing wrong with him, but the vet prescribed antibiotics just in case). After Debbie and I looked around Village Candles for half an hour or so (and I found a thousand things I really liked, but didn’t want to deal with getting home safely, so I didn’t buy anything), we went back to my parents’ house and went for a swim until it started raining. I swear, this year I’ve been in my parents’ pool more than in any other year combined. It’s been FUCKING HOT and sticky, let me tell you. How these people survive without central air, I will never ever know. At some point Debbie called Liz to make sure our plans for tonight were still on – we were planning to meet and have dinner at Vinny T’s – and found that Liz had just seen a doctor, who decided that she doesn’t actually have tennis elbow. She has fibromyalgia. She has to follow up with her primary care physician, and can’t get in to see her for two weeks. I can’t imagine not being able to get in to see my doctor for two weeks. In fact, I’d be surprised if I ever had to wait two DAYS. Liz said tonight that she’s going to call back and see if she can’t get in sooner; hopefully she’ll be able to. Brian, taking a break from mowing the lawn. I REALLY like this picture of him. Primrose in my mother’s garden, with bug. We went out for dinner last night, at China Rose in Brunswick. Pretty much every time we visit, we go out to China Rose at least one night and have the buffet. Because it’s DAMN YUMMY. Aaaaaanyway, this morning we got up and got on the road pretty early, because we were headed for the beach; Popham Beach, to be exact. It was SO FUCKING HOT, even down on the ocean, and after a few hours at the beach I was ready to get the hell out of there. See, here’s the thing: I love the ocean, and I like the beach. What I fucking loathe is being hot, and being in the sun. I loathe being attacked by big ugly green flies, and I don’t know if it was where we were sitting, or what, but we were constantly being attacked by the fuckers. We killed plenty, but I’ve got a ton of nasty bites, and I HATE BUG BITES. Also, a family of assholes showed up and set up right in front of us, putting up big tents and taking up a maximum of space. Ugh. If there had been the slightest fucking bit of shade at the beach, I might have been less miserable. But there are no trees on the beach, and the beach umbrella we brought with us wasn’t nearly big enough, even though I spent most of my time huddled underneath it. Some day after I win the lottery, I’m going to rent a house on the ocean with a nice big porch, and I’ll spend my days on the porch looking at the ocean and reading, and my evenings – when it’s COOL – walking on the beach and splashing in the water. I managed to get a little bit sunburned on my face – nothing too bad – and on my feet, but the worst burn is on my back, which as far as I’m aware, wasn’t exposed to the sun at all. Tomorrow, we’ll be going to Kittery to do some shopping. I’ve never been to Kittery before – I think I mentioned that – and I’m looking forward to it. ]]>