Curly's no-covid-excuse haircut, plus photos galore

Tank holding Curly pre-hair. 
We just stumbled across this
 pic and we CANNOT
believe her cheeks. 

I have always cut the boys' hair, including Coach.  I cut the girls' hair when they were young, even giving Mini a cute bob that I called the grape-juice haircut.  

Reason being:  I felt like Ernie (no pun intended) when he tried to evenly share grape-juice with Bert.  He kept pouring a bit and then deciding someone had too much, and taking a few sips to even it out.  Well, straightening Mini's bob out was not my most shining moment as a fake beautician.  

Curly age 3, and I thought the hair
was tough to comb through back then.
 It is so incredibly curly now.
  I wish I could share a feel
-think poodle on steroids.

Then along came Curly.  I thought her curly hair was made for shining moments.  Her hair was SO darn forgiving.  She has a mass of serious curls and if one side was a tad longer than another, who knew?  

Coach and I will soon be buying a second home with all the haircut money we have saved over the years.  OK, fake news, but you get the point.  

December 2018:  Curly's hair began to look like a triangle.  My beautician suggested I buy a thinning shears and thin it out to give it more shape.  I watched YouTube videos, sat her down in the bathroom (because- Chicago winter), and got started.  Mini was in the room and every little clip I made, Mini shrieked until I invited her to LEAVE the bathroom.  

Silly to show her face as a tot but not as a big kid? 
Hmm, maybe.  If I am anything, it is
half-ass when it comes
to hiding our identity lately.  Maybe because I
am all, bring-it Mary Ann!  I think the kids
 are harder to ID as tots and babies
 vs their current faces.  Oh, this is an
example of triangle hair, but looking
 back it isn't so bad.  (sobs softly)  

The results were fabulous.  She had shape.  It was manageable - as in she could get through it without horrible knots.  She was delighted.  

The thing I learned early on when cutting Curly's hair is that if I cut a tiny fraction of hair off, her hair sprung up and looked 2 inches shorter.  I had to focus really hard not to cut off too much from the length or it would look crazy short.

May 2019:  Last year in early May, Coach and I took Curly out to lunch. 

We take the kids out alone two times a year for breakfast or lunch and it was her turn.  It was a beautiful spring day, and she pointed out that she was ready for another haircut.  She was starting to get triangle-ish again.  When we got home, she was all:  CAN YOU DO CUT MY HAIR NOW?

My arsenal

I gathered my stuff and told her to get it wet and meet me on the deck.  Her friend's mom texted me and asked if Curly could come and play.  Ugh.  Curly was like, OH, PLEASE CAN I GO TO HER HOUSE?  JUST HURRY UP AND CUT MY HAIR AND THEN I WILL GO.

I texted back:  Cutting her hair, she'll be over soon.  

This, my 2nd time thinning her hair didn't go quite so well.  I blame the HURRY UP factor.  Friends, I ran that thinning scissors up AND down her hair, then back again in the other direction.  I was not as focused as the day in the bathroom when I carefully chose select strands and thinned them, and started only from about 6 inches away from the root.  I needed Mini's shrieking to remind me to be CAUTIOUS.  

No words.

Afterwards, Curly ran upstairs to shower.  I looked at my deck and felt a tad ill that Curly's curls were EVERYWHERE.  I reminded myself that I always feel this way when Curly's beautiful locks scatter.  

A moment later I heard Curly holler from my bathroom.  I ran upstairs.  Mini was in there and carefully made horrified faces from angles that Curly could not see- even in the mirror.  

Off of the deck, blowing in the
breeze- my girl's hair.

Curly was crying:  WHAT DID YOU DO?  IT'S ALL COMING OUT!

She was not lying.  I assured her that she just needed to comb through it and that it would be fine.  I took the brush and brushed through it.  I told her that was it, no more would come out.  I pointed her face at the mirror, SEE?  YOU STILL HAVE ALL KINDS OF HAIR.

Curly held up the brush to me and sobbed:  LOOK!

Dear God, I could have ditched babysitting to become a wig-maker.  There was THAT much hair in the brush.  

A somewhat distorted photo of Mini because
 I took the picture while it was in a frame.
 See - her hair.  So pretty,
then straight (still pretty),
now back to long ringlets, especially
 with the help of her twisty turban.

I fumbled for words.  Ultimately, I told her that it would still look cute, it always did.  Plus it would grow back.  I apologized profusely and told her I should have re-watched the videos to remember what I was doing.  I admitted that I was probably racing.  After the shower, it perked up and she decided it was cute, but we both knew I had gone overboard.  

Days later, Tank would sit behind her on the family room floor and make jerking hand motions behind her head to point out the many strange geometric shapes in her remaining curls.  If only my dagger looks aimed at him could be felt from across the room.  

I think part of the deal with Curly's hair is that it was transforming from little kid hair to hair that changes after hormones/puberty.  Does anyone else find that their kids' hair does this?  

Walking in Vancouver last summer.  Not sure
you can tell, but majorly frizzy
and lots of up and down dips. 
Oh, the guilt.

Example:  Mini had curly hair as a tot.  Think loose ringlets.  Then in grade school her hair was pretty straight with a wave to it.  After puberty, serious curls - not as afro-esque as Curly's, but really curly.  

So, Curly's hair now has SO MANY different layers and lengths to it, it has driven her crazy over the course of the year.  It has been growing out ever so gradually and I pointed out early on in the pandemic that by the time we were done with house-arrest her friends would be shocked at how much it had come back.  

I admit though, when Reg had his graduation pictures taken at school in January, I calculated that Curly has 2 years before her 8th grade grad pics are taken and I hope by then her hair will be BACK to normal.  

(image credit:  Google) Zoe with same
wispies as Curly at the sides.

Lately Curly has a handful of curls that hang down below the rest.  Honestly she reminds me of a Muppet.  Parts of this hang-down-below-the-rest hairs are very feather-light and they bounce in the breeze.  Thus:  Muppet resemblance with hair flying around like those puppets with feathers and lightweight fur.  I swear she looks a tad like Zoe from Sesame Street.  

Oh, and I am raising my right hand here and swearing, triangle or not - Curly will be going to a professional from now on.  I even met a woman at a graduation party last summer who gave me the name of a beautician who specializes in curly haircuts.  

Anyone else ever destroy your kid's hair accidentally?  

Note:  I think I am subliminally inserted the 'going to lunch' story to assure you I am not a horrible parent who thoughtlessly sheered the shit out of my kid's hair.

Wanna see my stitches Mary Ann?

As I sit down to write this I realize there is a Mary Ann story missing from the trail of Mary Ann issues, but I will move forward and tell this one out of sequence.  It won't really matter to you, but I just won't be able to refer back to the last, and very similar 'episode.'  

Before my class started March 1st, I had a bunch of posts all lined up and ready to post in case my class became too taxing and I didn't have time to write something bloggish.  Then the pandemic blew into our lives and those posts got pushed to the side while I discussed pressing shit like playing Chinese checkers, and pandemic-ish quotes, and Mini driving in her twisty turban.  

I will one day post those non-pandemic friendly posts . . . and when I do - Mary Ann will once again strut her stuff.  I am sure the anticipation is killing you.

In the meantime, Friday I had a Zoom conference for an hour with a therapist I am seeing from the new group of therapists we found to work with Lad.  She is wonderful.  I 'Zoom' with her in my walk in closet with the sound machine going in my bedroom and the door to my bedroom locked.  Can never be too careful.  

I emerged at 4:00 on Friday, and came downstairs a bit sweaty from being confined to my closet.  By the way, Zoom froze an image of me but my voice could still be heard, so the therapist was like:  "It's fine, don't worry."  It wasn't the most attractive pose of me and I suspect that she needed some therapy of her own afterwards.  I digress.  Shock.  

In the kitchen, there was a big box sitting on my island.  It was a white box with a picture of an air purifier or something on the outside.  Coach's patients give him 'stuff' sometimes.  "Anybody know anything about this box?"

Coach said 'No idea' about the mystery box.  Other kids were out in the yard and no one else responded.  

Tank walked inside and I got Coach's attention and did the nod of the head towards the study maneuver that translates into 'remember we gotta talk to this one.'

Remember:  Tank wants to do ROTC in college.  He's worried he can't because of ADD.  He has reached out to my bro in law 'Bill' who was a lifer in the marines.  Bill emailed me recently and said (nicely) that Tank was still emailing him.  Bill had reached out to me several weeks ago saying he was not sure he should relay any more info to Tank fearing Tank might be upset or lose hope, etc.  I told him after Tank's AP exam we would talk to him.  Then I forgot.

So, we sat Tank down to say the same stuff we've been saying:  It'll work out one way or another.  If this isn't the path, there will be others (and, ever so subtly) Uncle Bill thinks it doesn't look great, but you have SO MUCH going for you, etc.    

While we were talking to him, thinking it was going well, he burst into tears.  Heartbreaking.  He is 17 and swears this is all he wants, but isn't sure why.  I think it is because he wants a specific path so he doesn't have to figure something out later.  That makes him anxious.  

ANYWAY . . . I get a text message.  At this emotional moment.  From Mary Ann.

Her:  Did you guys get an amazon package today?  We got a notification that a package was delivered and handed to a person at the residence.  No one was here so just checking if you guys got it.  Thank you.  

(not sure I have shared before:  our addresses are the same number, just different streets, ie:  123 Happy St and 123 Bitch Street, but since we are on the corner and our driveway faces her's it confuses Amazon).

Me:  When I came out of a Zoom meeting there was an air purifier or something on my island.  No one knew anything about where it came from.  Is that your item?

** I suppose I could have pointed out that no one was really around vs no one knew where it came from.  I still had some investigating to do, but didn't seem all that emergent because it wasn't like someone mistakenly delivered a melting tub of ice cream on my front porch.  Dare to dream, right?

Her:  It's ours!  

(this was the next text.  I wanted to text back and say DANG, CAUSE I WAS HOPING TO USE IT AND PRETEND IT WAS MINE. Understand, mystery package was in our house for less than an hour and a half - not days!)

I drafted back a message WHILE trying to be present for my son who was an emotional puddle.  I failed to hit send.  DAMN IT.  I really wish my message had sent.  It was simple, 'Got it.  Will have a kid bring it over in a bit.'

She continued with:  The amazon guy said he delivered it with our name on pkg.  Handed it to D sad one one. 

** Do packages get delivered WITHOUT names on them?  What?   

** And what was the deal with her trying to transcribe the chicken scratch of who signed for it?  Lad's real name starts with a 'D' but so what?  Oh, she hates Lad.  It started long ago when he was just a kid trying to play football in the yard with her boys.  

Our study, where we were sitting with Tank the sobbing disaster of a kid, is right next to the front door.  I saw Mary Ann march up to our front door from the study window.  I looked down at my phone and realized my 'a kid will bring it over in a bit' message didn't send.  

Me:  "Don't answer the door.  This is not an emergency.  We are in the middle of something.  She can wait."  

The gist of Mary Ann:  the world revolves around her.  Most. Self. Involved. Person. Ever.   

Coach ignored me and answered the door.  He played totally chill.  "Oh really.  I don't know.  Let me go see."  He took his time coming back to the door with the box.  To be clear, it was not in a cardboard delivery box.  It was the internal, actual box of the product.  Not even a really sturdy box.  I assumed one of our kids had ripped open the cardboard packaging, which was weird because they don't usually do that.  Of course, I think we all know my kids aren't 'usual.'  Ha. 

I could hear Mary Ann being all snippy, but Coach was acting like he had no pulse.  Meanwhile my blood was boiling 10 feet away in the study.  She was asking things like:  where's the box it came in?  

Coach:  "Oh.  Huh?  I don't know.  Weird, right?  OK then."

She grabbed the box from him and as she pounded away I could see her through the window and her mouth was still running:  blah blah blah!!!

One of my biggest regrets in life might be that I didn't sit there and video her as a gift to all of you, and future generations, etc.  I was just so SHOCKED.  Like, who does this?  

What I did do was this loudly:  WHAT?  YOU GOT SOME-TIN' TO SAY?  I didn't actually remember this but Tank, who was sitting there wiping his tears, and I should point out that he never cries, imitated me later at dinner to his siblings.  He said I also gave her both my middle fingers.  Sometimes one isn't sufficient.

Like I said, I have no photos of the incident.  Wish I had taken a photo of the mystery box before our meeting with Tank.  So this is the our backyard as seen from the end of my daily 65 minute speed walk.  Just so you realize that I don't live in a mansion, the roof you see above the swing-set on the left belongs to a house across the street from us.  Weird angle and trees and all.  My house ends sort of under the 's' in house.  

Coach went to play volleyball with the kids in the yard after our chat with Tank, but I first assembled my brood.  Tank wouldn't play v-ball - he was in his room gathering himself.  The 5 of them stood there leery of what I was gonna say, still oblivious to the package thievery we were being accused of.  

Me:  Who took the package and put it on the island?

Curly:  Oh.  That was me.  A delivery person handed it to me while I was playing on the driveway.  

Me:  Where is the box that it came in?

Curly:  Oh, it got delivered like that.  There wasn't a bigger box.  It was just that white box with a picture of a fan thing on it.  

No one signed for it.  And the label was on the actual box, but who is going to see a white label on a white box and if you are busy playing and you are 12 then who's gonna care?

I think Mary Ann ought to just be happy it wasn't a *sensitive* box - like her sex toys or her new broom.  

After gathering the info, I started to charge off of the deck to her house to say something along the lines of "Look here, Be-atch, my 12 year old got the package while on my driveway, no she didn't open the box, and if you got something to say to me, go for it.  Oh, and news flash:  your package deliveries come to our house sometimes and we ARE SOMETIMES BUSY or WE ARE SOMETIMES DEALING WITH A SOBBING KID, so settle the fuck down with the hysteria over your box.  We did not do anything wrong here.  And THIS IS WHERE I GOT MY STITCHES BACK IN SEPTEMBER, RIGHT HERE ON MY MIDDLE FINGER!"  

Sadly, my children physically blocked me from storming off the deck and going up to her door and giving that 'Have a blessed day' beast a piece of my mind.  Mini was the only one who voted I tell her what for.  Glad to know I am raising one kid who isn't afraid to stick up for herself.  

I drafted a text saying, "Turns out it was Curly.  No outer packaging.  We were in the middle of something'" but I never sent it.  Think I will wait till I can say that ever so sweetly to her wound-up-tight face.  Maybe I will video our exchange.  That would be fun.

Tell me, friends . . . what would you do?  Would you say something to her?  If so, what?  Extra credit for creativity.  We'll call this our e-learning exercise for the day.  

**(Sorry this was long, I will try to be brief next time.  Please come back, I get to tell you the stuff Coach won't let me say in polite company - as if we even get to be with company lately, polite or otherwise).

you can numb it, but it still functions . . . well, that sounds worse than intended

I wasn't going to post on Memorial Day, but this might take you two days to read it, and I finished it, so why not . . . 

Google photos tells me the middle finger incident took place Monday, Sept. 23rd. So, it's been awhile.  I always intended to share the drama, but more pressing topics cropped up, I guess.  True, right?  Because you 're regularly enthralled by the exciting content shared here.  Me:  envisioning a group nod.

I only had one super sweet, beautiful baby to sit for last school year on Mondays.  His parents regularly make comments to me like:  "We feel like we won the lottery when we found you."  Keepers.  

I started watching baby Cutie-Pie in mid September when he was 3 months old, so on this Monday his family was still 'new-ish' to my crazy life.  The dad was coming to pick Cutie-Pie up around 4:30.  I started making dinner and warming up Cutie's bottle anticipating that he would wake up.  I didn't want to hand over a hungry baby.

This photo is unrelated, but it makes me laugh
and it is from the days when shopping was less
restrictive.  I do NOT typically drag babies
with me while shopping . . they hog the cart.

For dinner, I had decided to cook sweet potatoes.  I eat the same things A LOT- I feel like this is dictated by celiac, and combined with my quest to try to eat healthy, I grabbed giant sweet potatoes at the store that week.  This was back when masks weren't worn and I puttered around the store thinking about what I might make.  

I think I last made sweet potatoes when I used to make my own baby food.  So, forever ago.

Have you ever tried to cut a sweet potato?  Holy crap, an impossible mission.  I wanted to cut them in smaller chunks so they would boil faster.  

Over the summer Ed's then-girlfriend was selling Cutco knives.  Ed asked me if she could come and give me her presentation as practice.  I was not supposed to feel compelled to order anything.  I said, Sure, and I DO need knives, so maybe I will place an order.

Order, I did.  My new knives were weeks old and I loved them.  Understand the knives that I registered for when we got married were all broken and the cheap replacements were, well, cheap.  Cutting stuff was always a challenge.  You could, in fact, call our home dull.  Pun intended.  

I grabbed the biggest, brand-new Cutco knife available and (this is important), I hurried to cut the sweet potatoes.  Kids, don't try this at home.  

Little sliver of skin.  Almost made
my thumb look like a puppet.

Let's pause while I admit that I had already struggled adjusting to using insanely sharp weaponry to slice up the veggies and egg for my daily salad.  Over Labor Day weekend, I accidentally sliced the very tip of my thumb almost completely off.  So, that sucked.  I packed many bandages  the next weekend when we flew to Annapolis with the 4 youngest to watch Lad play water polo.  My recovery efforts were not enough and the little sliver eventually fell off.

So, here I am - rushing . . .  with a sharp knife.  Baby is starting to wake up and I need to get these taters boiling so dinner can be ready by the time I have to drive Curly to dancing.  (pausing here to remember the driving I once did and how I DO not know if I can start that shit up again.  How I hate driving to dancing). 

Done peeling, I needed to get them into a chunk.  I placed one on a cutting board and I'll be damned, the dang thing would NOT cut.  I leaned over my hand - putting all my body weight on the hand holding the knife.  

That's when the knife rolled off of the not-so-sweet potato.  The knife turned on it's side, and sorta ended up with my hand under it like I was holding it in my palm, but on the way there it had ever-so-barely-hardly TOUCHED my middle finger.  IT CUT MY MIDDLE FINGER DEEP.  "Efff" heard round the world, think back to 9/23/19 - I bet you heard it- wherever you were. 

Blood.  Lots of it.  You might recall, I am not good with blood, but passing out was NOT an option.  "Oh, hi Cutie's dad, my mom passed out . . . "  

I ran toward the sink and hollered for Reg and Curly who were the only ones home.  Reg dug out the band-aids and opened a few and I said, "We're going to count to three and then I am going to move the now red paper towel and we are gonna put the band-aids on."   Curly might have been holding the baby, or just reassuring me verbally - no recollection.  

Reg gasped at the gash but managed to help get the band-aids on - they instantly turned red.  We added some other absorbent stuff like paper towels and wrapped that up with medical tape (perks of marrying a PT - I know you're jealous) so I looked like a cartoon character with an over-sized, pulsating, bandaged appendage.  

I told Reg to call Coach at work.  Coach was like, "Crap" -but he was NOT gonna come home and take me to the ER.  Mondays are his busy day, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Me:  "Kids, the dad will be here soon.  You are NOT to tell him a thing about me wielding a knife I couldn't handle and my clear need for stitches.  No need to clue him into the fact that he left his kid with a lunatic.  We are gonna play this cool.  Damn it." 

The dad arrived to find me sitting on the couch calmly and perhaps pale, giving Cutie his bottle and Reg and Curly waving hello, refusing to open their mouths and breathing a word about how I was about to bleed out.  (slight exaggeration)

The next morning I did tell Cutie's mom the story- sort of obvious with a splint on, etc.  She chuckled because the dad worried that he had arrived late to pick up Cutie since a moment after he left I passed him driving (insert Wizard of Oz music here from the bike riding scene) the great-white, 12 seater van as I barreled along for the ER.  Smooth, right?

In the ER, I made many phone calls to try to find a ride to get Curly to dancing.  A recent college grad who moved home to do grad school couldn't drive her.  My mom, who likes to behave like she is 90, preferred I find someone else.  "The construction on Route 83, oh . . ."  My sister, Ann, couldn't help out.  

When the triage nurse called me back, I tried to tell her that I might have exaggerated my need for medical treatment.  I was squeamish after all.  Maybe I just hadn't looked at it closely.  She unbandaged it and a stream of blood hit her between the eyes (OK not exactly, but still a mess) and she was all:  "OK then, you definitely need stitches.  You aren't going anywhere."  

It is written somewhere that an ER needs to make you wait forever unless you are in fact dying, so I told her my dilemma.  I needed to get a ride for Curly to dancing, or I was going to have to leave.  Her:  "Ha, looks like your daughter is missing dancing tonight."

Me:  (internally, because I didn't want to be admitted to the psych ward)  "OK, I guess you know nothing about Irish dancing, and how busy the fall dancing season is.  My kid cannot miss dancing and if her little brother has to put her on his back and jog there, then that is how she will get there, damn it."

Tank was at golf practice and wasn't willing to abandon golf for Curly's dancing.

In the little ER room - too long!

I called my Mom back and assured her that Curly knew the way and that while there was CRAZY ASS construction, Curly can also navigate a secret route.  She may have only been 11, but she is aware.  My Mom agreed to do it.  

Please note:  My mom drives a jaguar with a built in big-screen GPS system that she refuses to learn how to use.  And - she has been to dancing before AND, it is almost a straight shot from home.  

This is already so long, sorry.  I will leave out the fun details about how I was left in a room forever, suspected they took another guy ahead of me, how a girl had to come in and 'CLEAN' my wound, and how I raised holy hell about them possibly taking another guy ahead of me.  There was also a dilemma:  did I want a numbing shot.  I think the doc talked me out of it - I don't even remember, and I am still surprised that I survived the whole ordeal.  Because I got 5 fricking stitches.  At 48, I HAD NEVER  GOTTEN STITCHES, HELLO!

A first time for everything, sadly.

Later, Coach, my husband NOT my caretaker, hid a bunch of the knives from me and I raised holy hell and made him give them back.  "You are not my DAD!"  Duh.  He gave them back but begged me to stop using them.

I went to my doctor to get the stitches out a few weeks later -the day before we flew to New York to see Lad play water polo - remember I ended up with pink eye?  Batting 1,000. 

Anyway, the doc was like:  "Can I ask you, were these Cutco knives?"  Me:  YES (insert story of son's girlfriend and how we now tease Ed about whether or not all of his girlfriends will someday try to kill me by selling me sharp shit).  

The doctor said she had just agreed to buy some knives because her friend's son had given her a presentation.  She couldn't count how many times she or her husband had cut themselves.  She is married to an ER doctor.  These are smart people, right?  I happily told Coach, "This is not just me."  

I may or may not have been holding up my newly un-stitched middle finger when I hollered this at him.  

*sidenote - I have not gotten the feeling back in my damaged middle finger, but let's face it - that finger still serves its main function as needed . . . this can only mean that I have a fresh crazy-neighbor Mary Ann story to share. 

It's not a toomah! or is it?

Have you heard that Trump has decided to take Oxymacmillion Dectracide?  OK, not the proper spelling, but I am guessing you have heard of his decision to self-prescribe this RX.

My own personal stash of
 Hydroxycholoroqine (real spelling!)

Um, I have some of that RX in a bottle in my house.  I am NOT currently taking it.  I also cannot pronounce it, or spell it.  

I want to thank Trump for taking this med because whenever I go back to the doc and they ask me "But have you tried Oxymacmillion Dectracide?" I will be able to intelligently say, "Oh, is that the shit that Trump started taking to avoid covid?  Yeah, I already tried that and it didn't help me."  

Backing up the bus a bit, a hippie-looking rheumatologist (cut and paste job because that is a bitch to spell) I saw a few years ago wondered if I might have Lupus.  Hair loss, exhaustion, swollen joints (pst . . . this can also be from the wonderful world of celiac,.  Blood work:  hang on, another autoimmune disease might be lurking, since I have celiac I am susceptible).  He had me try Trump's new drug of choice:  Oxymacmillion Dectracide.  It did nothing.  

Poor little swollen pinkie.

I told you back in the fall about my pinkies having big puffy knuckles.  They felt broken.  I saw a new doc:  Dr. Run-late.  She said I had cysts.  Lupus?  

She prescribed Oxymacmillion Dectracide. (me nodding, not realizing I had taken it before from Hippie doc till the pharmacist pointed it out).  I took it for a few weeks because it was a higher dose and maybe it would help.  Then I said, forget it.  Unlike Trump, I don't want to take stuff I don't need.

Dr. Run-late suggested having the cysts removed.  There were x-rays and MRIs and MRIs with contrast.  I probably glow in the dark now.  

Rings were cut off of my fingers.  Sadly.  

There was a doc visit when I brought along a baby I was sitting for and Coach left work to meet me there and they announced, "Oh, Dr. Run-late is running too far behind to see you.  You can come back in a few hours."  What?  Who does that?  

Eventually Dr. Run-late suggested surgery to remove cysts or just draining them with a very large needle.  We opted for the needle, but Coach explained 'me' to the doc.  "She can't do big needles."

Doc Run-late said, no prob.  She would partially sedate me.  This was all about two weeks before Christmas.  Pop some pills, have a friend drive you, etc.

Becky, my other babysitting friend, was good enough to drive me - neither of us had tots to watch.  I urged her to run errands and come back.  "Dr. Run-late does not follow a schedule."  

Becky got her nails done, came back, and found me super sleepy and beyond pissed off.  I was a combo of Sleepy and Grumpy dwarfs, but taller.  I explained to Becky . . . "I braced myself for the gi-normous needle.  They jabbed it in there good and hard.  Nothing."  

FYI if Becky and I chose not to social distance and she was sitting in my study with me, she would be saying 'That's what she said' and then cackling, but alas - I am alone.  Not that I have ever written a post while hanging out with Becky, but isn't it heartwarming to know your friends think of you even when you are't within 6 feet?

Dr. Run-late:  "Oh, this is not a cyst.  This must be a tumor."  (totally might be off on the terminology here because I was all doped up and this was in December).  Basically she thought it was liquid and it isn't.  Needle = useless.

Now, just trying to forget 'bout it.  Coach and I both looked at each other though at home:  

"But she took all those pictures, contrast, rings cut off?  W.T.F?"

Did I mention the timing of all of this?  Right before Christmas when it is also birthday season over here.  I slept all afternoon - on my day off instead of getting shit done!  People, I love a good nap, but ARE YOU KIDDING?

So, don't worry about me while my pinkies sometimes creak with pain while I type away at these posts.  Meanwhile, I secretly enjoy one more nonsensical aspect of our president, who is taking something that has proven NOT to prevent covid 19.  

May he inexplicably develop tumors on his pinkies the size of golf balls (not at all what the meds do, but who takes something for kicks?)

I have another finger story for you, but it involves the middle, the boss, the swear finger.  Totally different story line.  I think you'll enjoy it.  Shall we say next week, or are you too busy trying to identify a closet you have yet to organize during our at-home time?  

Have a good weekend, and hope you survive the anticipation of another finger dilemma over here, which I think I will follow closely with the story of Curly's haircut . . . from last year.  Get excited.