Some days the bear gets you.
Y’all, that was one helluva bear today. But, today is nearly tonight, and tonight is baseball. We will be getting to watch Thor play in his first actual pitched game. I have a feeling the intense pride is going to burn away the chaff of my mistake riddled workday, then I can wake up fresh in the morning and do better tomorrow.
At least my mistakes were paperwork.
There is a lot outside my window that I will genuinely miss seeing after we move on Monday. I will definitely miss the canal, which feels more like home to me than anything has since we left Virginia. I will miss the varied trees and foliage. I will miss being able to go upstairs and look out the windows. And, I will miss standing at the top of the stairs, looking out that one unreachable window, watching the street lights turn a mile away. Visibility is good from upstairs.
I will not miss the bugs, the mud, the rank smell on hot days, the extra humidity, the worry that Thor will fall down the stairs (now I can worry he’ll fall out of his loft bed), or the fact that the a/c doesn’t work well upstairs. I will also not miss the clanging of the jogging trail gate, or having strangers walk past and look into my windows.
Since we moved in, I have known we would not be staying here, so I have tried to fill up my eyes with the sights and sounds, and commit them to memory for when we leave. That way, I have my own little meditation reel when I need it. For example, when I am extremely stressed, I will focus on rebuilding my grandparents’ living room, how it looked, how it sounded, how it smelled, what I could see through the window, the clicks and hums of the house, the sound of the clock, and once I have it built, I let my brain sit in there for a while and recharge. I have several different places like this to visit in my mind, and this home here will be cataloged among them now.
And, now I get to build new neural pathways at the new place. New streets to explore, new neighbors to be met, new experiences to be had. It will be very good.
I came home sick today, and I entertained myself by looking at old videos of Thor. I am posting a few that I think exemplify him as a personality. He’s a happy guy. He hasn’t let me take any video of him in a long time, but he’s still just as much fun as he was back in his more exhibitionistic phase.
A friend and I were talking about hating gyno visits. Her first doctor visit was a horror, and mine wasn’t much better. Actually, my first three could make up an SNL sketch.
I was 15 when I went the first time. It was already horrible because my mother had to work, so my father took me to the appointment. (No offense, Dad, it was just really embarrassing, and you did do a great job pretending it was the ENT, not the OB/GYN.) It only got worse once I was in the stirrups.
The doctor started the exam and then exclaimed suddenly. She sent her nurse to go fetch the girl from the front desk, and the office manager. Once the three of them were reassembled, me wondering wtf was going on, she stood them in front of my wide open thighs and said, presenting my youngladybits with a wave of her hand, “Ladies, this is what an in-tact hymen looks like.” My jaw dropped, much like my panties had only moments before.
Then, she made quick work of that in-tact hymen with her speculum, saying she was doing me a favor. It would be another five years before I would brave the lady-doctor again.
My next visit was to the physician at the university quack-shack. I went in for a sore throat–kid you not–and ended up in the stirrups. I was still pure as the driven snow, but this doctor was unimpressed. She stared intently at my crotchal regions and proclaimed in heavily accented English, “You have an STD.”
I was as upset as you might expect, asking how in the world I might have come by such a thing, having never put anything remotely diseased near my hooha. The doctor narrowed her eyes at me. “Your boyfriend touchy you down there?”
“No,” I squeaked out honestly, because it would still be a few months before I got up that courage.
“You touchy yourself down there?” It was an accusation more than a question, and she even grabbed my hands to look at them.
I was even more emphatic about that answer. I let her do the STD workup, which came back SURPRISINGLY NEGATIVE, then stormed out of her office with her telling me that the test was clearly wrong, and I was up to my eyeballs with filth. I was nearly hysterical when I called my mother, who set me up with an appointment with her doctor.
The next week, I was in the stirrups for the third time in my life, being examined by a man for the first time. He was in his 60s and had a wonderful bedside manner, and I was feeling very comfortable and thinking, “This is the way these appointments should be. Whew!”
Then, while he had a digit inserted in my person, he said these words, “You know, I have a son about your age. He’s a really good boy. Plays violin. Loves to read.” He smiled and looked me in the eye, a second digit inserted into another orifice. “I think you two would get along very well. Would you mind if I gave him your number?”
I didn’t go back to the lady doctor until the month before I got married, and then only so I could get on the Pill. Fortunately, I’ve had much better luck since then.
Got a little windy out here yesterday, y’all. The Outside Lane family and friends are all accounted for, and none sustained any serious damage, so I’m pretty chuffed about that. Only three major injuries sustained in the wake of between 8 and 12 tornadoes is worth shouting about, too.
I’ve had recurring nightmares about tornadoes for years, starting the same week as The Great Fort Worth Tornado of 2000, of which I had a windshield view from rush hour traffic on the highway as it tore through downtown. It was as fascinating as it was unpleasant.
Footage from yesterday’s storm shows shiny metal debris orbiting one twister, looking like paillette sequins dancing in the wind. It was weirdly pretty, especially when you factor in that some of those sequins were actually semi-truck trailers, the sides of warehouses, and likely a few [tin] roofs [rrrrusted!] It did give me an idea for a Halloween costume, but it would require so much constant twirling to keep my sequins aloft that I wouldn’t make it fifteen minutes without ruining another of the Grimes Family’s sofas.
Can’t have that.
The Outside Lane 