Could we all have a big shout-out for the happiness that is FRIDAY? Oh mah lord. I can’t believe I’ve only worked 3.5 days – the work & stress has been the equivalent of a couple of weeks, and that EXCEEDS the recommended dosing! Everything has been in some state of uproar or drama or irritation or frustration, and that is work, life, the whole shebang. I’m very, very tired.

Until my father’s death, I excelled at denial, and avoidance. I still do – but emotional things are a lot harder to shake free now. But I’ve learned about drowning in grief and the whole process of breaking the surface and finding your breath again and eventually staying afloat – and even swimming.

I had some news this week, and it’s the reason for my watery metaphor – my beloved Auntie Karen had a false negative on a biopsy earlier this month, and she does, after all, have breast cancer. I suspected something had happened when we returned from vacation & she’d left a message. I called her back right away and when I heard the news, I just felt myself sinking. Not fighting it. Legs together, toes pointed, sinking like a stone. She continued, with positive information (it’s Stage I), the treatment will be pretty aggressive, she has all the faith in the world with her doctor, he feels the prognosis is very good, so on and so forth. She told me not to panic or think the worst.

I’ve done a pretty good job of following her instructions this week, in which I’ve had numerous emotional bungee drops and confrontations and stress. Mostly because I didn’t talk about it much. Didn’t let it break the surface. I have a very obsessive mind, I’ve always described it as my “inner terrier”, the dog that cannot and will not back out of the hole until it has dragged every goddamned rat out of the darkness. Some might call it a futile attempt to control everything, in a search for reassurance. Terrier sounds a little cuter.

My voice cracked when I told James, and later this week, at lunch with my girlfriends, when I described my aunt, trying to be wry and pretend it’s ok, as “my only living relative who still speaks to me…” Yeah, it’s a sucker punch of a twist on the truth, but I’m tired. My terrier is tired of hunting rats, of not coming in from the rain, of having to sink to the bottom before I can rise to the surface again, tired of paddling, tired just so tired.

Despite my words here, I’m still optimistic. I know my Auntie will pull through this, that all will be ok, that the stress at work will continue but it will, too, resolve itself, and that the general stress of life ebbs and flows. I just hit my limit today, and in the silence of the office, as people scramble to leave early, I felt the realities of my life rush in, no longer held at bay by business and calls and meetings. ….and yes, I’m still quite happy it’s Friday. I have a great evening planned, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to see this post as just a little dip in the Sorrows Pool on a Friday afternoon.

James, teasingly, to his 8-year-old niece, Danielle: “Wellll, you wanna knuckle sandwich? I’ll give you a knuckle sandwich!”

Danielle: “Well, then, I’ll give you a box of poop.”

It still cracks me up.

I told the Wo this morning I had a Vacation Hangover, and he surmised that instead, it could very likely be Bacon Withdrawal. In any event, I’ve sported a faint headache for the day, and been a little confused about what day it actually is. I came in to work halfway through the day, and diligently plowed through the 15 voicemails I’d gotten. I was unable to change my VM greeting before I left, because the fire alarm was going off! And I have some impairment and am unable to access our voicemail remotely, something about hitting the star key rapidly and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but I end up leaving myself multiple hang-ups.

This morning sent us out to apply for our passports; I should say, JWo got his application in, because we discovered when we got to the good post office, that I had neglected to bring MY birth certificate, but instead had both of his in an envelope. So we toodled back home, I hunted for mine, trying not to just fall apart out of frustration and bacon withdrawal, and then I went off to the bank to put everything else in the safety deposit box, which was a bit of a hassle because they had our account flagged again but it was simply out of order filing-wise, not because I needed to sign something (again.) But it took fifteen minutes of two bank employees running around looking in every available file drawer to figure it out. I exited the bank thinking that this did NOT bode well for my trip to the Altercation Post Office, the one where I was verbally abused by a drunk while the postal employee served him coffee? Which is the same one where a woman was beaten with a 2×4 one morning when she was checking her mailbox? So you can understand why perhaps I was not rolling in there as the local optimists chapter president. The line? It was so, so long. Maybe that was the WAIT, there were only three people in front of me. I conjectured that the hippie dude was selling off his comic books on eBay and this was his big shipping day. I have no idea what the old dude in front of me was shipping, but Darth Vader was behind me in line, breathing audibly, and he stood about four inches back from me. No matter how I moved to increase my bubble. And believe you me, my bubble is kinda big right now. He was a nice old man, Darth Vader, and he was mostly at the post office for socialization. Weather was a safe subject, and he wheezed and whistled and waxed rhapsodic about the heat, and I was grateful that after one more person, he would be forced to maintain a five-foot berth from my bubble. Poor dude. I wish I could have been more chipper and chatty, but again. No bacon today.
The process for getting my passport application done went so quickly even the postal worker thought she’d made a mistake. Typing that now makes a bit uh, nervous, but since I’d watched all the steps down in Martin City on JWo’s, I know that we did all the same steps & I paid for everything I was supposed to – so now the race will be on, to see if there really is a difference between post offices and if one will come before the other. My postal worker couldn’t have been nicer, and nobody stank like MD 20/20 while screaming rude things at me, so perhaps we’ve reached a turning point with the Wornall station!
I titled this blog purgatory because I feel caught between Vacation (Bacon) Life and Normal Routine Life. I have other things to do, out of my routine, this week, because Thursday is the Wo’s birthday, and I’m paranoid I’ll forget them in my half-life half-death no-bacon state. I need another night of sleep and maybe some Bacon DeTox tea and hopefully normal will be returning to Jenville.
Oh, speaking of Jen this and Jen that, we determined on our vacation that Jenapalooza would feature many great bands. Cake, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Journey, Cyndi Lauper, maybe Snow Patrol? and I can’t remember who else right now. I’m adding Tom Petty to that list, because they are my official Backyard Band. (You know, a band you’d like to have permanently in your back yard.) The best part of having Jenapalooza come to your town, would be listening to me sing along to all those great songs, because like, I don’t really worry so much about the words? As written out by the artist? I’m more about the tune. The melody. Mmhm! Leonard Bernstein!

This is TOTALLY ME. Now. Start begging Ticketmaster to bring Jenapalooza to your hometown!

I’ve just gotten home! We left Friday for Branson, where we spent three nights with James’ family (Momma Linda, Brother Steve, and the nieces), in what can only be described as “cosy quarters”. Double beds. Single bathroom. Whole lotta togetherness.

I caught some trout, we had some lovely pontoon boat rides, and then some beastly hot pontoon boat rides, and every time I let the dogs out, Polly went over to Mimi Murano and tried to figure out how to open the hatchback to climb in. My dog likes her familiar places and spaces and this whole trip was throwing her into Anxious Mode! But for the people, there was swimming, and there was grilling, and there was bacon, oh so much bacon, and there was awesome food, and there was a fish hatchery tour and then there was more sweltering heat, and laughter and some photos of my brother-in-law that will be blackmail-worthy someday, and I think this is what constitutes a successful family vacation! We never had them, growing up, and I look back on my time in the dorms and wonder how I spent all that time in close proximity to people. Every day. I think it explains why I rode my bike to the cemetery to study. (I’ve always had a flair for The Goth within….) Being an only child is kind of strange, and I was interested to immerse myself in the non-only-child experience, because the banter and the familiarity and the references, there’s just so much there that it’s hard to describe. It was a good, good weekend away. The only thing that was bad happened when we hooked up to the Wi-Fi, and I started to construct a pissed-off email to my alumni group,directed at one person who never stops his vitriolic spews to the group (note the irony there), and then I started to edit it, and then everyone got back from somewheres and it was wet swimsuits and pandelerium, but instead of “save”, I hit “send” and OH MAH GOD what had I done? So I had to send another email (with complete sentences) that took some (most all) of the inflammatory language out (I rarely start an email with “You are crazy.” But I did! Oh yes, yes, I did!) and put the rest of the points I wanted to make IN, and when I got home I had a couple emails thanking me for my efforts. So at least I didn’t start an email flame war by accident. I also discovered via email that the work a/c is not working, and that makes me thankful for being home today. I’m teaching a class at the Studio tonight, and I may need to ask my two students if we can end it a bit early, and then do an extra follow-up hour later on, because I’m pretty sure they’ll need it. I am so excited for Our Bed. Soooo excited. James is making sure it still works just fine, right now. I know if I go down for the count, that’s it – I’ll be toast and I’ll have unhappy knitters wondering where I am. So I’m going to run on fumes, and whatever else I can scare up to eat around here – sadly, there is no freshly cooked pile of bacon – and then we’ll get back to All Things Normal again, with regular blogging and bitching about the heat. And, unfortunately, less bacon. Vacation and bacon rhyme, and I do NOT think that is coincidental.

So, we’ve watched the Power of Ten, because there’s really nothing new on, and everything we’re DVR’ing right now is interesting only to us individually, not collectively (soaps vs. poker!), and one of the questions was what percent of 100 American women say they’ve had a fantasy about a firefighter? And the Wo said something high, and I picked something very low, and it WAS very low, under 20%.

But we just had a big ol’ fire alarm here at the office? And I may need to revise that number. We got not only one fire truck, but TWO, including the one with the big ladder. Loaded with beefy men in heavy suits (I felt bad for them given the weather). Carrying big poky things, oxygen tanks, and other rescue paraphernalia. Hubba hubba! Though my favorite part was when the first truck pulled up and Kristin WAVED AT THEM. Heyyy-Oh! (They did not wave back.) Our office was not on fire, but only a small number of us actually left the building. I believe I chirped to one of the firemen in charge that we were “the survivors”, and I meant it more like we WOULD be the survivors because when danger comes, we step out. I’ve deduced from their rather stony demeanor that they’re really not receptive to a lot of banter. Or waving.

In other randomness, we had one hell of a thunderstorm last night. I was convinced lightning had struck our neighbor’s cars, because it was all so BRIGHT and LOUD and wahoo-wake-ya-up-screaming. Turns out, it hit our big pin oak, and I drove right by it without even noticing! Because I’m the O.F. (Original Fogbanks). I was too busy looking at all the rubbish on the road, both from the storm & trees, and then those irritating plastic baggies with sales pitches & rocks in them that IDIOTS throw on your driveway, and I really, really, want a good form of recourse against them, like pressing charges for littering. Or a public flogging. Whichever. Anyway, Wo noticed it and left me a message & I’ll be getting a picture of it for posterity. Hope the tree survives, it’s a beautiful oak.

To complain about the heat would be redundant. It’s just miserable (see, I can’t NOT do it.) The dogs were synchronized-lounging last night on the tile & wood floor, because it was the coolest place to be, and they were stretched out to maximize the coolness. I left them with frozen beef bones this morning, so they’ll be busy on their meatsicles for the day…. And that’s it! Stay cool!

After all the drawn-out drama with the plumber, and not getting my shower fixed in time for my birthday, there was much celebrating (including special soap) once the shower was returned to its usable state.

Upon returning from Detroit, JWo informed me he had the perfect gift for my birthday, and this was it:

(stock photo, not my shower)

When I told someone at work, their not-so-tactful response was “Seriously?” And then I listed the things James told me that made it so perfect for me. Because he is right. I was a little surprised, because I’ve never even considered one of these things before, so where he’d gotten the idea kind of baffled me. But here is why:
1. My shower was cluttered, and I’m always trying to get organized, in every way.
2. I like to fill things up in other containers for dispensing. (Olive oil, soy sauce, dish soap, hand soap)
3. It came with LABELS (in four languages, no less) and I love to label things.

It was only later that I discovered it had HOOKS on it, too. It is the greatest thing ever. And I pointed out, it funnels right in to my obsessive-compulsive side, because I get to COUNT the number of times I push the buttons for shampoo, conditioner & shower gel. (Six times needed for shampoo, seven for conditioner. I do this with my face wash, too. (Four times.))

So then I was mightily irritated by my shower curtain. Namely the billowing-in and sticking-to-me part. A little research showed that Linens-N-Things (Napkins-N-Crap, I still love that commenter’s nickname for it!) carries a guaranteed-not-to-billow shower liner. And my original shower curtain had these pretty tone-on-tone white leaves on an opaque background, but none of the leaves survived a trip through the washing machine. So I got this shower curtain to go with the non-billowing liner:
(OK, I can’t find it in silver, so here’s the gold, but mine is silver, which is actually more clear with a silvery sheen. It actually refracts light at the right time of day, so I get rainbows. Rainbows! Bonus!)

Then I got some super-duper suction hooks, and voila! My organization and style sensibilities are delighted. My shower is now only missing a neon light ring around the top, and since the whole “electricity/water” thing isn’t really healthy, I’m willing to live without a true discotheque aesthetic.