Other

Greetings from the House of Knee Rehab and Spring Break.

If you’re wondering where I’ve been the last few days the answer is one of these options:

1. Attempting to serve as Caroline’s stylist.
2. Acting as a cruise director to come up with fun activities.
3. Helping P get his shoes on.
4. Adjusting to Daylight Saving Time

Let’s discuss that last item first. DEAD TO ME.

That’s all.

P had his first follow-up visit to the doctor last Friday where he was cleared to begin putting weight on his leg and, most importantly and all the hallelujahs, to drive. This put him way ahead of what we thought his original schedule would be and so we celebrated that good news and the start of Spring Break by going out to dinner and then sitting in the rain at a high school soccer game. Then on Saturday we drove to Austin in the pouring down rain to watch Caroline play soccer in the pouring down rain and then drove back home in the pouring down rain. Are you sensing a theme? The good news is it quit raining about a mile from our house so that was super helpful after being in the pouring down rain for the better part of six hours.

On Sunday morning we faced the awfulness that is literally losing an hour of your life and went to church. Then we all came home and took naps before I decided to clean out my closet. The problem was I didn’t check the time and my internal clock was all off kilter and so this is what my closet looked like at 6:00 p.m.

I posted that picture on Instagram and several people commented that I appear to have a brown boot problem. I prefer to look at this situation as a brown boot opportunity. Different outfits call for different boot options and all boots are not created equal. I didn’t actually end up getting rid of anything yet, but I have a section of clothes in my closet that are now on notice that our time together may be coming to an end if I can’t find a way to fit them in my life. And with that statement, all my sweatpants (aka “joggers”) just breathed a sigh of relief because they know they are as safe as kittens.

On Monday, Caroline and I decided to go shopping. She needs a couple of dresses for some upcoming events and we never have time to go shop when school is going on. And so we ventured out to La Cantera along with approximately 64,000 mothers with daughters looking for prom dresses. Every single dressing room we went in was piled high with tulle and taffeta and sequins and the lingering scent of disdain and eyerolls along with the faint echo of “But MOOOOOOOOM, I’ll never find a dress I like better than this one!” It made me thankful that Caroline and I were just looking for a few simple dresses even though we didn’t find what we were looking for until our very last stop. She still needs some shoes but I am but one woman with limited endurance so that will have to wait for another day.

The rest of the week has been filled with cooking out, enjoying the gorgeous weather, more shopping, staying up way too late and a glorious amount of sleeping in. Today we made plans to hang out with Gulley and her boys and decided Top Golf would be a fun choice. Apparently everyone else thought so too because there was a three hour wait. Um. No thank you.

So we ended up going to eat lunch and bowling instead. And we were all happy just to be together because we’re all so busy that we hadn’t just hung out in forever. No one tells you how busy this stage of life is with pre-teens and teens and all their social and athletic commitments. Or maybe people do tell you but you don’t listen because you’re too busy counting down the hours until nap time with a toddler who thinks throwing food is a fun activity. Whatever the case, we are just in a stage of life right now that has us going all different directions constantly. But it warms my heart to see how much Jackson, Will and Caroline still love being together and they begged us today to make sure the road trip this summer was “an actual road trip” and not just a couple of days like last summer. So we’re already trying to figure out how to make that happen and plan where we should go. Suggestions welcome although I will tell you about a six hour drive is our limit.

As for the rest of our week, I’m hoping to take a page out of Piper and Mabel’s book and do a lot of this.

Because goals.

I felt like I should at least check in from the house of knee rehab and let you know that as of this moment we are all still alive and Piper hasn’t thrown up again. I have a theory that her stomach was nervous because she was worried about P and his knee. Dogs know these things.

Fourteen years ago when I was pregnant with Caroline, we had a dog named Jem. He was always by my side and, when I was about six weeks pregnant, he started throwing up every day. I took him to the vet because I was worried about him and she said he was stressed out because he knew something was going on with me. And I watched enough Lassie when I was younger to know that the vet was probably right. Except instead of being trapped in a well, I had a human growing inside me.

I also watched that episode of Little House on the Prairie when Laura found that raccoon she named Jasper and he bit her dog, Jack, and Pa thought he was going to have to shoot Jack because they thought Jasper had rabies. But it turns out that Jasper was fine and it was a different raccoon that was killing the chickens and Pa didn’t have to shoot Jack. My point is that dogs know things.

Although now that I think about that episode of Little House on the Prairie, the real lesson might be to not take in a raccoon as a pet.

Here’s a true story. I typed those first four paragraphs over the last three days because I kept meaning to write a post and it’s just been too busy around here and by the time I finally got everyone settled and in bed, I was too tired to write and just needed to stare into space while I drinking a glass of wine.

So here’s what I will tell you. I wasn’t cut out to be a nurse.

P had his knee surgery last Wednesday. When we got the pre-op instructions and realized he had to be at the surgery center at 4 a.m. we both agreed it made the most sense for him to Uber there and I’d meet him a little later. So I scheduled his Uber and totally felt like a Proverbs 31 woman because that’s where I’m sure it says “…and she uses Uber to get her husband to surgery”.

I thought this was so smart until 3 a.m. when my phone dinged to let me know the Uber driver was on his way. And then it dinged again at 3:15 to let me know the Uber driver was approaching my house and then my phone actually rang at 3:30 and it was my Uber driver telling me he was in front of my house. Normally I’d have my phone on Do Not Disturb, but I’d purposely left it on in case P needed to call me from the surgery center. And then just when I’d fallen back asleep, the nurse at the surgery center called at 4:45 a.m. to confirm that I’d be picking up P after his surgery.

What I’m saying is don’t ever get a raccoon for a pet or think that sending your husband to surgery using Uber is a good idea.

Bops came over about 6:45 a.m. to help get Caroline to school and I left for the surgery center. He was already in surgery by the time I arrived but the doctor came out about an hour later to tell me that it had all gone well. Eventually, they called me back to the post-op room where P was in a full knee brace, but sitting up and alert.

That’s when the nurses began to give me all of his post-op instructions. I’m not sure when the healthcare system decided normal people were mentally and physically equipped enough to care for their loved ones at home but I am not a fan. The whole thing stresses me out. The bandages, the rehab instructions, the stockings to prevent blood clots and detailed lessons on how a knee brace works. I feel like I signed on for a lot of things when I said my marriage vows but home healthcare seems to be a bridge too far. The burden for the future of P’s meniscus feels like it’s way above my pay grade. Not to mention that I can’t even see the numbers on his knee brace that ensure he can’t bend his knee beyond a certain angle unless I use my reading glasses.

One day you’re a fresh-faced bride and groom looking at each other with stars in your eyes and the next day you’re essentially patients in your very own assisted living facility. Except no one is there to assist you with your living and you’re just an idiot who can’t figure out how to put a waterproof stocking on your husband so that he can shower without getting his bandage all wet. Everybody’s talking about healthcare reform right now and I’m casting my vote to go back to the days when surgery bought you two weeks in the hospital surrounded by actual professionals who know what they’re doing.

And so that’s what’s been going on around here. P is pretty much immobile until at least Friday when we go back to the doctor for our first post-op visit, although he did get out of the house on Monday afternoon to watch Caroline play her last junior high school soccer game. They won the game and are district champs for the second year in a row.

Oh. And in what is one of the most interesting developments of the last week, we are currently renting this sweet recliner.

I know.

On the second day after P’s surgery it became clear that we were going to need a better seating option than sitting on the couch and attempting to come up with the correct pillow configuration on the coffee table. It dawned on me that what we needed was a recliner and so I called Rooms To Go to actually purchase an inexpensive recliner, but they couldn’t deliver until the following week. So I called around to some medical rental places until I found this bad boy. It’s technically called a lift chair because it not only reclines but lifts all the way to a standing position. It comes complete with a remote control that plugs into the wall.

And I’m sad to report that Caroline is in it every chance she gets and thinks it’s the best thing ever. It’s like she’s had no home-training.

But it makes me thankful that Rooms To Go wouldn’t deliver us a recliner of our very own because then we’d be stuck with one forever and this one is going back from whence it came just as soon as P is feeling better.

The moral of the story?

Don’t ever take in a raccoon. Or a brown velour recliner.

Where do I even begin?

The last seven days have been jam-packed and crazy. I blame Warren Beatty. Or PriceWaterHouseCoopers.

I left for Nashville early last Tuesday morning and I think I just sat down on my couch for the first time since then. It was a whirlwind of meetings and presentations and I’ll just drop this little announcement that my new book will be coming your way on October 3, 2017 and I’ll have more details to share about that at some point. I know it feels like a long time from now but it will be here before we know it and it will be fall which means we’ll be back in a season where we are complaining about how hot it is when it’s supposed to feel cool outside. I’m looking at you, spring 2017 and your ridiculous 90 degree temperatures.

I drove from Nashville to Birmingham on Wednesday and spent the night with Sophie. We went out for a delightful dinner and then the next day I spoke at the Samford Legacy League Luncheon. I can’t even tell you how much I enjoyed the women I met, but I will share that I was seated next to an eighty-seven year old woman who sorts jewelry donations for the Salvation Army once a month (YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE WHAT PEOPLE GIVE AWAY!) and has been married to her husband for sixty-seven years. She told me he can’t speak anymore but has a machine where he can type messages and every morning she wakes up to a message from him that reads, “THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR THE DAY” and it’s essentially his To Do List for her for the day. She said sometimes she listens to him and sometimes she doesn’t and THAT, my friends, is the secret to being married for sixty-seven years.

After the luncheon, Sophie and I were invited to the SEC Headquarters for a tour. This has basically been one of my life goals and so I can now cross it off my list. I briefly met the Commissioner and I suspect he would have liked to hear all my thoughts on SEC football but he was walking into a meeting with someone who probably wasn’t a blogger. But then we got to spend an hour in the official replay room watching film of last season’s games and being quizzed on whether or not we could make the right call. Spoiler alert: We were four for four. This will be a fact that everyone who has to watch football with me next season will live to regret.

I flew home to San Antonio on Friday afternoon and got home just in time for my Friday night Mexican food fix. We picked up dinner and I think I was crashed in bed by 10 p.m. Caroline had a soccer game on Saturday afternoon so that was essentially our Saturday. Then Sunday was church where I ended up working in the kids’ room since our regular helper wasn’t there. I have many gifts…I’m not entirely sure what they are, but I know what they are not. And working in the kids’ room is at the top of that list. At one point a little boy looked at me and said, “This is the most FRUSTRATING craft ever!” and I was like “I totally feel you. Who has the dexterity to glue googly eyes on a toilet paper roll using only a glue stick? That’s not even a real life skill.” So that went well.

Speaking of things going well, I had a working theory before I left town last week and feel that I confirmed it today. Every night before bed, I let Piper and Mabel out in the front yard. I don’t know why they feel like they need to do their business in the front yard at night when the backyard suffices during the daytime, but I’m pretty sure it’s my fault or Faye Dunaway’s fault. I let them go out there one time and it was like they discovered nirvana and settle for nothing less now.

However – and this is a big HOWEVER – every night I have to yell at them to quit eating cat poop. I don’t know why dogs like to eat cat poop when cats are their sworn enemy, but I also don’t understand why you would lick your own rear end so this is just one of many unfathomable mysteries of the dog universe. But they run out there and the cat has always pooped in the same place. It’s not our cat. I don’t even know which of our neighbor’s cats has decided our front yard is a toilet. But I have long suspected that Piper and Mabel have struck a deal with this cat. I don’t know all the intricacies of this agreement because this is the animal kingdom and who knows what all goes into this kind of high-level deal? I just know that cat poops in our yard like it’s Piper and Mabel’s own personal Favor delivery.

I told myself maybe I was imagining it, but this afternoon I was driving up to the house when I caught the cat unawares, pooping in that exact spot in our yard. What’s more, Piper and Mabel were watching the whole thing go down from our back fence and never even barked. This is significant because they bark at everything…a leaf, a suspicious can of paint on our back porch, and the air. Yet this cat walks freely about our front yard and they don’t make a sound. I have no definitive proof, but it’s all very suspicious.

And then I found a haiku Mabel wrote:

Oh cat, you’re my foe
But your treats are delightful
So I must bargain

I believe this is the smoking gun.

And, also, maybe that I’ve reached a new low by writing almost an entire entry about my dogs eating cat poop. I couldn’t be sorrier about it but too late now.

If nothing else, take comfort in knowing that La La Land won the Oscar for Best Movie.

Except it didn’t.

Because we are living in a world where dogs make deals with cats. What else proves that maybe nothing is as it seems?