So this day kind of started off badly at about 5:30 am when I had to get up and take some medicine because my migraine had come roaring back.

Unfortunately it was still in full swing when my tutoring client arrived for her session.

We were working on an exercise which required her to translate a conversation between Sara and José discussing what kind of movie they wanted to go and see, when she got to the following line:

“¿Adónde quiere ir Sara?”

which means, “Where does Sara want to go?”

So my student began translating the words aloud, and I heard her say,

“Where do…you want…to DO…Sara?”, with absolutely no realization of what she had just said.

And I, rising to the occasion as the mature, responsible adult I am, burst into peals of laughter and almost fell off my chair with glee.

And suddenly, my whole entire day just turned right around.

Lately I’ve been in another one of my having-trouble-sleeping phases. My coach and I have been working on this together, and one of the things she suggested was that I pull out my relaxation/meditation CD’s and listen to them before I go to bed.

So yesterday when I checked in with her she asked if I’d been doing that.

Me: Um no, I haven’t.

My Coach: Hm.

Me: I even got it out and put it in my nightstand drawer, but that’s it.

My Coach: OK well tonight, I want you to ACTUALLY LISTEN TO IT.

That’s why I pay her the big bucks.

I really enjoy working with high school students, because they help keep me current on many things such as language.

I was recently tutoring one student, and in between Spanish exercises she was telling me stories about her various friends and how they’d “hooked up” with members of the opposite sex.

I had a vague idea of what that term meant when I was a teenager, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it covered these days, so I asked my student to clarify it for me.

She said, “Well it doesn’t mean having sex, but it means you do everything up to right before getting ready to have sex. At least that’s what is means if you’re a teenager. I don’t know what it means to old people.”

Have you ever felt so tired that you have actually been drugged with fatigue? That is how I am feeling these days, due to my incredibly rigorous schedule of Helping 2 Clients A Week With Spanish. Apparently wrangling those reflexive verbs will really take it out of you.

So lately my mind has just been all over the place, and occasionally I just go in and skim off whatever random thoughts have floated to the top.

Like the fact that my 3rd grade teacher just retired at the end of this school year. That frightens me a little, because if the people who taught me and my generation are now retiring, that means that we are now going to be The People In Charge Of Things. And I don’t really know if that’s a good idea, because I know us. And we are kind of scary.

We are the people who spent our entire 3rd grade year playing with “The Empire Strikes Back” action figures inside our desk in lieu of doing any actual schoolwork. We are the people who may have graduated medical school, but who will always be remembered in my mind for carrying around a tin of snuff in their back pocket and spending all of 9th grade English with their feet hooked around my chair while jerking me around and making suggestive sexual noises. We are the people who are about to apply to law school and be charged with upholding the laws of our land, despite having spent most of college breaking said laws through excessive underage drinking and operating various watercraft while highly intoxicated.

I was 13 when that Whitney Houston song came out that proclaimed that “children are our future”, so I kind of feel like we’re the future about which she was speaking. And apparently the future is now. You just might not want to look at it all that close up.

I’m just saying.

I know I haven’t had a lot to say here lately, and that is due to the fact that I have been deep in the bowels of Being A Homeowner.

It all started so innocently back at the beginning of May when my husband uttered those four little words: “We’ve got wood rot.”

So that meant that I performed all my tutoring sessions for the rest of that month to the mellifluous background soundtrack melody of huge pieces of wood being ripped off the side of the house.

Because you know that the repairs did not stop with just the affected section. Oh no. Because that section was right next to the porch, a porch that of course became sadly shabby and run-down looking when compared to the brand spankin’, freshly painted new side of the house. So naturally we had to rip out the entire porch railing and prepare to “redo the deck”, a portentous sounding project if I ever heard one.

Apparently I then spent a lot of time beseeching the universe for Ways I Can Get Out Of Having To Do This Please!, because one day when I came home from working out, there, in my driveway, was Dave.

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Remember that wonderful commercial from the 80’s?

Remember how we would mock the poor, helpless woman on the floor?

Remember how we become that which we mock? No? Yeah, me neither, until yesterday when I became that woman.

Ten minutes before I was supposed to get on the phone for an important interview regarding the next creative project I’m planning to take on I stood up, my entire lower back seized up, and I was on the kitchen floor. And I couldn’t get up.

I had to crawl on my hands and knees over to the phone to call my husband at work and tell him that, yeah, basically, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.

I had to lie on the kitchen floor to put on my pants. My husband had to put my shoes on for me.

But those of you who know me will not be at all surprised to know that I delayed my husband’s homecoming and my doctor’s appointment in order to give myself enough time to complete my phone interview, because DAMMIT, I AM GONNA ACE THIS THING!

The interview did go really well, and I passed with flying colors. Apparently the extra added challenge of having to find a way to support my own body weight that involved neither sitting nor standing for 30 minutes just gave me the extra oomph! I needed to sail right through.

But it is times like these that makes me wonder how I was ever allowed to be the one in charge of, say, a plant, much less my very own, alleged, grown-up self.

This past weekend I went up to North Carolina to visit my family. I spent a night with my brother and sister-in-law who just got married last summer and are settling into their own domestic routine.

They talked about how they don’t really get out so much anymore, now that they’re married, and I said that the same thing had happened to me and my husband too. Then my sister-in-law said to my brother, “Ooh, tell Jenny what you got last weekend.”

“Oh yeah!” said my brother, brightening.

I looked at my brother expectantly, excited to hear what had gotten the two of them so excited.

“I got a new pair of nasal hair trimmers” my brother exclaimed. “It was the best Saturday night ever!”

when this story that you’ve heard for years from a relative around the holiday dinner table

“…So they were sitting on the couch, smoking, and then they would turn around and blow smoke at the cat who was sitting on the back of the couch, and then eventually the cat just fell on the floor…”

is finally told in its “adult” version in front of you at Christmas dinner.

“…So they were sitting on the couch rolling joints, and then they would turn around and blow the smoke at the cat who was sitting on the back of the couch, and then eventually the cat fell off the couch because it was stoned.”

Tonight in the car, on the way home from voting.

Me (to my husband): “What is eminent domain?”

My husband (so stunned that he physically recoils): “Did you take Civics?”

Me: “Ye-es.”

My husband (in a tone that clearly says, I cannot believe I let you sleep in my bed every night): “Do you watch the news?”

Me: “No. Could you please just answer my question without trying to make me feel bad?”

My husband: “Um, no, apparently not.”

Good communication between you and your health professional is essential.

(At the dermatologist’s office.)

Nurse: So you’re here because you have something on your head.

Me: Yes.

Nurse: Is it giving you any problems?

Me: No. It’s just WEIRD!

Good communication between you and your spouse is also essential.

(Describing my doctor’s visit to my husband.)

Me: Since we changed insurance, the dermatologist is not covered. So I had to pay for it myself.

My husband: So how much was it?

Me: $212.00

My husband: What?!

Me: It was worth it for the peace of mind.

My husband: Well yeah-it was a PIECE OF YOUR MIND!