This weekend I was busy and industrious and helpful. And now today I am creaky and groany and SUPER-old.
I’m pleased about all that was accomplished, because prior to accomplishing those things my biggest accomplishment in about 24 hours had been starting my period. (no high fives required.) I’m pissed to report that since having finally had sex (over a decade ago - not a recent accomplishment people) and going on the pill and then going OFF the pill my lady parts (the inside ones that dudes don’t get so excited about) took serious offense and have been punishing me ever since. To the point that the whole day before my most recent womanly joyous celebration (see how I’m sucking up? It never helps) I was actually convinced I was getting the flu.
(which was embarrassing in a whole other way, as I’d just spent the previous week at my job at the hospital telling people that I pretty much never get the flu (knock on e-wood) and that the rest of my family who get flu shots still get the flu (although I’m sure it’s a different flu then what they were inoculated against, but who cares because it's still the flu and having any flu sucks!) and therefore I would NOT be going downstairs for a flu shot, thank you very much, and enjoy the poking. And then I suddenly was getting the flu and that just couldn’t happen because I’d lose face. Oh, and also have the flu. But mostly the bad part was the losing of face!)
So finally on Saturday I discover both that I’m not getting the flu and also that I’m still a vibrant and fertile woman. Dammit. My resentment both of being duped into thinking I was sick and also of it all just being because I’m a girl (I hate that word, but more on that rant later) caused me to be further foolish still during the weekend.
Like Saturday I did 2 hours of weeding. On my knees, as weeders do. Which is fine for most, but I have crappy knees who don’t respond well to long periods of time on them. But in case that wasn’t foolish enough, I finished weeding and skipped, la-la-la, over to the back corner of my carport to do battle with bramble bushes who once had a supporting role in the Disney Sleeping Beauty movie as “the huge, killer, thorny vines that kept out the prince and kept in the Beauty and were slightly more scary then the villain who had turned into a big dragon!” These things are actually from my behind-the-house neighbor’s yard, but they’ve made their way through my bushes and they’re just plain taking over. I had macho leather welders gloves and they helped, but still it was a pitched battle for sure.
And then on Sunday I and a pile of younger people (my sister’s kids) joined the Royal Family on a trek to our most commercial and also most entertaining of local farms. The goal was the hunt and retrieval of Halloween punchmans for all, but the King and Queen (being new parent types especially) went all out and there was “let’s feed the goats!” (which is much more fun then it sounds – it incorporates an elaborate series of ropes and pullies!) and a horse-drawn wagon ride out to the sprawling punchman patch and everything.
Of course I went all old-fashioned and puristy. “no thanks!” says I to the idea of the horse-drawn wagon of goodness. “I’m gonna walk!” says I. “Pushing this 42 lb wheelbarrow!” says I. “With the one wheel, full of some – but either not enough or maybe too much – air. Which likes to bounce, bounce BOUNCE down the path. The very long path. Very, very long path… Did they move the punchmans? Didn’t they used to be just here? How much longer? Wow, it sure is sunny for October!...” My 13-yr old nephew was also silly enough to skip the ride, and so there are he and I pushing our 100+ lbs of bouncy wheelbarrow and punchmans up the long, long, super-long path (which I think they made very long, by planting the punchmans much further away, so that the cost of the wagon ride would seem a much more reasonable thing. Sneaky farmer types!) while the rest of the group rode away into the sunset.
And THEN (no, still not done) I brought the sister’s kids home to where everyone else in my family was busy painting primer on every non-floor or non-window surface in their “gosh, is this STILL being remodeled?” house. They’ve been working on this tremendously ambitious remodel plan since before Independence Day and now we’re to things like sheet rock and paint color choices and admiring the new circle-shaped window, and when it comes to this point you ask your family for help painting.
So I spent the next several hours on my knees (which you may remember I don’t do so good) or on a ladder (which I also don’t do so good, but for very different, much more phobic, reasons) and apparently in shoes that I need to throw away because they don’t support as much as they pinch-and-bind (it’s a patented two-step process) and getting hand cramps and painting up above my head and who knew a paint cup the size of a Big Gulp could get so heavy?
And in the end, I’m now a thirty-sevenish person trapped inside the body of a seventy-sevenish-type person, who groans when she either sits or un-sits and who is too dang aware of her joints and considers the cost before deciding to reach for anything over a foot away from her general area. And indulges in cranky rants apparently.
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