Worst. Update. Ever.

Remember my blog post about how "graceful" I was on my birthday night adventures? Some of you have wondered how a simple knee scrape would cause me so much continued pain over a week later.

And lucky you, I have more pics!

But first, let me remind you of my previous knee injury back in April, because my birthday gash ended up also being a re-injury of that fun moment in awkward bipedal history. As I fell straight down onto the metal storm drain cover onto my hands and knees, my mind raced back to the previous injury and I wondered briefly if I would even be able to get up again (I wasn't able to put weight on it the last time). Luckily for me, the real pain was delayed.

Unluckily for me, it meant almost complete insomnia for this whole week, as I laid awake with an ache that couldn't be quelled by OTC pain killers.

Now here's the pictorial update you wanted:




Who's more of the camera whore: me or Meringue?



And these are shots of my other knee, with the all-over bruising that it sustained, but hadn't shown up for a day or two after...



Kiss it and make it better!




Jeez, by the looks of those photos, one would think that I've finally found a new career as a "working girl." Some girls say that walking the streets is the worst part, but I say it's all that kneeling on gravel that's a bitch.

How to look (and feel) your age

People often wonder why I only seem to wear comfortable shoes... none of those girlie torture devices. I mean, why wouldn't I want to look more appealing to the opposite sex and accentuate my gams?

The answer is really simple: I am a complete clutz.

Case in point, yesterday day and night I was out enjoying my birthday... not "enjoying" it too much, but in dignified moderation. Age has taught me how to pace myself, at least.

What it hasn't taught me is how to walk in shoes that are designed to trip me.

The funny thing is that I even predicted it when we headed out for the day, saying, "I never wear these shoes, because they always make me trip... today should prove amusing, at least!" Not heeding my own foreknowledge of these terribly designed sandals, I decided that the beautiful spring-like day that was my birthday deserved to be gussied up a bit with some glimmery, strappy footwear. What could go wrong?

Well, other than having a difficult time keeping pace, really nothing went wrong for a good 8 hours. Then suddenly, when attempting to cross the street (ironically in my neighborhood of 15 years ago), one of the sick bastards got hung up on the edge of a loose sewer cover and I ended up on all fours faster than David Hasselhoff diving for a burger.

My left knee seems to have taken the brunt of the fall, followed by my right wrist and ankle, which are now hurting more than my poor knee is today (along with a severely bruised ego).

Had I been drinking? Sure, but it was only about 5 drinks in as many hours (plus water), so I was by no means drunk... if I was, it would have hurt a lot less, I'm guessing.

So then I spent the rest of the night hobbling around, bemoaning my bloody knee and ripped pants, while cursing the day that I ever bought those shoes. "They're meeting the trash as soon as I get home! Forget about donating them to Goodwill, because I don't want anyone else being cursed by these evil, evil things!"

I now present, the only pics from my 37th birthday:

Happy birthday, Frank Sinatra!

...and Edvard Munch!

...and Yasujiro Ozu!

...and Edward G. Robinson!

...and Bob Barker!

...and Connie Francis!

...and Dione Warwick!

...and Sheila E.!

...and Jennifer Connelly!

...and Madchen Amick!

...and ME!!!

I'll be celebrating this evening with yummy tapas and enough mojitos to forget that 37 years ago today, every part of me touched every part of my mother's vagina. Cheers!

...And a monkey in a cherry tree.

The 12 days of Christmas starts the day after my birthday. Here's what a silly quiz thingy tells me to expect:

Twelve babies drumming

Eleven snowmen a-melting

Ten ice skaters a-leaping

Nine ladies baking cookies

Eight alpacas a-milking

Seven gingerbread men a-crumbling

Six Santas a-hohohoing

Five golden coins

Four calling bill collectors

Three French fries

Two diamond pinky rings

And a monkey in a cherry tree


Honestly, these are things I DO NOT need!

More babies? No thank you. Three mistakes were enough.
Alpaca milk? Is that where eggnog really comes from? Here I believed Dave Attell when he said it was Elf cum.
All those leaping ice skaters and no rifle? Why do you taunt me so?
Gingerbread and Snow men? I don't need any more crumby and/or drippy men in my life!
Those Santas... are they mocking me???
Bill collectors? I'm sure it'll be WAY more than 4 calling.
I could use the gold coins, but the mirror tells me to just say NO to more cookies and fries.
Pinky rings? First I'm a ho, now I'm a pimp?
A monkey in a cherry tree? GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

Is there a witch doctor in the house?

1999 was a rough year for me. It was the year we discovered that my spouse had cancer. It was also the year that I realized I was in a loveless marriage, when I could not get happy for him once he received his "all clear" remission status. And as if that weren't stressful enough, it later became the year that I started grad school, then learned about his adultery, followed by our separation and my dive into single-parenthood, ending with our divorce. Without any further detail of those terrible times, I should also admit that there were several positive and long-reaching emotional milestones for me in which solidified walls came down with an unexpected crash... and they came down directly as the result of others' creative expression.

The first emotional upheaval came on March 21, 1999 while sitting in a darkened theater and watching Roberto Benigni's LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL before the Academy Awards ran that evening. Seeing that goofy man's raw and pure love for his real-life wife (and hers for him) -- something that cannot be faked by even the best actors, on-screen or off -- while I sat next to a man who never once looked at me that way in all our years together (nor I at him), made me start shaking and sobbing uncontrollably for the entire duration of the film and for hours after.

The next upheaval came while sitting in my car before class on April 27, 1999, while listening to the university's radio program. Tom Waits' album MULE VARIATIONS had just been released that day and the dj decided to play the whole cd in honor of it being the first Waits cd in quite some time. I was touched and awed as I always am by his particular brand of poetic nostalgia, but it was the song "Picture in a Frame" that particularly struck a chord in me... one of nostalgia for something I'd yet to experience, but left me hopeful that it wasn't too late. As the simple song played, I welled up again, and the floodgates did not close until long after the album had ended. A few days later, my then spouse gave me the good news that his thyroid cancer was in remission and likely entirely cured (all without radiation, chemotherapy or anything but surgery), and that's when I finally had the courage to tell him that we were definitely broken and possibly irreparably so.

In the years since, I have yet to attain the feeling so best summarized by the lyrics "I'm gonna love you 'til the wheels come off," although I am still optimistic. I feel that Mr. Waits gave me part of the cure for what ailed me -- he cast a magical spell of hope for something... more. I'd describe the beauty of the song more thoroughly, except that I stumbled upon a review on Allmusic.com that does as good of a job as I could have done, or possibly better:


PICTURE IN A FRAME
Appears on Mule Variations
Performed by Tom Waits
Composed by Kathleen Brennan/Tom Waits
Song Review by Bill Janovitz

At once nostalgic, sentimental, and intimate, Tom Waits' love ode "Picture in a Frame" manages to tug the heart without ever once dipping into maudlin territory, a feat that Waits has been able to pull off for the greater part of 30 years. With this simple song, Waits again effortlessly makes the case that he is our best living balladeer. While old-timers like Frank Sinatra were able to balance the masculine, tough-guy shell with the generous-hearted and sensitive interior, there has probably not been one singer/songwriter as emotionally evocative while remaining so undeniably cool as Waits, never mind one of his contemporaries.

The New Orleans-flavored jazz-soul song -- co-written with his wife and frequent collaborator Kathleen Brennan -- is characteristically rich with unique and personal detail as Waits sings a litany of specific and memorable images that remind him of the precise moment his love became true: "I came calling in my Sunday best/Ever since I put your picture in a frame/I'm gonna love you till the wheels fall off...oh yeah." The recording, from Waits' Mule Variations (1999), begins with the room sounds of a piano bench creaking and a few breaths and grunts from the performer as he sets himself down at the piano, the warm atmosphere mirroring the intimacy of the lyric. From the gentle self-mockery of the old fashioned "Sunday best" courtship image to the final, understated verse "I love you baby and I always will," we are left with the impression that we have been given a little trip down memory lane in a relationship, a privileged glimpse at the joy two lovers have shared.


I had to put the song into this blog entry somehow, so that you could experience it for yourself, and managed to locate two actual versions of it. Both are on YouTube as the soundtrack to different videos (but there is no official Waits video): one version is some guy's interpretation of what the lyrics mean to him; the other is basically a tribute to a different guy's kitties. Personally, I feel that the far less distracting one to view is the version featuring the kitties, so I'm posting that here... but with the added caveat that the best way to listen would be to simply shut your eyes and soak in the song by itself, as I did when I first experienced it. Enjoy this from the bottom of my heart to yours...




------

[Author's note: Probably not so coincidentally, you can catch both Waits and Benigni in Jim Jarmusch's classic DOWN BY LAW (1986), as well as in his not-so-classic COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003)... you know, just f.y.i.]

Mother of the Year, I’m not

In what can only be considered a terrible bit of irony, I forgot to wish my oldest child a happy 14th birthday today. I am calling it irony, because just 2 days ago, I'd rented 16 Candles from Netflix and my younger two and I were watching it, while Aidan was at his friend's house playing Halo 3... and perhaps thankfully so, he has no clue that his 14th birthday just mirrored Molly Ringwald's character's 16th birthday. Okay, so there's no older sibling marrying an "oily variety beau-hunk" and no romantic interest and no grandparents visiting (actually, my mother and father did both call tonight, but my ringer was turned off)... but I did just pay him a visit in his room and quietly apologized to him for forgetting it was his birthday. If it was the first time, I'd just be forgetful... unfortunately, this is like the 4th time in his life that I've done this, making me feel pretty negligent. On the bright side, he should have plenty to talk about with his therapist some day.

The Accidental Humorist

EMAIL THAT I HAD TO WRITE TO MY SON'S TEACHER THIS MORNING:

Ms. H--

I have a request that I'm not even sure you're able to do. It's probably going to have to involve a morning talk with Malachi along with someone walking him through this at the end of the day. I'm talking about his locker and how to actually use it to keep his things. Let me explain...

Yesterday he came home stating that he "sort of ripped" his bookbag at school. When I asked how, he said it was under the lockers and stuck, so he "gently tugged," and when that didn't work, he asked another girl to help him and she pulled hard and the thing ripped. I didn't look at it until this morning, because frankly it sounded like something that could be addressed this weekend when we'd have time. It wasn't. The bookbag was ripped from the top of one corner, all the way down the seam to the bottom of the bag and around to the middle of the bottom other corner of the bag. No small tugging could have created that, unless it was by the Incredible Hulk.

Every day since the first week of school, I've asked him to ONLY BRING HOME WHAT HE NEEDS at the end of the day and leave the rest in his locker, and yet every day he continues to bring home every single one of his textbooks, workbooks, composition books, reading books, spiral notebooks, and binders. And I literally mean EVERYthing! His bookbag weighs as much as he does! I know it's not because he has that much homework, since he never touches them once he's home and has been claiming lately that he does most of his homework at school during bus call now.

Apparently, he's been using his bookbag as his locker this whole time. He needs an adult there to explain to him that NO ONE WILL STEAL HIS TEXTBOOKS IF HE LEAVES THEM IN HIS LOCKER (this is apparently one of his reasons) and how to decide what comes home with him and what needs to stay there (inability to make decisions regarding organization is his other reason). Not to mention the fact that he must stop cramming individual papers, worksheets, newsletters into his bag, which leaves them to get crumpled, frayed, and torn. At this point, I don't care if this lesson has to be done through public humiliation... it just needs to be done somehow to get through to him.

I'm at my wit's end with him, really. I have never had to email teachers so much for his brother and sister combined as I have for Malachi... and now a perfectly good, brand new bookbag has been sacrificed. I know you have so many other children to deal with on a daily basis, and I really don't wish to over-burden you with this. Perhaps it's time for the special needs councelor to step in with advice?

--S

P.S. I'm attaching pictures of "the victim" as it looks now, though I wish I'd taken pictures of it the way the young Macguyver brought it home: held together with a gigantic "patch" of packing tape and scotch tape. I pray he doesn't decide to become a surgeon or an engineer someday!

The EX-backpack:







AND THE TEACHER'S RESPONSE:

You know what...you always give me something to smile about. I know it's not a laughing matter, but I almost fell on the floor. You, nor Malachi has EVER been a burden. You two are so awesome. I will talk to him this morig. I promise to have it totally worked out by the end of next week (just so he can break this habit that's he began 7 weeks ago).

Have an awesome day!
Ms. H