I Fell Off My Shoes. Again.

I’m clumsy. Incredibly clumsy. I’ve struggled with it my whole life - not quite sure why. Quit dance class before I got the basics down? Maybe. I’ve tripped over a cinder block while wearing a skirt (first date), I’ve fallen out of my shoes during the high school graduation procession (sorry Todd) and I’ve fallen off my shoes during a dash to the door in a rainstorm (Another first date. Different guy.) It’s not that I walk around running into walls or anything I just, often, find myself losing my footing and taking a tumble. 

There was an incident in the summer of '93. It was summertime and I was out celebrating life with friends (I was drunk) and I decided to leap off the railroad tracks down onto the grassy slope below. What I didn’t know, and wouldn’t realize until I made contact, was that there was a railroad tie hidden in the grass. I nearly made it but, when it came time to stick the landing, all was lost. My foot hit the edge of the railroad tie and my ankle rolled 90 degrees to the side. The pain was instantaneous and the regret immediate. Alcohol, miracle elixer that it is, prevented the real pain from making itself known at that moment but it would come.

The next morning I woke to a throbbing, screaming pain in my ankle that would not be ignored. I looked down at my ankle (left ankle - that might be important later) and saw it had swollen to the size of a small melon. It was pretty gross. Sobbing hysterically I crawled into my Mom’s room for assistance. Went to the ER and numerous visits after that while wearing a walking cast. As a direct result of that fall my ankle has never been the same. Ever. The injury is what brought about my "I will never ice skate again" declaration.

I digress. Back to the fall from yesterday. Zoe is horrified yet laughing hysterically. I’m pretty horrified too, but decidely not laughing. Thank God the alarm wasn’t activated in that Jeep. If it had been turned on the thing would have started screaming in my ears while I tried to get back in my car. Zoe and I had gone out for sushi and as we headed for the car, I made a miscalculation in stepping off the curb. My ankle (right one this time - Yay!) gave way. I felt my other (useless) ankle give as well and I could feel myself going down. But. There was a beautiful, new, champagne colored Jeep parked next to my car. My hand shot out, instinctively, and smacked the hood of the Jeep, scrambling for purchase. I bounced off the Jeep then spun into the side of my car, grabbing the side mirror for balance. While I’m sure it only took 3 seconds, it felt like everything was happening in slow motion and that the entire population of the Busch’s parking lot was witnessing the fall. The minute it happened I knew it would be bad. You know how you can just feel something like that?  I struggled to get into the car as did Zoe, but she struggled more because she couldn’t stop laughing (nice, right?)… I told her we needed to get home before my foot swelled up so much that we couldn’t get the shoe off (not my first rodeo). I will pay for this tomorrow.

I remember a friend once told me that my self-proclaimed clumsiness was not, in fact, actual clumsiness. She said my frequent falls indicated that I was athletic, not clumsy and that I wasn’t afraid to move my body about which is why I fell a lot. I don’t know about that. If the US gymnastics team was as “athletic” as me there would be piles of them laying on the gymnasium floor in bandages. It would look like a MASH unit or that one scene in Gone With the Wind. The point is that my well-intentioned friend (Hi Kate!) loved me enough to tell me lies. The end.

I'm not mad, just disappointed

I was laying in bed at 10:30 am on a Sunday morning when Max (my 19 year old son) walked into my room. I rolled over to look at him through sleepy eyes (I was out late the night before), only to focus in and see he was looking at me with …. Is that disdain? Arms crossed, looking down at me, he said, “Are you going to stay in bed ALL day? You go out galavanting around town every night, you don’t get home until 3:00am and you didn’t even have the decency to call and let me know where you were? The kitchen was a mess so I cleaned it - you’re welcome - and I had to put away all the laundry as well. The dog sure wasn’t going to let herself out so I had to take care of that too. The kittens kept us up all night and I got no sleep at all because I was worrying about you.”

What. Is. Happening.

I’ve recently re-entered the dating game. Sort of. Really just kind of dipping a toe in if I’m being totally honest. But yes, I was out late and no, I didn’t call. To be fair, both kids are able to track me by my cell phone location and they knew who I was with but I agree I should have called.

Still. It’s pretty funny. Seeing him standing there looking all exasperated and mad. Just like I’ve done with him a millions times before....

Chip Clips

It's summertiiime and the chip clips are miiissing...

It's summertime. The kids are home all day. The dishes are piling up. The rest of the house is trashed. The cats are looking skittish and I can't find the dog food (40 lb bag I bought yesterday). I shop for groceries every day to feed the hordes of teenagers that roam through each night. The kids come and go all. day. long. Wet bathing suits are strewn about the house and there isn't a dry beach towel to be found. The front door never really closes and someone set up a tent in the yard - 3 weeks ago. I have no idea how many kids are actually living here but, if the rapid rate of toilet paper usage is any indication, there's a lot.

And then there's the issue of the chip clips.

I spend a lot of time, each day looking for chip clips. My search is always more frantic in the summer because the humidity makes chips go stale within like 30 seconds of opening the bag. Yet the kids leave the bags, unopened, all over the house. On my daily travels throughout the house I'm destined to find at least one open bag laying around somewhere. So I dutifully pick up said bag and walk to the kitchen for a chip clip. I begin the search. It does not go well. I cannot find a single chip clip anywhere in the kitchen or pantry. How is that possible? I buy them at yard sales, the dollar store and sometimes even the office supply store. I stash them everywhere preparing for some sort of chip clip apocalypse but, when the time comes, they're gone. Just GONE. So then I begin to scavenge for a pony tail holder or even a super sturdy paperclip. Nothing. I go to my office where I keep all the office supplies but all I can find are the tiniest clips that can only hold one piece of paper. (Why do they even make those?) Screw it. They’re all gone and I’m tired. I head back to the kitchen and do the "roll and tuck" method on each bag. Roll ‘em up, tuck ‘em close together and hope it holds. Fall cannot come soon enough.

When these kids head off to start their lives (or at least back to school) I will have an entire drawer dedicated only to chip clips. I swear, I will never go chip clip (less) again!