Ten years

Ten years ago today was a spectacularly beautiful day.

I walked to work, six months pregnant. I admired the azaleas along the way. There's a particular shape and shade of pink azalea that is my favorite, but in truth, I love them all.

The sky was an inviting blue, the sun was shining, and there was just enough humidity in the air to carry the scent of the flowers growing riotously and delightedly.

It was the kind of day DC doesn't get very often--actual spring, beautiful, sun-kissed spring, warm enough to walk without a sweater, warm enough to sit outside, cool enough not to sweat.

Sunny but not yet hot in the way that makes your glasses steam when you leave the house, makes you lose patience with tourists on the metro, makes you collapse on the couch when you get home, repeating, for the millionth time, "It's not the heat; it's the humidity."

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It was glorious outside, ten years ago today.

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And right about noon, the phone rang, and I saw my parents' phone number on my work phone.

I knew. I knew, and I started to cry before I answered.

My mom said, "Dad's gone. I just woke up and he's gone."

I knew he was really gone this time.

And I thought, "But it's too beautiful a day to die."

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We still called the police, and the hospitals, and hotels. We did everything we always did. And then we waited.

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Dad had turned his cell phone off, so we couldn't find him. He hadn't put the hotel on the credit card, so we couldn't trace a charge.

We hadn't implanted a secret tracking device in him, which I don't know is even possible outside the Matrix and anyway would probably be illegal.

So we waited.

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I don't know if you've ever waited, pretty completely totally sure someone was dead, but hoping to hell you were wrong.

I don't know if you've every desperately wanted to do something to fix a problem, but been entirely powerless to effect change.

If not, it feels as wretched as you might imagine.

But not as terrible as knowing you were right.

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I learned when Pat died that the time of death is called when the official comes to collect the body.

Even if you know the exact moment the last breath left the body, that's not the official time of death.

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And so I know that on my dad's death certificate, DC says he died at a particular time on Saturday, May 16, 2009.

They did an autopsy to figure out what killed him first, but they weren't looking for precise time of death. It wasn't murder.

So maybe it was May 15. And maybe it was May 16.

Which, incidentally, was another incredibly beautiful spring day.

Another day that was too beautiful a day to die.

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It was ten years ago today.

I miss you every day, Dad.

TMI tra la la

You know that I don't actually believe in TMI and really mainly get frustrated by Too Little Information.

The other day I ran into one my mom friends at school. We don't know each other well, but I really like her. And when we see each other there is no hi how are you how about this weather we're having?

No.

It is more like hi, how are you, let's bare the contents of our souls in the three minutes we have chatting on this playground. OK, bye, hope to run into you again soon!

Believe it or not, I don't always start these conversations, either. They're just the ones I like.

Anyway.

What I really want to talk about is how my husband considers himself the more reasonable and practical of the two of us.

I get annoyed, because yes, OK, I love to talk about clothing and shoes and I can waste some serious time on all kinds of frivolity. But at the end of the day, I can be pretty damn practical.

I don't consider myself UNreasonable except sometimes. But we all are sometimes.

But practicality?

Nick, a lot of the time, is Fun Dad, while I am Dread Mom. I'm the bedtime enforcer. I'm the teeth brushing enforcer. I'm the let's not feed our kids so much sugar super-not-fun mom.

But we have, I believe, kind of public roles. And if I asked most people who would be the more practical between us, people would say Nick.

Which sticks in my craw, because there are many ways in which I consider myself more practical than my husband.

But then, every once in a while, I get a stark reminder that I am the one with the tendency to just charge ahead without thinking anything through.

While Nick looks at just about every aspect and considers liability.

So, last night we were talking about the fact that on Friday, I have a surprise! colonoscopy scheduled.

I don't actually need to go into my details with you, and there is no emergency, but I saw the gastroenterologist and she was like, "Well, this is the year we recommend you get a colonoscopy, and honestly, sooner would be better than later."

So then she showed me a poster and described what they do in a colonoscopy, and told me how they look at five feet of your intestines.

Five feet! That's almost as long as I am tall!

So I put my hand at my belly button and was like, "Where does it go?"

What I meant was, how far up do they poke that thing?

But she very patiently said, "Well, we start with your anus..."

I 100% already knew about the anus part.

In any case, they give you these prep drinks that cost $50 COPAY and you have to drink like 32 ounces of water afterward. They seemed concerned at the terribleness of the drinks and I assured multiple people at the doctor's office that I have a high tolerance for drinking gross stuff. I don't know why this is true, but it has been tested multiple times and it just is.

So I drink a purportedly gross drink plus 32 ounces of liquid at 6:00 pm the night before, and then at 3:45 am on Friday.

They said this really cleans you out. They stressed that I would spend a lot of time on the toilet.

Frankly, I've had a lot of diarrhea in my life. As long as I'm not throwing up, I can deal.

But still, they said. It's a lot.

OK.

Then they sent me links to a series of videos I had to watch. There were questions to answer.

Now I'm kind of excited, because it sounds like this terrible prep totally cleans out your bowel. It's like your own personal bowel New Year!

I'm up for that.

Because they give you anesthesia, they don't let you leave alone (and they caution you not to sign any important papers afterwards).

I had to verify that Nick would be able to pick me up at 11:00 am on Friday.

So last night as we were about to fall asleep we were talking schedules for the rest of the week.

I said that on Friday I'd drop Jordan off at school and then jump on the metro to my appointment.

And he was all, "That sounds...fraught."

I mean, first he laughed really, really hard. And then he said that. And then he said I should at least Uber, but probably better for him to drive me.

He was like, "I mean, think about it."

So I thought about it.

And his approach seems way more reasonable.

Practical footwear (it's always about the shoes)

Workers of America, Unite!

Oh, hey! It turns out I'm the proud owner of not one, but two neuromas (or neuromata--I looked it up) in my left foot. One is small and one is large.

Because I tend to take a "more is better" approach to life, though I do work regularly on moderation, then why have one when you can have two?

What is a neuroma, you might ask? It's a thickening of tissue around the nerves that lead to the toes. To these nerves get squozen and bugged and then the sensation can vary from mild electric shock in your toe to all out wanting to fall on the floor and scream. Which I do not do, I'll have you know.

My friend Jessica suggested that I have issue this because too many people get on my nerves.

I think this is kind of a perfect explanation.

I saw my podiatrist last week, and since three weeks in the boot had not fixed it, he suggested more boot time and an ultrasound. He said he thought it was a neuroma, which the scan confirmed.

Because I am not a doctor and do not play one on TV, I went immediately to Google to read as much as I could. I really enjoyed Googling myself into utter hysteria during pregnancy, so I figured, why not?

This is, however, an inconvenience and not a hysteria-provoking situation.

One of the things I learned about my friend the neuroma is that they happen to women more than to men. You're more likely to get one if you have high arches, a longer second toe, and wear heels and restrictive shoes.

High impact sports can traumatize the area. While I do lift weights, my favorite ways to work out involve jumping around like a lunatic. True fact.

Basically I'm attributing my neuromas to the patriarchy, genetics, and some unfortunate personal choices.

And in fact, I am pretty sure I have one (or more!) in my right foot, because I have similar symptoms, just not as dire, which is to say a toe that tingles or gets sore, and a spot on my foot that gets sore when I press it or wear squeezy shoes.

Which I am no longer doing. Which leads me to comfort footwear.

So, most comfort shoes are not comfortable on me because they're built for wider feet than mine. So then my feet slosh around and rub and the shoes are the opposite of comfortable.

If there's a blister to be had for miles around, I will have it.

So last weekend I took myself to DSW in search of comfortable footwear. Because I've gotten rid of my old sneakers--too old, not supportive enough, mostly too old, yikes! And I am down to wearing Keens every day and while I do love them, they are heavy.

And sometimes, as above, I think I look very Workers of America, Unite!

Also, now that it is getting hot, I am not sure what to do, because they are not adorable with dresses or capris.

Anyway, I went to DSW, and I saw these knitted sneakers that I thought looked cute and were insanely comfortable.

But are they weird or cute or weird cute?

(You know if they'd been fuchsia or orange I wouldn't have even stopped to ask that question.)

When I am on the fence I often turn to Facebook, because friends have stopped me from doing things like wearing elephant leg boots.

But in this case, there was this adorable young couple shoe shopping in the same aisle. The boyfriend was helping the girlfriend find sizes and giving his opinion and such.

They had opinions, both of them. Plus they seemed nice. So I asked if I could get their opinions on whether these sneakers were weird or cute.

They both paused.

So then I was all, "I've been having foot problems. And so I'm trying to find comfortable shoes that don't bug my feet."

I had on a kind of unfortunate outfit, with workout leggings for no actual good reason as apparently I am now someone who wears active wear when I'm not even particular active.

And the guy said, "Well, those are knock-offs of $700 Balenciaga sneakers."

I was all, "I'm not remotely concerned about that. I'm not in a $700 sneaker-wearing crowd. I'll be wearing these to pick up my kids from school. I think they'd look better with jeans."

And the young woman looked mildly horrified and was like, "Ooh, not with jeans. Maybe you'd like to look at the Doctor Scholls? I saw some cute ones over here." And she very sweetly showed me some comfortable-looking shoes.

But you know how sometimes you can't decide, so you toss a coin, but when it's in the air you know what you want?

I definitely wanted the superhero boots. I skulked up to the register, hoping I wouldn't run into the couple.

Why would I even care? I don't know.

Actually, I love them. They're very lightweight. They give my toes room.

I can't wear them with dresses or capris, so I haven't solved the hot weather foot issue.

But I can wear them with jeans. Considering also wearing them with black leotard leggings and a cape kind of getup.

Maybe I'll write Super Mom on them.

In rhinestones!

Big, big booty what you got a big booty

About two weeks ago I did a not-crazy aerobic workout.

There was some jumping, yes, like burpees and jumping jacks, but really, nothing over the top. 

Afterward, my foot hurt right where my second to last toe connects. These toes get easily bugged on each of my feet, and I'm pretty sure it's because I've broken both of them on Nick's asshole stealth leg of toe-break death couch.

(Not to be confused with his grandfather clock, the heirloom of my discontent.)

Anyway, now when those toes are finicky I wear toe socks and those help a lot and I figured whatever, they're picky, whatchagonnado.

But my left toe/but really it was foot near toe hurt.

And then it hurt some more. And the next day it hurt more. And then I couldn't put any weight on it.

Luckily, I'd kept my boot from a stress fracture several years ago, so I donned it, which enabled me to walk.

And then I made an appointment with my friendly podiatrist, who took X-rays, which showed it wasn't broken.

He showed me diagrams of the foot on his iPad, and where the muscles and tendons and ligaments are and gave me such a thorough explanation such that when I left I wasn't sure if I had pulled a muscle or irritated my tendons or my ligaments.

My main thought was, it's not the bone. Three weeks in a boot. Is better than six. Hooray!

When you wear a boot, everyone has a question. Everyone. It's like being pregnant. You walk into a store and the clerk says, "What happened?"

Except not exactly like being pregnant because in the pregnancy case nobody asked me what happened.

But you know what I mean.

So I have been telling people it is tendonitis (which spellcheck wants me to spell tendinitis and I don't understand why), because a) everyone knows what that is and b) most people seem to have had it at some point.

But when people I know asked what happened, I've been saying, "Age."

This is my takeaway. I have to wear shoes with more support and not so much flexibility. Dansko clogs and such.

Also, this picture is from last week when it was still dread cold here. Now it's warm and lovely and I hope it lasts because this winter has been killing me dead.

I know aging is better than the alternative, but I would like to give it the boot.

Ha.

And time won't give me time, won't give me time (time, time, time)

It may come as no surprise that I take the time change extremely personally.

(And I bet you knew this post was going to be about the damn time change.)

I do. I take it personally, in the same way I take cold weather personally. It's been visited upon me and it is terrible.

Normally I stagger around all week asking, “REALtime or NEWtime?” Until Nick has enough and bellows, “IT’S ALL REALTIME!!!”

But this year before I could even really get going, my daughter took up the helm on this one.

And now I am in the position of having to explain that newtime is actually just the time, and we have to accept it.

When really I'm sitting there trying to do math in my head and thinking about the unfairness of jerking us back and forth with the clocks twice a year.

We are all exhausted and crabby and discombobulated. At 3:00 pm I'm drinking coffee and fretting that it will mess up my sleep but I'm so tired I can barely function.

It's only an hour, but it's a terrible hour. It feels like I lose an hour every single morning this week.

The other night, almost too tired to function, my daughter sobbed, "WHY? Why does it have to say 7:58 and be bedtime when really it's 6:58? It's not fair!!!"

And I nodded sympathetically, although secretly dying for her to fall asleep so that I could do the same.

I said, "I know. I hate it and it''s really frustrating, but we don't get to choose. It's all because of THE  GOVERNMENT."

I figure fomenting some healthy distrust can't start too early.