Normally in one day, I manage to get showered and dressed, but that's it. Or I go for a ride in the car, or I walk one circuit around the backyard. Afterward, I sleep like a narcoleptic dog on Novocaine, drooling onto the pillow.
I had a bad night last night, breathing troubles and pain kept me from getting any sleep at all. At 6:30 a.m., I finally gave up, took my shower and got dressed. Figured I was done for the day, But Nooooo.
My sister picked up DD and me and we went to the post office, to renew our passports (we are careful to always have a valid passport). I stood in line and got my bead package a day early, it had missed the carrier's bag packing ritual today. Our Post office is a big old Granite WPA edifice, and you get to stand on cold granite or cold marble while waiting for service. After we were done, I figured I was done for the day, but Noooo.
Sister decided that I don't get out enough, and that I need a tour of the neighborhood in which we grew up. I am unimpressed: I live a half mile away, she's the one that moved to the country. She then proceeds to drive like a madwoman through the Blue Hills Reservation to a swimming hole we used to frequent in the summer. We sat in the sun, enjoying a beverage and people watching. A Jewish lady at the table taught some fresh air fund little kids to play blackjack, which became much more exciting when they started playing for pretzels. cute.
Then I had to go to the bathroom. Nothing. They have a handicapped restroom, with all the other restrooms, at the bathhouse. To get to the bathhouse, you have to follow a rutted gravel road for a bit then cross the sand to find the ramp, which is short and steep. But I made it, found the restroom to be amazingly disgusting, but as the old salts say, "Any port in a storm." Fortunately, I followed one of my mother's three rules for life: 1. Don't sit on the seat, god knows what you'll get! 2. Take plenty of napkins. and 3., which we refer to as "practice, practice, practice).**
I walked the whole quarter mile, only having to rely on the child to steady me for the last half of it. But I was totally whipped. I feel like a great white whale, looking at that spear, and knowing the party's over (at least for today) So against the boos and hisses of my compadres, we went home, to make plans for another day.
I am so beat to death that I feel nauseated. Yet, when I lie down, I cannot sleep. I'll have to give it a few moments and try again. But wow, it felt good to do 3 normal people things in one day. Hooray!
Kathy N-V
**"Practice, Practice, Practice" was our teenaged way of expressing our embarrassment with my mother's insistance that not only should her children know all about reproduction and birth control, their friends were also subject to random search and seizure, and manditory indoctrination into the "Omi School of Sex Ed." Fortunately, it had a greatly compressed curriculum:
- Don't. Ever.
- Not even if you're in love. You only think you're in love and men all lie to get laid. Why?
- If you decide to ignore rules 1 and 2, you must practice effective birth control on both partners, every time, until you have a home in the suburbs and a job and have traveled the world and are ready to give up your life for children. Only then can you dispense with full body armor.
Gotta say one thing for mom: she took many a teen to Planned Parenthood to get the pill and kept after the girls to keep the prescription filled. She didn't like it, but she put her money where her mouth was. I used to break out of my usual teen sullenness to realize how special and wonderful that was.