Fettered

 

Terribly Funny Signs

Saw a sign thursday (in LA) that said, “Venice Therapy.”

I was thinking that either meant you’ve been away too long and need to come back to Venice for your Venice Therapy or you’ve been there for too long and it has caused you to need Venice Therapy. Of course, you may just need therapy and be located in Venice, so there ya go.

On our trip we did many fun things and saw many sights. But sometimes it’s the little things….

Like… where the f*** can we park?

Or where to get a caning.

(Also in Venice. Perhaps that explains the therapy.)

Mark Twain is cool!

Just wanted to share a quote I read this morning from Mark Twain.

Which I totally agree with.

 

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. – Mark Twain

I need to get outta dodge.

My dad just took a trip to Belize. I have a friend who is a rock star who was in Brazil at the same time as my dad was in Belize. Actually she may not be a rock star, I think she’s a tour manager. But,whatever, since my dad has been back (about a week and a half?) she’s been to South Africa and Switzerland. I think it’s awesome that they do that and are having fun.

But, it makes me notice that I haven’t been much of anywhere in much of anywhile. I think I may have mentioned my semi-nomadic childhood. My son was born here. Now he’s 8. That’s the longest I think I’ve lived anywhere. I was talking to him about maybe taking a trip sometime. He said he didn’t want to take a plane because it might crash. (Yes, he’s a worrier.) I restrained myself from saying how much more likely you are to have a car crash than an airplane crash. We talked about how really safe flying is and how many, many planes fly and how few crashes there are. But, the bottom line is: resign yourself to it. I promise you will fly. I’m dismayed that it’s already taken this long for us to take a big trip.

You can’t drive to Europe or Africa or Australia.

I need to get my (our) *asterisk* in gear and out of this rut.

Before we rust here.

Plan Z

On Monday I got up ready to face the day and write about it being the one year anniversary of my blog. I was going to write about how surprised I was that I’d managed to keep this up steadily for this long.

My husband was out of town getting ready to have surgery. Our son was at school. I decided to wait to post until after I got back from running to town for his Christmas Program and errands. We were planning to go to my Dad’s for the holiday since our Daddy would be gone.

I might have posted something about it being the darkest night in 300 years due to the lunar eclipse falling on the eve of the winter solstice.

I might have…but the universe had other plans.

Instead I came home from running those errands and became riotously ill with a stomach bug.

I had a couple of hours until the bus would bring home the kid, so I thought if I went slowly I could feed the horses and then go to the bus stop to get my helper who I was really going to need.

I did manage to get the feeding done, but I also managed to slip and fall on the ice. Hooray. (No real injuries, just a bruise on my upper shin.)

I dragged myself to the car and down to the bus stop.

When my son got in the car he proceeded to pull up his pant legs and show me some weird rash that he had on his knees. Huh? We went home because, no, you cannot stay and play at your friend’s house with some possible contagion all over your legs, son.

At home, with further inspection, it was discovered that the rash was all over his body except for his head. It was red, lacyish, had welts. I was freaking out!

I knew I was going to have to take him to the ER. And I was going to have to drag somebody else with me because I was going to be spending an unusual amount of time in the bathroom which would leave my baby all by himself in the ER with a burning, itchy rash. Worse, I was going to drag all of us an hour away to the ER worth going to. Since, having tested the local hospital on several occasions, we are no longer willing to go there unless we are actually in danger of dying from blood loss or some other critical situation. If we can make the drive, we will.

So, I was flipping out over all this on top of already feeling like you-know-what.

My husband convinced me via text and phone to go to town and get some calamine lotion and Benadryl to give him and see if that helped. If it didn’t, we could go to the doctors in the morning.

I enlisted the aid of a friend who ran around and got everything for me (including a Happy Meal for the patient 🙂 so I only had to make one stop.

WE LOVE HER AND SHE HAS SAVED OUR BACON ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION!

As an added bonus, she has three grown kids and has seen every rash and allergy already. She looked at it and said it was probably an allergic reaction to some thing. (Still don’t know what.)

We came home to administer the lotion and Benadryl.

Well, I managed to give him the Benadryl and then fell asleep.

Tuesday:

Since we both had something wrong, neither of us had to get up early to try to get to the bus. whoopee!

*I’m sorry son, I know the rash is almost all gone today, but we can’t go to school. Yes, I know it was Xmas parties today. I’m sorry. We’ll have donuts and rent that movie over break.*

Thank goodness the Benadryl worked.

Thank goodness my neighbor was able to feed for me.

Thank goodness my husband’s surgery went well. Longer than expected, but fine.

Thank goodness my son is old enough to fend for himself quite a bit and was feeling better.

We’ve all been recovering ever since.

We had to change all of our plans, of course. We’ll visit my dad next week. We ran around like monkeys to pull off Christmas at the last minute since we weren’t planning on being here. Well, sick, tired old monkeys anyway.

Bonus: Since we were planning on being gone, the neighbors were already going to be feeding for a few days. We just asked them to do it anyway since we were none of us feeling up to it. Hooray! Neighbors Rock! (At least-some do.ha.)

Happy Belated Solstice!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

I think I need another nap.