Tuesday, May 01, 2007

What A Long Strange Week It's Been...

In which I attempt to briefly explain where I've been...
"Briefly" - Ha! Who's the wordiest girl in town???

Feel free to skip today's offering, and come back another day when the knitting* and cooking and reading, etc. will (hopefully) resume...



It all started on Saturday, over a week ago. Through sheer stupidity and general all-purpose house-keeping ineptness, I managed to chemical burn my hands. The left hand, not so badly. The right one, I'd say was about 70% covered with burns, blisters and ick.

Peh.

Haven't I warned you all that I'm really, really, really not good at being a homemaker?

Let's just say that I obviously skipped the part in the big old Martha Stewart book that explicitly stated that I should wear gloves before attempting to bleach down the entire front of the house.
Did I already mention that my stupidity played a huge role in this?

So - I'm pretty much worthless for days. I can't knit, I can't write, I can't type, I can't use my hands for anything - basically, all I can do is sit around and dwell on how stupid it was/I am.
The only thing I hate worse than a painful injury is one which is both painful and stupid. I don't think you get much sympathy for those.

And sleeping? Well, that wasn't happening. Stupid swollen hand kept me up Saturday/Sunday/Monday and Tuesday nights. Peh somemore...

Wednesday: Should have gotten some sleep, but didn't. See, it was getting to be time for the big yearly neighborhood festival - and I was charged with hosting the kickoff party on Thursday night, for all the neighborhood kids. And I'm a worrier and a fretter. So not much sleep happened. Got about 3 hours.

Thursday: the party went off (yay!) despite having to move it to a new location with less than 6 hours notice. Stupid rain!
It's difficult to move a party for 150+ kids, but it all turned out OK in the end. But it took forever to get the party broken down, and then I was all wired from it all.
And - you see where this is going - not much sleeping happened.

Friday: I made an interesting discovery. When you get too sleep deprived, it's kind of like being drunk. But not the cute and fun kind of tipsy you might hope for.
Nope - this was the vaguely nauseous kind of drunk feeling. The kind where you know the party should have ended a few hours ago, and it's gone on too long, and it's probably not going to end well...

And, all groggy and loopy, I went to meet my friend The Caretaker for breakfast. He was stopping off in town on his way to visit his folks in another part of Georgia.
He's one of my absolute favorite people on the planet. And I've not seen him in over a year and a half.

And bless his heart, he sat down and ate breakfast with my sad, incoherent, drooling self.

I suspect I told him the same stories multiple times. He managed to not look bored. He politely didn't point out that I literally had the shakes as I reached for my first Diet Coke of the morning. He kindly figured out the math on the check when I couldn't wrap my brain around how much was 20% for the tip. (Admittedly, I'm not the biggest math whiz at the best of times. But I can figure a tip. Usually...) I get the feeling that my half of the conversation sounded something like this:

aggle aggle aggle gak!


And this, of course, is how I *entered* Festival Weekend. Which is always a weekend of nothing but fun and a departure from my real life. This year was no exception...

Baton Bob - Grand Marshall of the Inman Park Parade Marching Abominable Cub Scouts on Parade

Oh - the Humanity! Robot Art on Display Marching Abominable Family Inman Park Cooperative Preschool

Just a few photos, to give you the flavor of the weekend.
It's a crazy couple of days...
(I wore my tiara the whole time.)





And of course, the whole thing with Schecky's poem making it onto BoingBoing? That was exciting beyond all belief. I had no idea...

Thank you to everyone who read it and had nice things to say. Schecky was just thrilled to pieces that people read his poem, and that they responded positively to it...

I'm awfully fond of my boy, Scheck. He's a good egg**...




Which brings me to this week - I am frantically playing the "catch up" game. I keep trying to remind myself that I can't just take more than a full week off from my life, and expect to be all caught up in a day. Yet, impatiently, that is exactly what I want to happen!

So, I'm baby-stepping through my poor neglected house (the laundry! Sweet Cracker Sandwich, you wouldn't believe the mess around here...), the poor neglected email, the poor neglected blog-sphere...

It's been a rollercoaster ride around here - so I suppose a return to normalcy is due. Knitting, reading, cooking should all resume shortly...

xo!



*Remember the knitting? How I used to at least attempt to be a crafty girl? Yeah, I almost don't either...

**He and I love this site....

18 comments:

Hockey Mom said...

Hey there, we work in Inman Park and were there at the Festival. I was so thrilled to see Baton Bob in the parade! Thanks for the awesome pics.

We were the crowd at the start of the parade giving out beads.

LLA said...

Hockey Mom - wasn't it a great festival this year??? This may have been my favorite yet...

I am sure that I waved to you if you were at the start of the crowd. I was standing in front of the "Slap Yo Mama" BBQ sauce tent. I was the goofy one in the tiara, snapping pictures and waving like crazy!

:)

Anonymous said...

Chemical burns...ouch!!! You are too delicate a flower to be doing yucky stuff like bleaching the house.
It looks like your strange week had a nice ending. Glad you're back! I missed you!!!

3 to get ready said...

Oh -- your poor hands! I thought it'd been awfully quiet from your direction lately!

I thoroughly enjoyed your Inman Park Parade pics. LOVE Baton Bob!

And OMG! I am so impressed that Schecky made BoingBoing! I hadn't checked in over there in a week or so or else I would surely have noticed! He is destined for great things!!!

Thimbleanna said...

Ow! I hope you're feeling better. I've missed your humorous posts!

Anonymous said...

Holy crap! I hope your hand is doing better.

we chose to go to the Lake instead of the festival. sigh

Anonymous said...

Dude. THAT sucks! So sorry about your hands. :( Hope it gets better fast love.

laura capello said...

yeouch!

and you were bleaching your house? bleaching your house?

what? did it's un-ladylike mustache get too dark?

beki said...

When you mentioned "festival" I really had no idea what you were talking about. Holy cow, that looks like a lot of fun!

Anonymous said...

Sooo sorry to hear of your injuries =[ poor thing.

Loved the pictures of the festival.

And LOVE the web site "Boing Boing"! How cool that your son's poem made it on there.

XOXO

Renee said...

My hand is hurting over here, for you. Ouch. Hope your swelling is gone and your world is back to somewhat normal.

MéLisa said...

You poor dear! Yes wear gloves! You must wear gloves! At least you had the Fiesta love to help you through! ;) I love looking at your parade pics every year! So much fun!

Rebecca said...

oh no! your poor chemical burned hands. poor dear. but is your house clean now?

schecky's poem made boingboing? i stopped l;looking at that site. too much going on all the time. way overloaded me. how excellent. does hi teacher know how famous his poem is?

glad your neighborhood fest went off nicely. three cheers for tiara wearers of the world......

African Kelli said...

I want to hug you and dance with you all at the same time in this post!
Glad you survived the weekend. I hope you are catching up on much needed rest!
And seriously, I am going to be able to say "I knew Shecky" when he is crowned poet laureate!

Me and Him said...

Ouch. I hope your hands recover quickly. You need to give up housekeeping! I can't believe you were bleaching your house.

rohanknitter said...

Ouch, ouch, ouch, double ouch!! That does not sound like fun!
Hope this week is nice and uneventful for you.

Chara Michele said...

Ouchers! Your poor hands! Glad you are back now though:)

That is pretty cool about Schecky's poem!

Anonymous said...

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear that you're injured Miss LLA! Hope you are mending with slayer-like alacrity and able to pick up the needles soon.