Looking at Life Coming at Me

This last run up to Christmas Day has been very busy. Not to negate the fun bits of which there are many but it has been a bit rough in other spots. It all started with the Christmas cookie hilarity. I baked cookies with saintvi. At one point we were laughing so hard I was crying. I don’t know if she was crying because it was hard to see through the tears. We had dinner and then packed up some cookies and traveled an hour to present them to friends to spread the Christmas cheer (which is in short supply when recovering from back surgery and caring for an active toddler). All went well. It was a late night and I had to work the next day.

That was when things took a turn for the worst. I was still coughing from the remnants of the cold. According to the doctor I was all better – except for the cough. Seems this bug tends to hit you hard and then linger. The day went without a hitch until lunch. I had a lunch date with a former coworker. She had a lot on her mind. We went to the Indian Gardens to eat and talk. We had finished eating and all was well until I had a coughing fit. It was one of those coughing jags that doesn’t end well. A couple sips of water and a nose blow and I thought it was over until it wasn’t. Yes, I tossed my cookies. Well not all my cookies – mostly just some mucus. I was able to contain it in a napkin and a tissue and my friend’s napkin and 2 more tissues. I was very embarrassed. A few sips of water and we left. Walking to the car I had another coughing fit and expelled a little more mucus and lunch in the parking lot. My friend was very concerned but I really was fine. And after getting rid of all the mucus I’d swallowed I felt much better.

We headed back to the campus to drop her off. A white van sped past us. As the van cut in front of me, the Christmas tree strapped to the roof took flight and landed in the road. I was able to apply my brakes in time to avoid completely running over the tree. As I put on my hazard lights, my friend jumped out of the car and dragged the tree onto the grass between the curb and the sidewalk. The van never stopped! We continued on to campus. It was a harrowing lunch experience in multiple ways. As soon as I got home son#1 arrived to go on our shopping trek. As a precaution I took an expectorant, decongestant and antihistamine tablet in hope of avoiding any more coughing jags. It worked and the shopping was successful. We arrived home minutes before Sparky. Sparky and I then jumped into the car to go to a Christmas dinner party. That was just one day!!

And every day since has been just as busy with fun and disasters in equal portions. There was the exuberant lab holiday lunch resulting in me having to consume a bottle of Propel, 3 Jarritos sodas (2 mango and 1 pineapple), and a glass of tap water to attempt to quell the fire from the aji panca aioli and chimichurri sauce that was slathered on the yucca fries and the Jamaican jerk chicken. I had even asked if the sauce was spicy and was assured that it was not. The waiter lied. Perhaps for the others seated at the table it was bland but to my sensitive tongue it was fiery! I ended up with such heart burn that I had to spend the night propped up in bed sipping water and chewing on Tums!!

Then there was the shopping experience with son#2. We had a productive purchasing experience and leisurely stroll through the mall and got our steps in. As we were walking back to the car a very impatient and angry couple nearly ran over us. I noticed that the car was coming up behind us and had moved to the side. As they passed us (it was a very full mall parking lot and the cars in front of us were crawling in hopes of finding a parking spot), the passenger window went down and the woman yelled that she would “beat the !!*^# out of you and your #*@%# mother”. My son takes after his father and shouted back, “Merry Christmas!” The woman was hanging out of the window cursing and waving her hands in an obscene gesture as the driver hit the gas and sped away. Son#2 commented that it wasn’t his fault that some people are in a bad mood because they procrastinated to the last minute to do their shopping (he was just getting a few last minute items and had completed all the major shopping).

And I could go on but you get the idea. In that vein, I’ll leave you with a little acrostic poem:
People hurry to spend
Every dime on the gifts they will send
All wasted in the end
Cash can’t buy love for a friend
Even if that’s what we intend