Aw, Foot!! Getting Older is a Pain.

I am accustomed to various aches, pains, twinges, and the like.  First of all, I just turned 39.  Secondly, I have given birth.  Third, said birth means that I now chase a four-year-old boy around for the better part of my day.  "Put that down!"  "Stop that!"  "We do NOT put (fill in the blank) in our mouths!"  "Do you need to go potty?"  "Uuuugggghhhh, if you wanted to do a craft, why didn't you just tell me?  Now there's glue in your hair."  "How did you get on top of the refrigerator?"  "Are you sure you don't have to go potty?"  "How did THAT get in THERE?!" 

Now what that means is that when I do even notice the aches and pains, I usually ignore them and go on.  Women who stay home with their small children don't have time for pain or illness.  I can't say how long it's been, but for quite a while, I have noticed a feeling in the bottom of my left foot like a pulled muscle.  Oh, and I have had a small red bump on my leg for over a year.  And a weird flaky spot on my face.  Maybe more headaches than I used to get.  The list goes on, but I won't bore you with all my old lady maladies.  The trouble, though, is that women tend to overlook things anyway.  That's because we are tough.  Last year, I reluctantly dragged myself into the urgent care clinic to find out that I had just passed a kidney stone.  "Is that what that was?!"  I asked the doctor incredulously.  Waving my hand, I reported, "Oh, I've had those before!  Didn't even go to the doctor."
So on Saturday, after having given my son's birthday party a few days before and having attended another two birthday parties for four-year-olds earlier in the day, I almost thought nothing of it when it became excruciating to walk on my left foot.  After all, children's birthday parties are stressful and hellish at best a great chance for the kiddos to burn off some energy.  Refer to the quotes above.
When I couldn't get a shoe on my foot for the pain and swelling on Sunday, I sent my husband and son off to church without me.  Ahhhh, I thought.  Nice quiet house to myself for an hour.  But by Tuesday morning, I cried "Uncle!!" and went to the P.A.
I had somehow sprained the top of my left foot.  And now I have to stay "off" of it.  Bwahahahaha!  The P.A. is great, and a sweet girl, but she doesn't have children.  I'll try, but I won't be off of it completely.  The anti-imflammatory drug made for some nice, deep sleep last night, though.
Oh, and the pulled muscle feeling in the bottom of my foot?  That was Plantar Fasciitis.  No extra charge for that.  And the bump on my leg?  An old abcess that was never attended, so now it's scar tissue.  I try not to overwhelm her with too many extra unrelated things when I go in.  She might try to refer me to a gerontologist.

Lip Gloss and Bullets

Lately, I have been super-focused on getting my second book out this fall.  I just realized the other day that I had not blogged in a few weeks.  Almost a month.  But I am now waiting for the results of the editorial review by my publisher, and I have a little more time on my hands.

So yesterday, two of the highlights in my day were 1) getting my new lip gloss from my Avon lady and 2) attending Ladies' Night at the ATP Gun Shop and Range, where they teach you how to "shoot like a girl."  I had not shot a gun in nearly 5 years, so the results shocked me a little (see photo below).  Granted, I grew up around guns, because my father hunted, and I was taught from a young age how to shoot a gun and handle one safely.

Rewind:  It's 1980, and I'm turning 8 years old.  My Dad comes home a little after dark and tells me to come out to the back of his car.  I follow him out there with some anticipation, figuring there is a surprise for me in the trunk.  Maybe a Barbie townhouse.  Maybe a new bike with pink and purple streamers.  The trunk pops open.  The light flickers on to reveal a 4-10 shotgun.  "Happy Birthday!" Dad grins.

"Oh."  I say.  After a short pause, I follow it up with, "Thanks" and walk back into the house.  I think I shot the thing at the skeet range like 3 times.

Fast Forward:  Tuesday, August 16, 2011.  Inside the ATP Gun Shop is a picture of Obama with the title "Gun Salesman of the Year."  (Slapping my knee.)  It's so true!  I'm wearing pink glasses, pink headphones, and just received my hot pink "I Shot Like a Girl" t-shirt.  And I'm tearing out the heart of the paper dude in front of me.

So, I suppose the message is clear.  If you were thinking about breaking into my house, prepare to meet your Maker.  Because we live in South Carolina, folks, and the Castle Doctrine applies here.  Oh yeah.  I'm proud to be a South Carolinian, y'all. 

Have You Ever Done This?

I have.  I cannot take credit for this photo, though.  A very good friend of mine arrived at work one morning last week only to look down and see what you see above.  Oh yes, she had.  And oh no, she did not go home to change them.

Okay, my friend is not blonde, which shoots my whole Yes-I'm-A-Natural-Blue theme.  I guess anyone can be a Dory, no matter their hair color.  Flightiness is non-discriminatory.

Back to the matter at hand, I will tell you what I did when this great shoe emergency happened to me.  I was a law student at the time (excuse in the bag:  mental overload), and I went out of town for the weekend.  For my Sunday morning outfit, I had selected a brown and olive green ensemble.  I had two identical pairs of Dansko clogs (one olive green and one brown).  I do remember debating with myself which pair to take while I was packing.  As I stepped out of my hotel room into brighter light, I realized I had on one of each.  What did I do?  I went back into my room and changed into the only other pair of shoes I had with me. They were black, and a totally wrong style for the outfit.  Better randomly mismatched to my outfit, than randomly mismatched to each other, I reasoned.  But I was painfully aware of the mismatch the entire day, and did everything I could hide my feet.  I stood behind potted plants.  I sat down and tucked my feet under the chair.  I'm sure no one but me noticed that I had on black shoes with a brown and green outfit.

Now my friend whose feet you see above is much better able to handle this sort of thing than I.  She is the type to laugh, wave her hand and surmise that no one will notice.  She's even the type to do it on purpose and see if anyone notices.  She enjoys the offbeat and madcap.  So to her, this was not the major life event it would have been for me.  Really, I would have had to log some vacation or sick time to drive home and change.  My friend says not even one person noticed her fashion mistake last week.  She was probably disappointed.

I'm a Natural Blue: Spray the Pam Before Heating the Pan

I was single until I was 33 years old. I had spent the previous 12 years as a busy professional reading a lot of instructions on Lean Cuisine boxes. I didn't pretend to be a gourmet chef. But I did love my Le Creuset cookware. It's indestructible. In a smackdown between the cookware and a steamroller, the Le Creuset would win. So when Chip and I got married, my favorite fry pan was my big periwinkle blue fry pan. It's a most wonderful conductor of heat.

One day, Chip brought home a London Broil. I had never cooked one before. After consulting a few recipes, I determined I would start by browning it in my big blue pan. I was supposed to get the pan hot before slapping the meat on there, so I turned on the eye. After a few minutes, though, Chip made a comment about putting something on there so the meat wouldn't stick. Ohhhhh, duhhhhh, I thought, I forgot to spray it. At this point, the pan was already about 1400 degrees, and I didn't want Chip to know I had forgotten to spray it. So I just waved the can over it quickly and sprayed enough to give it a thin coat. I thought I was being surreptitious. WHOOOOOSH, went the orange flames that licked out from my big blue pan, nearly reaching the hood over the stove. "Oh my gosh!" I screamed and jumped back.

"What?!" Chip yelled from around the corner.

"Nothing," I chirped cheerily from the kitchen.

"Yeah, right," he called back, but fortunately did not come to investigate. It looked like the griddle at a Japanese steakhouse. All I needed was a tall, white hat and a couple of meat cleavers to juggle. Ching-ching, chingity-smack. Applause. It died down soon enough, though. After making sure I still had my eyebrows, I tried to move the pan over, but the bottom of it had melted to the eye of the stove. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I rocked it back and forth until it came unstuck. Whew. But I had to continue to loosen it every minute for the remainder of the experience. And there was some blue paint stuck to the eye. I'll have to explain that to him later, I lamented.

Surely the pan was hot enough to sear the meat now, so I tossed the London Broil into the pan. WHOOSH again, but this time it was mostly smoke. And the loud sizzling sound could not be concealed. Chip came out of the bedroom, looked at the billowing smoke rising from the pan, shook his head, and went back into the bedroom.

You can guess what happened next . . . the smoke alarm squealed. I scurried over and fanned a newspaper under it until it stopped. But then I had to return to the stove and FLIP THE MEAT OVER. Yeah. I pried the blackened meat up with a meat fork and spatula, then flipped it over to create the same lovely hissing sound. Now, I had already turned the burner down some, but it was still about 800 degrees. So, the smoke alarm went off again. I rushed to open the sliding glass door just in time to see a fire truck turning into the complex. "They're here because of me," I half-wept. I just knew it. Someone must have reported the smell of smoke or the alarm going off repeatedly.

My husband is a firefighter, and would be humiliated by the fire department coming to his own house because his wife is spastic in the kitchen.

I sat down in a heap on the floor and prepared myself for the heavy, booted steps on the stairs and banging on the door. I started to rehearse in my head what I would say. I pictured Chip standing outside with his arms folded, talking to the firefighters, apologizing for the false alarm. But as the minutes passed, no knocking came. In fact, a short minute or two later, I saw the same truck leaving the complex. Ahhhh, I sighed. They were just out driving around. Thank you, Lord, for sparing me that embarrassment.

Fast forward about 30 minutes later, and Chip I were bravely knawing on pieces of charred leather, hoping for the best. He, who will usually eat anything, took the hunk of meat and tossed it into the garbage. Then we ate a pizza.

Yes, I'm a natural blue . . .

When my husband and I were dating, he mentioned to me one day, "By the way, I know how to highlight hair, so I can do that for you." I remember looking at him quizzically and letting him know politely that I would not need for him to do that.

A few months after we married, I was brushing my hair one day. Chip was sitting in the room, studying me like a College World Series baseball game. "How come you never have to color your hair?" he asked me.

"Because I don't color my hair," I answered.

"What do you mean?"

What did he mean by asking what I meant?! I thought I had laid it out in black and white. People either color their hair or they don't. "I mean that I don't color my hair." He was still confused, so I pointed at my head. "This is the color of my hair." Still a stymied stare from my husband. "When it grows out of my head, it comes in this color." Apparently he did not realize that blonde is a color that occurs in nature. All the blondes in his life previously had, ahem, altered their locks from another color.

Other realizations branched from this . . . why I really can't get a tan, why every drug store product I buy is marked "For Sensitive Skin," why I never actually get speeding tickets even if I get pulled over . . . okay, well, bleached blondes probably get out of speeding tickets, too. But I digress. By the time we had been married for about a year, I had heard the phrase, "Boy, you really are blonde, aren't you?" at least five times, and usually following some brilliant ditzy move on my part (more to come later on that). I hear that phrase more and more with each passing year. And it's true.

We have been watching a lot of "Finding Nemo" at our house recently, thanks to my son. If you have seen it, you know that Dory, the blue Regal Tang, is the sweet, well-meaning fish with a serious problem. Her short-term memory is almost non-existent. *Sigh* She reminds me a lot of myself. And go figure, she admits while talking in her sleep, "Yes, I'm a natural blue." Stay tuned in the days to come, and I will tell some good blonde tales on myself. I'm definitely a natural blue, er-blonde.