I never thought I'd get to the point where I spent too much time reminiscing about my past to be able to pick out just one or two stories to blog about. Now that I've had a chance to spend a few hours with my daughter, and bounce topic to topic, we covered everything to do with my new reality, and now I'm worn out. I am in life-review overload. I'm exhausted and my ears are ringing (but then, they do that every day... this just feels like I spent too much time talking and listening). The upside is that this child totally gets it. She understands everything I said in words, and all the things I couldn't properly verbalize as well. She and I spoke in our own special shorthand and covered it all. The downside is that at the end of it, I'm worried that she may have to be tested for lupus as well someday. At least if she finds herself going through some of the same physical crises that I did, she will have an understanding and a vocabulary to ask her doctor for help, something I never had. If she does develop this, she won't have to wait two and a half decades for someone to address it.
I had just planned on having breakfast with her and her boyfriend, but I found myself kidnapping her to go hat shopping afterwards. I've been told to cover up in the sun, under long sleeves, sunglasses, sunscreen, and hats. I tried going around in baseball caps the last couple days, and I just can't pull off the look. I needed a big, floppy, Southern lady kind of hat. My daughter helped me find the perfect one. Then she put on a black hat just like the one I chose, and quoted the movie Shock Treatment at me: "I've just come to tell you how fabulous I am." Indeed. At that point I kind of agreed with her.
Winter weather stalled our fence-building for months, but now that the weather has been warm and gorgeous, and the ground is starting to thaw, progress is once again being made. And this time, I didn't have to do a blessed thing to help. I wasn't expected to hold boards, carry pickets, or really even show up. I brought the man a box of screws that we bought at Lowe's yesterday, and that's it. I got off easy because my hips are still hurting, and he worked himself down to a nub, and then went and got a massage (that he more than earned). By the end of the day tomorrow, the fence will be complete, and that kitty boy will finally be allowed to run and play and chase birds again. He has been screaming at the door at the injustice of being trapped in the house while the perimeter defenses were breached, but not for much longer. Soon the dogs will no longer have a clear view of all the goings-on in the alley and in neighbors' back yards. We may finally have peace--or at least less barking and meowing. We will be one step closer to turning a plain back yard into a garden paradise worthy of the title Smith Park. Progress is progress. Carry on, Mr Smith.
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