I recently had a conversation with one of my friends, discussing the time about fifteen years ago when she came down to North Carolina to visit her boyfriend’s family.

My friend: You know, I really don’t like lima beans.

Me: Ew! Me either.

My friend: And they didn’t just give me a spoonful or two. They served me an entire DISH of those things.

Me: Ugh!

My friend: But I was a good sport, and I ate it to be polite.

Me: Good for you.

My friend: But I had to draw the line at squirrel.

Me: What?!

Me: WHAT?! They tried to make you eat SQUIRREL?!

My friend: Yep.

Me: Please, oh please, tell me that at least your boyfriend thought that was weird.

My friend: Nope. He didn’t say a thing.

Me: On behalf of the entire South, I am truly sorry, and I deeply apologize.

So when this day started off, I was feeling really good.

I was able to put my contacts in almost on the first try (although I did briefly revert to being 8 years old again when I had to ask my husband to please, please, STOP LOOKING AT ME while I did it.) So I was feeling good about that.

And then once they were in I went to work out, and I was feeling really good about that, because this will be my tenth week in a row of regular exercise.

But apparently that was just too much good feeling in one morning for me, because I had only been walking on the treadmill for about ten minutes when I rubbed my eye and accidentally popped my contact out.

Fortunately I did not lose it, but I did then have to figure out what I was going to do. My first instinct was to leave and go back home, which would have been awkward but doable. The place where I work out is not a regular gym, but instead is a by-appointment-only kind of place, which means that everyone knows who you are, and they notice when you come in, and they notice when you leave, and they have no qualms whatsoever about following you out into the parking lot and stopping you from driving away if they think you’ve left too quickly.

But I could deal with that. What was more difficult to deal with was the fact that my trainer arrived at that exact moment to work with another of her clients and I was instantly faced with an even more important dilemma, namely that of preventing her from changing the setting on my treadmill from the level at which I felt I could actually walk and still ensure the delivery of oxygen to my entire body, to the level at which she felt I SHOULD be working out (my level being, “Oh, The Burning!”, and her level being, “Spontaneous Combustion And Death!”)

So I stayed, clutching my contact the whole time, and when I finally escaped to my car I realized that I was so a person who’d had contacts for less than four days. Because, did I have my contact case, or my contact solution, or my glasses, or anything even remotely resembling an eye care product? Um, no. I had…an empty granola bar wrapper plucked hastily from the floor, thus ensuring that when I finally made it back home my contact would resemble nothing so much as a colorless, hideously deformed Shrinky Dink.

And I was left to wonder (yet again) at the fact that somehow I am allowed to be the person in charge of my own self care, and to fear for the other living beings who depend on me.

Because then, when I say something completely idiotic, I’m the one who gets to decide whether or not to share it with the world.

Like yesterday, when I was talking to my mom and getting an update on my grandfather. In the past week he has undergone knee replacement surgery, a catheterization, a heart attack that went on for two days before it was discovered and treated, and quintuple bypass surgery. And yet somehow, knowing all of this as I did, I still had the following conversation with my mother:

Me: Did someone tell me that [Grampie’s sister and her husband] were driving up there?

Mom: Yes they did. They drove 19 hours. And it will be 19 hours on the way back, too!

Me: Wow! They drove all that way just for this?

Today my husband and I drove from Atlanta up to Raleigh because my brother is getting married tomorrow (YAY!) We both have parts to play in the wedding, so we had to make sure we arrived in time to attend the rehearsal.

We had not been at the church for more than 10 or 15 minutes when I horrified my mother with the following exchange:

My grandfather: So, how long did it take you to drive here?
Me: A little under 6 hours.
My grandfather: And how many miles is that?
Me: An ass-load!

As I mentioned in my previous post my husband and I had a cookout this weekend in honor of the holiday weekend. But it almost didn’t happen, because I did something really stupid.

Thirteen years ago I was diagnosed with depression. It is normally managed just fine thanks to my wonderful support people and medications.

About a month ago things were going really well. I was happy, enjoying my life, enjoying my work, and enjoying people. So naturally I decided that the best possible thing to do at that moment would be to stop taking one of my medications. Just ‘cuz.

And what is even worse is that I did the same exact thing 2 years ago, and eventually I got to the point where all I could do was lay on the couch, breathe, and cry. So I knew EXACTLY what could happen, and I chose to do it anyway.

Fortunately I realized pretty quickly that I was on a very fast downward spiral, got back on my medication, and called one of my wonderful support people. And this was her advice to me:

“DON’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT NOW. Gag yourself with duct tape if you have to, and don’t talk to anyone. Because if you do, you could irrevocably mess up every single relationship in your life.”

So true. Especially when she asked me how I felt about people coming over for the cookout and my honest response in that moment was, “Well, I’d really like to chop off all of their heads with an ax.”

She replied, “Yeah, and do you see how that could put a tiny bit of a damper on things for them? That’s probably not the kind of cookout they are expecting.”

Fortunately by the day of the party the medicine had started to kick in, and I was once again able to sleep, and so I had a much brighter outlook on life. I was even able to enjoy myself with our friends, and I am happy to report that everyone left our house with all of their limbs completely intact.

I am also happy to report that The Power Greater Than Me Who Runs The Universe apparently knew that I was in need of a serious pick-me-up last weekend, and so sent me this very cool surprise which you can see if you click here.

So far I have to say that, in all honesty, 2006 has not really impressed me yet. Here’s why.

First of all, I have had a really bad sore throat and head congestion for the past three days which, besides just making me feel icky, also makes it very difficult to talk. If you know me at all, then you know that this period of enforced silence has been an extreme hardship unto itself. I can only assume that this is the result of having had to be extra-charming for extended visits with my in-laws, my family, and my brother’s fiance’s family, all in one week.

So as I was lying in bed this afternoon, reading about the Sweet Potato Queens and brainstorming for possible Queenly titles I could bestow upon myself, I heard my husband call out to me from the living room: “Could you come here for a minute? I need your help.”

He certainly did, as I discovered when I entered our living room to find a large portion of attic insulation lying on the floor, and a sizable hole in the ceiling. Fortunately, as I have had some previous experience with this kind of situation, and since there was not a Scary Act Of Nature taking place outside, and since it was impossible that I could in any way be held responsible for this, I was able to remain calm. He was actually pretty calm too, since he had been able to complete the latest step necessary in his Pursuit Of A High Quality HDTV Signal. Apparently, a big giant hole in your ceiling is a small price to pay for good TV.

So the crisis passed, and I was feeling a little bit better…until I heard The Noise. If you have animals, you already know what The Noise sounds like, but for those of you without animal companions I will try and reproduce it here.

HOI-HOI-HHOOOIIINNNKKKAAAACCCCKKKK

That noise is, of course, the sound of the big cat horking stuff up all over the rug. In more than one spot.

Having lived with cats now for over 8 years, my husband and I have well-honed, highly ingrained abilities for dealing with this kind of situation, which mostly involve going off by ourselves so we can figure out how to make the other person clean it up. This often leads to our own, unique, slightly twisted style of gambling and upping the ante.

My Husband: I’ll trade you hanging up the clothes in the dryer and switching out the dishes in the dishwasher.
Me: I see your dishes and your laundry, and I’ll raise with dumping the trash and scrubbing the toilet.

It’s amazing, really, when push comes to shove, how many other things we can find that we are willing to do instead of cleaning up all the stuff that comes out of the cats. (Like figuring out how to turn it into a funny blog post, for example.) Of course, it’s even scarier when we come upon things we want to do even less than clean up cat stuff. But that’s another post. Right now, it’s gamblin’ time.

One of the things that impresses me the most about my husband is the fact that wherever we go, even if he’s never been there before, he always knows exactly where he is and exactly how to get to where he wants to go next. If you watch very carefully as we arrive in a new location, you can actually see a 3-D holographic image of the city lift up off of the ground, hover in the air briefly, and then settle right onto his brain.

My dad and my brother are exactly the same way, so I always know that if I am ever out with any one of these three men I am always OK. (I also know that I don’t actually have to pay attention to pesky little details like street names, street signs, the name of the actual city or country in which we are currently located, etc. because they will take care of all of that for me.) Plus, if the three of them are all together then it is like their navigational powers are amplified, so not only do we get where we’re going more quickly and more efficiently, but we also always have a parking spot waiting for us right by the door.

In contrast, I myself am never entirely sure of where I am in any given moment, and if you ask me how to get from one place to another there’s a very good chance that at least part of my answer is going to involve the phrase “by magic”. My husband has learned in giving me directions to avoid such tricky technical terms as “north” or “east”, and instead to stick to simple instructions like, “turn left by the big chicken”.

Unfortunately, this lack of navigational ability only increases if my mom and I take a trip by ourselves. Last fall she and I drove together to another state to stay with a relative who was ill. Every Single Day we had the exact same conversation: “Do we turn left out of the hotel parking lot, or do we turn right?” Every. Day. Not only did we not have a virtual map in our minds, nor could we remember from one day to the next in which direction we’d turned, but it never once occurred to us to write down the correct answer at the moment in which this decision occurred.

This Vortex of Spatial Dislocation only intensified the night that she, I, and another relative had to go to the grocery store by ourselves. (And I don’t mean to perpetuate unfortunate gender stereotypes here, but this particular relative was also of the female persuasion.) The three of us got in the car, set off on the very same road on which we had JUST driven on our way back from the hospital, and , you guessed it, turned the wrong way. And it took us AT LEAST ten minutes to recognize this fact.

The good news is that we all did survive this trip and manage to return home, and I discovered that if I really, really HAVE to I can reach down and tap into hitherto undiscovered navigational abilities. And I also discovered that on Volkswagen’s “road of life”, we are all much better served when I am just a passenger.

Today was the first day of school for many kids here, so I guess the summer is “officially” over. However, lest you think education only occurs when school is in session, I wanted to pass along two very important lessons that I’ve learned this summer. First, in no way are contact lenses washer/dryer safe, and second, liquid soap cannot, in fact, be used as a substitute for dishwasher detergent.