Bad Medicine

It has been a long day.

I ran around doing a bunch of errands this morning, including getting last minute pirate garb for Evan's play that starts tomorrow. The appliance repair dude shows up early... then there's kidsitting in the afternoon which was pretty mellow except getting them ready to go to the pool which was like herding cats and I ended up with extra neighbor kids. I forgot to even eat until about 5. I ran Evan's costume up to the church where the performance will be, and then worked on alterations until water polo time. Then after last week having over 20 players, there were only seven of us for water polo tonight, and that makes it tough. The deep end looked like a population map of North Dakota. That translates to more distance involved in going after the ball, and we're quickly winded, though I do get to work a little more on my new ankle-grabbing move. It's especially effective on the bigger dudes who are hard to dunk. If I am able to get a good hold on their ankles, I latch on and become a resistant weight as they're hauling towards the goal. Then they can only swim in place until they have to throw the ball or someone else comes and fights for it.

It's so gratifying.

After water polo we went to get Evan at 9:30 but they're doing dress rehearsal and it's running late so Luka, Juniper and I sit waiting in the van until 10:30 for him to get out. In the meantime the woman who's car always runs out of gas and needs some money comes by. She must have asked me with this same story at least 5 times in the past couple years in various parts of Ypsi. Luka also entertains himself by asking me to relay stories of the stupid things I have done in my life. Uhhhhh... there's plenty but it's hard to come up with some G rated ones. Well, there's the time I let my cousin give me the "sissy test" and scrub at the back of my hand with an eraser until it bleeds. I was determined to let it bleed to show how tough I was, but it hurt so bad that I had to stop. I did end up with a good portion of my epidermis removed, and it hurt like hell and scarred me. That was stupid! There was the time I was learning how to ride a dirtbike in the backyard and once I got going I blanked out on how to brake, so I didn't stop until I crashed right through the door of our playhouse. Yeah, that was stupid too!!

We get home and on the way in to the house, my dog goes apeshit, smelling around and chasing something. We hear her acting ferocious in the dark by the fence and I sternly called her back... but she doesn't listen. Until she gets sprayed square in the snout. NOOOOOOO.... That's when she came running back like "help me mama!" It is awful smelling, I never smelled skunk so intimately it is such a burnt awful smell. I have to give her a bath immediately, I read on the internet to mix a quart of hydrogen peroxide, a quarter cup of baking soda and a teaspoon of soap and douse her. I do it, but I think she mostly got hit on the snout so it's tricky. Ugh! I'm doing this, getting soaked myself with Luka babbling a million questions next to me. The skunk sprayed so close to the house that everything smells and I don't even know what's from the dog and what's just in the air. It is headache-inducing, bad medicine. I dry the dog off and read the nightly chapter of The Long Winter to Luka.

And I am reminded that whatever is going on with me, it doesn't compare to the trials of the Ingalls family. They never even got to play water polo.

I am tired, though. These are the moments that I am grateful for screw-cap wine bottles.