idiot girl strikes again

yesterday was my annual treck to the emergency room. this time, for my left knee. this is what went down:

mike woke up in a pissy mood--his tooth hurt, he was grumpy from the bad gym-going week, etc. and when he's pissy, i take it personally (hard not to when he's such a grump!). so he was getting ready to leave and i was in the shower and he came in all mad and asked when i would be ready to switch the cable box, so i told him to give me a sec. i rushed out of the shower and threw on a towel and ran down the hall to help him, and my foot slipped and i twisted my knee so hard i thought i was going to die. really. die. hurt as bad as when i broke my arm die. so i pretended that it wasn't that bad, he left for work, and i sat on the couch wet and freezing because i couldn't move.

i finally hobbled to the phone and called kaiser and the advice nurse said, "you're on fosamax, you may have broken something. get to the er." so i called my m-i-l (woke her up) and she had to take me over because it hurt so bad i couldn't drive. after four hours and two sets of xrays, they determined it's soft tissue damage. my knee is now the size of a softball, and i have crutches to get around on. but--no cast and no break!!!!

oh, and mike felt so guilty because he knew it was partially his fault that he showed up at the er. a tech was wheeling my back from radiology on a gurney and said a "tall, handsome man" was looking for me.

then last night we went to centro for dinner and i got drunk on mojitos and momentarily forgot the pain. that is, until i woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep because it hurt so bad.

glass is half full, i'm looking at a two to three week recovery. glass is half empty, it will still be bad after a week and i'll need an mri and possibly surgery to fix whatever i did. obviously, i'm hoping the glass is half full.

and to top it all off, i went for a glorious run yesterday morning.

next year

tonight is the survivor's reception for the race for the cure. i'm a little nervous about going because i get pretty emotional when i see other people in various stages of cancer treatment. and mike gets teary whenever he sees a bald woman. so between us, we're going to be wrecks tonight, i'm sure. this is the first year that it's a reception versus the picnic thing they always had after the race, which we never attended because we were always ready to go home after being there for two-plus hours for the walk. and we've never stayed for the ceremony after because i've never wanted to be singled out like that, and it was something that mike couldn't be a part of and i don't think that's fair because without him, i wouldn't be here. so i'm glad it's a reception that he and i can go to together. and if it's lame, next year we'll be going to the tattoo parlor instead!

trees

our neighbor chopped down his tree. and the one next to him topped his tree. mike has been ranting and raving, and i now have the topic for my july column.

p.s.
i'm going to go on record that it's finally spring around here. it's about time!

working for the weekend

the problem with working my ass off all weekend is that, come monday, i have no motivation to do anything. but i must buckle down and crank out one more article so i can be ahead of the game.

pooper

ahhhh. another day frittering away on the internet where i stumbled across this quiz: http://www.evany.com/sleeptest/. results are in. i'm a colon.
http://www.evany.com/sleeptest/colon.htm
and it's pretty damn accurate, as i do tend to return calls via email, and i used to go for walks at lunch versus socializing when i had a "job".

names

i'd always hated mine growing up, and up until college i didn't even go by my full name. now i love it. and i appreciate unusual names, although names like moses and apple are a little odd, i think. but names like clyde, zander, and riley are cool and kids with those names seem like they are destined to be artists or musicians or athletes or something along those lines. i used to have a baby name list, and i've since started naming my cats the names that i like: riley, flynn, moxie. friday and harley are two girl names i've always loved, and darwin and fletcher for a boy. guess i'd better get some more cats...

fresh toes

i think i'm going to get a pedicure later today. the last one i got in s.d. is still hanging on, barely, and since the weather has turned and it's sandal time, i need my toes to look presentable.

and now that the weather has turned, i'm officially lazy and procrastinating on everything again. and as mike keeps saying, our trip will be here before we know it, and i need to get going on our itinerary so we have some idea of what to do with our time and don't waste it being unorganized.

but right now, i've been saving last night's two hour alias to savor over my giant latte, so off i go to watch the tube.

best.b-day.ever.

i think 35 was my best birthday ever. went to see k.g. in modesto w/mike, then took friday off and got lattes, went to ikea and got a bookcase for my office, and watched a mediocre movie. sat we did presents (walk the line dvd and cd, co-op t-shirt, mints, and pink playing cards for solitaire) put together the bookcase, then later went out to moxie for dinner and i had the best halibut ever, then came home and had tea with my new tea set (thanks to storygoil's husband) and vegan carrot cupcakes from the co-op (so good!!!) for our second dessert (couldn't pass up the homemade cheesecake bill's mom makes). sun was more hanging out and goofing around. now that's what i call a great b-day weekend!

let the sun shine in

it's so nice to open all the windows and blow winter out of the house. i know, i know. there's more rain to come. but i can almost taste spring in the air. it's sweet and buttery. or maybe it's the kettle corn i'm munching on. either way, it's good!

tomorrow started out as a fun day mike and i were going to spend together to start my b-day celebrating early. it's now turned into: mike to dentist to grind filling, me taking nissan in to dealer to fix door lock, stop at gym to make up for lazy week, then the fun begins. pesto scrambles and a trip to ikea followed by lunch at the co-op and a netflix as the cherry on top. then, saturday is dinner at moxie followed by walk the line, which is the only thing i asked for and i know i'm getting because we bought it at target a few weeks ago.

and comedy in modesto tonight--i almost forgot.

35, here i come!!!!

the storm before the calm

there are ominous, dark clouds gathering above me but so far no rain, which is good because the levies need time to dry and get ready for the next onslaught. the best surprise of all was that the weekend was dry (for the most part) so mike was able to mow the two-foot-high grass in back and front, as well as putter, which was good for his mood, and subsequently mine. we also found some new jeans for mike, and got to visit brian and zander while we were in the neighborhood. which turned into a reunion of sorts because brian's parents were visiting him. and to keep the reunion ball rolling, we went to brunch with my m-i-l, rob and pam on sunday, after m-i-l stopped pouting and having a hissy that she didn't get her way (them living in her house is, i think, her way). pam and i got a chance to get to know each other better, and she shared their baby-making struggles with me and i'm glad she did, because i think it brought us closer. we're no longer strangers, which is good. but the weekend ended poorly when mike napped for hours yesterday and then couldn't fall asleep last night until well after midnight. and i slept through the alarm for the gym, which was a good thing considering mike had only fallen asleep a few hours before it went off.

the year of the dog

what happens when five strangers get together to help find the home of a lost dog? the answer to that question was found this morning while i was on my walk and a huge chocolate lab came running towards me nearing a very busy intersection. i was able to grab her collar and pull her out of the street, and an employee at la bou was kind enough to lend me his cell phone to call the owners. (thank god the dog had tags on!) but of course, the owners were not home, and just then an older woman stopped to help me as well. i was having trouble controlling the beast of a dog, and just then a woman materialized from the parking lot with a length of rope to fashion into a leash. it appears she was eating in la bou and saw the commotion and thought she could help. she sure did. then the other woman helped me call every number on the dog's tags while the la bou employee watched. we finally called the 800 number for the chip and though they couldn't reach the owners, they told me their address, which was a short walk away. so we set off, ginger and i, after i thanked the strangers who had helped us so far. when i found ginger's house, i got her in the backyard and scoped it out looking for a hole she may have crawled through. didn't find any holes, but i did find a sparkly pool, and my guess is the pool cleaner left the gate open or let her out (accidentally, i hope, though i would fire their asses regardless). then i stopped a women running by with her dog to see if she lived nearby (which she did) so i could get a piece of paper and pen to leave a note for ginger's owners. by then, another of ginger's owner's neighbors came out and he helped me ensure the gate was latched so ginger couldn't throw her weight against it to get out again. then i left the note and came home to shower off the smell of dirty dog.

there's a song by matthew sweet in which he says that dog people hate cats, but cat people love all animals. i've found that to be true for the most part.

a gush of blood to the head

that's what happened to me when i visited storygoil today and made tea cake (her cat) all crazy. that's what i get for flaunting my newly-washed hair around that cat!

i'm still obsessing about last night's lost and veronica mars, but i'm pissed because the brand new dvr didn't record my other fav wednesday night show, bones. luckily, i can miss it and not go into cardiac arrest. if it had been lost or vm, though, i'd be in the er fo sho.

i finished the first part of a million little pieces, and although i know that some parts were fabricated, it doesn't take away from the fact that he's a great writer. mike was moaning about his filling he had to get refilled because our dentist is a doofus, and i almost made him read the chapter about the no-drugs root canals. but, alas, he's not a reader.

and while i'm on the subject of books, i am so excited to get my new office bookcase next week. i hope the one at ikea is ok, because i don't really want to have to drive all the way to crate and barrel (or spend the $$) for the other one i found. either way, it will be nice to finish getting organized and have a place for my millions of books.

quittin time

it's time to shut down my brain for the day (other than what little i need to make stir fry for dinner and read a chapter of million little pieces, then watch the apprentice that we've had dvr'd for days). i was so hoping to get a run in tomorrow morning, but the weather doesn't look promising. guess i'll have to settle for running on the treadmill, although i don't run well at 5 a.m. i don't do much at all well that early in the morning, come to think of it. go figure.

50 more years?

can i imagine living 50 more years? not really. but at mike's uncle's 85th b-day party on saturday afternoon, it got me thinking about it. i know that the longer i'm a cancer survivor, the more my chance for overall survival decreases. you'd think it would be the other way around, but i'm also hopeful that the statistics are based on much older women, where their chance of survival decreases naturally every year anyway. i guess that's my magical thinking for the day.

thanks to a free large peet's soy latte (thanks to storygoil's email) i'm wired. i know i would be wanting a nap right now otherwise, since the time change always hits me hard in the spring. we had to force ourselves to get out of bed for the gym this morning at the ungodly hour of 4:15 a.m. i imagine tomorrow will be even tougher. i guess that's my not-so-magical thinking.

and since i finished the year of magical thinking, i'm now going to try a million little pieces (again). the first time i only got through the first two pages before the author's writing style drove me nuts. this time i'm going to try to get through at least the first chapter before i give up.

going to a funeral this week. cousin-in-law's wife's mother's husband. taking my m-i-l, so should be interesting. i told mike after this week i'm all family'd out for a while. i told him this yesterday after i said what he always says after we have two busy weekends back to back: "next weekend, we're not doing anything!" he said, "that's what i always say!" that's us, two peas in a pod. or, as i always say, two minds that share the same brain--we're half-brains.