Every Day is the Best Day

Yesterday was decorated in hectic swag. My beloved's stepfather (who is the only real father he's had) had a stroke on the heels of preceding one from about a month and a half ago. While trying to be at the hospital with his mom and stepdad, he also had my precious Humanling, who is eleven. O Humanling, you who art overflowing with neroses! And terrified of the sight of fire alarms. Not lowercase Oh I don't like it much terrified, but if you were in a burning building with her and the fire alarm went off she'd anchor you to the floor for Fear of Passing it on the Way to Safety and You'd Both be Kebobs sort of terrification.

Her school records indicate her dire and innate fear of fire alarms. When she walks into any building she immediately locates each one. In the back of her mind, her senses are churning, waiting for any subtle sign that it might go off.

Naturally, as the doctors were trying to look at their patient yesterday, at probably the most important moment, Humanling went into one of her emergency stress states over the fact that the fire alarm light was blinking. She didn't want to be IN the room and couldn't be brought OUT of the room. She was basically an emergency all her own. I'm convinced they didn't haul her to the mental ward floor because they are out of tiny little Hello Kitty straightjackets.

My mate called me in a state of calm distress - can I PLEASE come and get her.

Aye, my handsome fella. I be boardin me broom right now!

On the way I picked up a few things from the gas station store - you know, all that stuff you really don't want to eat but in mile long pinch will suck it up and scarf it? Snickers, toasted crackers with peanut butter and planters nuts and a couple of bottles of water. It's a good tip to remember on the way to visit those who have to be (or want to be) in a hospital room and may not want to leave their sick one. My beloved and his mom were very grateful to have something to hold them over until they felt comfortable enough to leave the room for food. Humanling seemed rather docile when I got there. The wild clawing beast that was described to me on the phone had slithered away, leaving my cute, cleared faced child, simply and calmly playing her DSi in a chair.

After checking on everyone, a small but helpful rescue mission was complete - my honey and his mom from babysitting, my child from the helpful and life saving universal alert system.

When we got home it was thundering. You either do or you don't and when it comes to thunderstorms, I most certainly do love them! We put our things in the house and then walked outside with the egg basket to collect from our seven feathered Chickana's outside. On the way we stopped at the raspberry bush to nibble a berry or two. The drops started to come down and give us a small break from the heat and I felt extremely lucky. Lucky to be in the moment that I was in - upright, walking, conscious. Picking berries in the yard on the way to collect eggs from the hens. After the chickens did their little excited side to side run once they noticed us coming, we split off - Humanling to collect, me to the garden to the right, to tear up a little chard and throw it in for them as a thank you. I never cease to laugh out loud when visiting the Ladies. They could be anywhere in their space and once they see a human, they all come running like gangbusters in serious pursuit of what might be the Holy Treat.

Passing some blue and purple flower type bushes in between the lion statues in the yard, we saw two incredibly large Monarch butterflies. One of them was missing more than the bottom half of its right wing. It didn't seem aware that anything was different. It fluttered from flower to flower just as its fully winged counterpart a couple of feet away. I felt like a scene in a 1980s movie as Mister Mister's "Broken Wings" piped into my brain.

Humanling wanted to play wiffle ball. My energy was low. I wanted to be strong for my mate, to do what needs to be done and damn it - to remember how to use a stove. I've mentioned before - the man has been cooking for me for months now since he is not currently working. Now, without him home during the impending span of dinner prep, I had to quickly visit a hypnotherapist....to regress....back to the days when I prepared meals.....

Any other day I would have pushed off Humanling's request to go outside and play. Well, rather for me joining her. This day however, was not to be wasted. None of them are. But to rebuff in the face of a stark reminder would be criminal. One man lies in a hospital bed and here my child wants me to take my fully abled body outside and spend time.

And so I pretend I am Hisanori Takahashi from the Mets. Or rather insert any pitcher's name there. But make it a good one. I'm not trying to emulate a sucky thrower. It rained during our 'game' so we kicked off our shoes and enjoyed a rainbow, running barefoot, her newly found ability to switch hit and mine to throw overhand.

God takes party breaks on Friday nights

Just so you know....he really does. You know, I think I'm realizing that God's up there like a good parent, watching, but not hovering. We end up closing our little human fingers in the proverbial car door over and over again while he slaps his palm on his immortal forehead, "They've done it again.....that's the ninth time this week!". We get into our own pool of molasses and although he can't stop us from doing it - unless we are actively asking for him to help us walk AROUND it, he can show us the bee-free path in which to crawl out of it.

And how was YOUR Friday night? Ok, enough about you, it's my blog.

I picked my 9 year old daughter up from my mother's after work. My day usually runs to the effect of me taking my lunch break at 3pm, running into the town next door to get her, then bringing her to my mom's and then racing back to work, ticket and adrenaline-free. She was fine during yesterday's hustle which was proven by her bout of Sassy Mouth on the way there. When I picked her up later, she was suddenly befallen with ear pain that caused her to sound like a channel I wished to shut off, sympathy intact. (Can I tell her that's what she gets for back talking? That's what my Italian grandmother would have done!) So what we do as single parents when the pain strikes? Besides call the other parent and do a quick drive by drop off? Medicate usually, with one of those liver pummeling meds that work so well - Tylenol, Advil, Tequila. Her normal dose of Tylenol would not have been a good candidate for Olympic standards and you can't exactly overmedicate or else there's the fear of going the route of Too Much Cough Syrup. And although I make plenty of dumb mistakes, I do not want to veer into the magnitude of THAT kind of mistake.

So we opted for the hot towel on the outside of the ear and lots of research on internet posts. Eventually, my anti-anything in the ear side got sucker punched by my self preservation of sanity, and I opted for putting a few drops of peroxide in her ear for about 20 seconds. I don't know if it worked but at the time, she was still crying and complaining about the "crunching" and "buzzing" sounds in her head. (If anyone knows exactly what that's all about, I'd love to hear about it.)

Desperate to find meds that worked, I decided at 10:30pm that we would battle the mean streets and face drunk drivers to head to our 24 hour Walgreens. As soon as we stepped outside, I had done the thing that I always feared. My car and house keys were on the counter in the house. On the other side of the locked door. Folks, I am in Connecticut. It's not warm here much at night right now and the sky got in on the effect and added some precipitation (we haven't quite gotten all the way to the Lamb part of March yet). I wondered when a soundtrack of some sort would start and I'd see an orchestra of insane violins marching up the road.

I happened to have my dying cell phone on me, which kept shutting down after three sentences with anyone. Who do you normally call in emergencies? I call a pair of Capricorns - my real estate agent AND my ex boyfriend. My agent can get into the house since it is for sale. But for security measures, the lockbox shuts down at 9pm. Damn. I couldn't have made a major mistake before security kicked in??? Or for that matter, when it wasn't raining? Or there wasn't a sick child staring at me in horror with her tear-stained, puffy eyes?

My realtor showed up to the pathetic visual of me and my daughter standing huddled against the front door, lock box in my hand as I measured the real validity of breaking the window with it. She said that her husband had a great talent for opening doors. I asked if he had a criminal record. No one laughed. Must I always be the sole proprietor of a sense of humour?

Nothing was working, however, I found a window that belonged to the room of my ex Form of Protoplasm. He used to keep his instruments in there (and probably a whole closet full of dastardly plans on how to save himself while fully immersing the recipients into a fine line between Heart Attack Induced by Stress and Go Get 'Em Now Pull up Those Boot Straps stress). Apparently he probably had the window open at some point and never closed the storm window that was down on every other window. My Real Estate Life Saver lifted her hubby to the window and he went in face first. Thankfully the cat litter is on the other side of the room.

I am positive that God saw a blip on his radar at this approximate latitude and took a break from his peeps for a moment. Although I had neglected to charge my cell, He allowed it to work for moments so that I could at least call someone. As it turned out, my ex, who represents the man who sits around in cape and tights just waiting for THE CALL, was mere moments from the house. So I had two bee-free paths and no window replacing on my to do list today. So I'm gonna shout out to God a huge THANK YOU!!! I would have gotten him a gift card to Ruby Tuesdays like I did for my real estate agent, but I can't picture him dipping his fries in ranch dressing.