Happy Thanksgiving! November 22, 2007

Happy holiday, everyone.  I hope that you haven’t already experienced what I have which is a) the smoke alarm going off three times b) having to let the oven cool completely once to clean up an overflow from the sweet potatoes and c) having to call Pete’s parents twice to push back dinnertime.

But now, everything is trucking along nicely, the house smells amazing, and the turkey is looking beautiful.

I’m thankful for a lot of things, but at the moment, I’m especially thankful that I’m suddenly having a violent love affair with my dining room.  How did I hate this room three days ago?  Now I think it’s beautiful!

See:

Except PLEASE excuse the horrible light.  It will be replaced soon.  The flowers Pete brought me are tucked into the corner over there.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  May you be warm, happy, and surrounded by people who love you.

A gem from my mother November 20, 2007

I had to drag this out of the comments, just to make sure you all got a chance to read it.

Here is my mother’s response to my recent dissatisfaction with the current state of the house (to give a bit of background, the house I grew up in was built entirely by my parents from the ground up.  It was a work in progress for the vast majority of my youth):

Taylor, I remember the first time my in-laws (your grandparents)came to visit us in our “new” home in Waverly, AL. The house was seriously under construction. Your grandparents had to sleep in the downstairs area on an old rusty double bed (probably with stains on the mattress from where Roscoe pushed the back door open and sneaked in on stormy nights where he gleefully snoozed until we discovered him and dragged his black ass outside–for those who don’t know, he was a black lab, y’all!). [Ed: This made me just almost wet my pants. I can just imagine y'all thinking that we kept an old black man in the back yard or something!]

If that doesn’t sound so bad you have to realize it was spring in Alabama; there had been a lot of rain and the house wasn’t exactly dried in. There were puddles about 1/2″ deep in the “guest bedroom”. In preparation of impending important visitors we had tried our best to sweep the water off of the unfinished concrete slab but the unevenness of the floor continued to allow the puddles to form and the unrelenting humidity prevented the evaporation of the water.
The positive side was that your grandparents could climb into the bed without getting their feet wet if they stayed on the high side of the floor.

Of course, the mosquitoes had already found the puddles and since there were no screens on the windows (wait…what windows?!) and no air-conditioning, the environment in which my in-laws (your grandparents) had to spend several nights began to take on an uncanny likeness to a steamy night in the Everglades. I think there were even tree frogs who had taken up residence in that bedroom…

Brilliant stuff, I tell you!

Liars… November 20, 2007

No snow yesterday, though there was a very brief dusting of teeny hail while I was sitting in my car outside of Target.  I went in and bought a new coat.  Prompted by the fact that there was ice falling on my car.   As I got out of my car to walk in, a man walked by me wearing shorts.  WTF?

There is, yet again, a chance of snow today, and as it is currently 33 degrees based on the thermometer on my back porch, I suppose it is possible.

Me?  I’m just distracted by the fact that Thanksgiving is 2 days away and my house is still a wreck.  I finally finished painting the dining room yesterday, so Pete and I set up the table and sideboard last night.  It doesn’t quiiiite fit, and the mahogany wood clashes terribly with the color I put on the walls, and perhaps I went upstairs and cried a little bit in the bathroom because it just. isn’t. goddamn. perfect.

However, when I actually set everything up with the chairs, put up a few of the pictures I want in there, and set out the flowers that Pete brought me home yesterday, it isn’t so bad.  And in the light of day this morning, I don’t hate it nearly as much as I did last night and I don’t feel like putting my fist through a wall every time I walk in there, so hooray!

Now my next object is the toilet tank currently sitting smack dab in the middle of my kitchen floor.  You know, because I HAD to paint the wall immediately behind the toilet.  (WHAT IF SOMEONE KNEW I LEFT THAT WHITE? Think of the judgment that would have rained down upon me!)  Naturally, the screws were corroded and we need new washers before we put in back on, so for two days I’ve been vaulting over it every time I walk into the kitchen.  When I asked Pete what I needed to get from Lowe’s, I only hung on for about .3 seconds before I zoned out and started thinking about lollipops and Care Bears with rainbows coming out of their asses (or whatever it is we girls think about).  After he went on for about a minute I said, “Honey, I haven’t the slightest idea what you just said.  Why don’t you go by the hardware store on the way home so I don’t start crying in Lowe’s because I don’t remember what kind of washers you need.”
His reply: “Ok, darling.  I can do that.” And he didn’t even roll his eyes at me.  Love, I tell you.

!! November 19, 2007

It might snow today.

Ummmm…Holy. Shit.

And it might snow again tomorrow.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I am simultaneously terrified and excited because OH MY GOD IT MIGHT SNOW!

The 9 year-old girl inside me is wetting her pants right now.

The 79 year-old woman inside me is bitching and moaning because of her trick knee and aversion to anything that may get her slightly wet and or cold.

It is a battle of epic proportions,  y’all.

Mindreader November 18, 2007

Hey! Guess what? I’m free of my PLASTER CAGE! (Except it wasn’t plaster, more of a plastic netting stiffened with glue!) I went to the doctor on Friday to have my stitches taken out and a NEW cast put on, which I was supposed to be in until after Thanksgiving.

I was inordinately excited about this, because through this entire casted era I haven’t been able to actually SEE what he did to me. It was driving me crazy. I could sorta feel where I thought the incision was, at first, but as it started to heal, it started tingling and itching in different places, so I just wasn’t sure what was going on in there. All I could see from peering into the thumb-end of my cast was a hint of dried blood and one single stitch that actually went through my fingernail (which…yucky). That, he explained, was for use with this rubber-band thing they use for physical therapy, just in case. As he put it: “It’s much easier to put a stitch thorough your fingernail when your knocked out. Otherwise, there is generally a lot of squealing.”

So in I go, prepared to see a nicely healed up incision! I sat down in the room and he pulled PRUNING SHEARS (really! No shit!) out of his pocket and proceeded to hack away at the cast. When he finally got it off, it was heaven, and I spent the next few moments with my eyes rolled back into my head and my tongue wagging out as I was finally able to scratch the top of my wrist where the screw-driver didn’t reach. Mmmmmmmmmm….

And then I remembered! My finger! Right! It was…gross…really gross. Lots and LOTS of dried blood. Like, all over my thumb and hand. I had 8 stitches which hurt like HELL when he took out. There was…squealing and gasping and gripping of the chair I was in. Oddly enough, the one in my fingernail did not hurt at all.

They were mostly able to use the original incision, which they re-opened, and the added little 1-inch perpindicular tails to each end, going the opposite directions. There is a LOT of scar tissue, and that central section of my thumb is hard and decidely un-supple. There is still a lot of swelling, and at this point I can’t move it at all. However, when I try to move it, I can feel the tendon pulling in my thumb nuckle, rather than my wrist, which is certainly an improvement.

After he wiped my hand and arm down with alcohol, getting most of the dried blood off, he wrapped some cotton gauze around my finger then pulled out an Ace bandage and said: “I’m putting this on to remind you that you had surgery a few days ago, and just because you no longer have a cast doesn’t mean you can cook and entire Thanksgiving meal by yourself.” (Curse you, Dr. Psychic!)

My response was, of course, “What?! No longer have a cast on?! I thought you were putting another one on!” He said nope, that he thought I was fine to keep it off AS LONG AS I WAS CAREFUL AND STAYED AWAY FROM APPLES (wise-guy!) At which point I did a little jig, ran up the wall, and did a backflip.

He sent me home with instructions to try and bend it some each day and do a few other exercises and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should I try and pick up the turkey. That man can read my mind.

I am slightly wary of the world now, because I see every obstacle and object as something that is TRYING TO BUST MY SUTURES! It is a very odd feeling to go from GIANT IMMOVABLE CAST to tiny unsubstantial ace bandage. I was so nervous about doing something to my finger in my sleep that Pete tied a towel around my hand to protect it. 45 minutes later, after we finally stopped laughing at how ridiculous I looked, I was able to sleep very soundly in my towel cocoon. And lo, I have done no further damage to it yet!

Do you want to see how crazy I am? Read on… November 15, 2007

Our original plan for Thanksgiving was to head south to meet up with my parents and spend the holiday with my Great Aunt and Uncle. However, since my clumsiness and devil-may-care attitude in regards to OH MY HOLY HELL sharp knives, I have inadvertently put my parents and myself in the poor house. When I meekly asked my mother “are we still going for Thanksgiving” and her response was an audible scoff and some less-than-savory mumbling, I realized that the trip was off.

We came up with a new plan to host a small Thanksgiving for Pete’s immediate family (because his non-immediate family could fill Fenway Park) at our house. There are two problems with this scenario:

1. I was really trucking along with getting things painted an organized and settled when I sliced open my thumb. Since then, I have been generally out of commission. My doctor said I wasn’t even allowed to pick up a box (ha! which I’ve totally ignored) or do anything which even hinted at the possibility of busting my tendon sutures. Now generally I would say “OK yeah Doc…got it” and then immediately go home and proceed to put up drywall or harvest a cotton field by myself, but this time I have actually been very, very careful. Partially because I live in fear of ever having surgery again and partially because I know that if I mess my hand up, my mother will cut me out of the will come up here and pull my face off (I don’t know which is worse, actually). Now granted, that does mean that I have carried many boxes of books around (putting very, very little stress on my hand! I swear!) and I did move the entire bedroom around by myself (but I pushed with my shoulder!), so I have gotten a little but done, but the fixing-up ground to and all-but stop.

But HOLY SHIT! Now there are people coming over in a week! Not that his parents haven’t been in and out of this house a trillion times, but his grandmother hasn’t, and damnation, I will make this house look beautiful for her.

(wait a second…I think I was doing a list-thing here…hang on…)

(and OK! We’re back!)

2. I’m still going to be in my cast on Thanksgiving, which means I get to cook a meal one-handed. Now Pete will absolutely be there to help me, especially since I can’t wash my hand so have sworn that I will not even so much as look at the naked turkey (also because you have to consider that I have been scratching my cast with a flat-headed screwdriver, so I probably have terrible gashes and open wounds beneath the cast that I can’t even see!). Safety first!

However, since he also loves to cook, it turns into a “oh wait…maybe you should add this,”or “hey shouldn’t you be doing it like this?” and then I smash him in the face with a cast iron skillet and we spend Thanksgiving in the hospital. So, I’m slightly concerned that I’m going to sit through the meal alternately weeping that I Just. Couldn’t. Get. It. Right and giving Pete my soul-withering “I hope you burn in a fiery hell” stare.

Or, it could turn out perfectly and then fairies will clean the house and gold doubloons will fall out of our posteriors.

(OH MY GOD! Tangent! This is why I need to update much more frequently. I think I have forgotten how to write in a coherent manner [and holy crap I just kept writing "manor" and thinking "why doesn't that look right?!])

Anyway: The goddamn point of all of this is that I have been painting a lot. The living room was completely finished before I hacked myself open (well…if you ignore the fact that none of the pictures are hung, we don’t even have BLINDS, let alone drapes or curtains or anything, there is still an errant sofa in there which we don’t know what to do with, which results in a chair in totally the wrong place, and said sofa and chair don’t even have slip covers…and dear god this was a terrible exercise. Excuse me while I go vomit.)

So, what I’ve just realized is that while my living room may be painted, it is essentially unfinished, and now I need to worry about that, too. Thanks a lot, blog! You awful, jealous bitch! I will NOT be saving a piece of pecan pie for you. You’re getting fat, anyway.

(Focus, Taylor! FOCUS!) So, we’ve been painting the dining room so that we can move the table and chairs in this weekend. Pete’s mom has been helping me so we’re actually almost finished. Now we only have the downstairs bathroom and the hallway left and the first floor will be done (well except for the kitchen, but that is a later project). I will attempt to take pictures, but I have somehow forgotten how to use my browser to embed images, so I can’t promise anything.).

And also, I’m going to try to update more, since I am clearly forgetting how to communicate with the outside world.

United Hollywood November 8, 2007

If you want to know more about the writers strike, they’ve started a blog so everyone can keep up with what is going on:  http://unitedhollywood.blogspot.com/

I doubt it will surprise anyone that I’m generally pro-union, but I’m trying to actively  support this strike.  The writers are the unsung heroes of the shows and movies we love.  They are the reason that Jon Stewart makes me swoon (well, and those eyes…) and they are the reason that I usually cry when I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy.  Seriously, your favorite shows aren’t great because of the actors, producers, or directors;  They’re great because of the writers.

Ok, the real reason I care is because I’m already sick of Daily Show reruns.   Get this shit settled, already!