The nearness

I’m going to just forget about the last 2.5 hours of work and say that I have 3 days left until my 3 weeks of vacation begin.

3 short days that will almost certainly be very, very busy so should go by quickly.

I bought a dress for the wedding we’ll be attending on the 5th of June.  It was a steal, well, not a steal because I paid for it, but rather a glorious find at the TK Maxx on Sunday.  It’s a Calvin Klein sundress made out of light cotton and is white with green and blue stripes that look hand painted going about 3/4s of the way down.  It is knee-length, just right for my body type and totally 100% awesome.  And it was only £50. 

Dear TK Maxx, I love you.  Even more than I used to love your American cousin TJ Maxx.  True fact.

Plans are in the works for sightseeing around London next week.  Then Barcelona, then America.

Our plans are still pretty loose but thus far we plan on visiting:

• Clearwater, FL
• Savannah, GA
• Charleston, SC
• Durham, NC
• Someplace else in NC I can’t remember the name of
• Maybe Myrtle Beach
• Indianapolis
• Niles, MI (very briefly)
• Chicago, IL

We’re still on the fence about Nashville and Memphis because of flooding and timing and all so we may just coast around TN aimlessly.  If anybody knows where we 100% ought to go, tell me.  Please.

I’m still working on convincing Jeremy to go to Dollywood.  He remains curiously resistant to the power of Dolly.  I don’t understand how, he just does.

Hands and ears and wings

You will, I’m sure, be thrilled to know that my hands are healing nicely.  Today is the first day I’ve let the left one go without a band-aid, although I will probably cover it for the bus ride home.  Busses are the natural habitat for all sorts of germs.  I’m keeping the right one covered though.  it still looks really gross.

You may also be thrilled, or perhaps just interested, to know that keeping band aids on the heels/palms of your hands is no small task.  These lousy things just don’t ever want to stick properly.  It’s a pain.

I have only one more week of work left until I get to take 3 whole beautiful weeks off!  The first of those three weeks will be split between sightseeing here in London with my friend Heidi and then at Primavera in Barcelona where I will go partially deaf listening to loud rock n roll as played by some of my very favourite bands.  I cannot wait.

We’ve got plans to go to Kew Gardens, the Chelsea Flower Show, both London Tates, the Horniman Museum and a variety of other touristy type places.  Plus some time to drink wine in parks will be set aside.

After getting back from Barcelona Jeremy and I head back to the Americas for our epic road trip spanning from Florida to Chicago.  We may have to mark Nashville off our plan though due to the flooding, which is sad, but there’s still Memphis, and if I get my way, Dollywood.

It feels impossible that I’m so close to such a long luxurious span of time off.  Three whole entire weeks.  I can barely fathom it.  Usually you have to be unemployed to get that much time off.

Also of note, during these three weeks Jeremy and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary and I will celebrate making it one whole entire year without smoking.  Well done, me!

Grace

Jeremy often expresses disbelief at the fact that I used to take dance and acrobatics classes when I was a kid.  He is especially disbelieving when I tell him I was actually pretty good.  Not great or anything, but I could do some pretty tricky stuff.  He finds these claims hard to believe because he says I am sort of clumsy and possibly a tiny bit accident prone.  Normally I would disagree with him and just say that when it comes to activities like walking or climbing stairs I tend to be a little bit unlucky.

That sprained ankle in Amalfi could have happened to anyone, same goes for that bicycle accident in Chicago.  And that sprained ankle in Chicago wasn’t my fault at all, it was my friend Poindexter’s fault for distracting me while I was trying to walk down a dark footpath.  That time I fell off the snow bank in Detroit was just because I was wearing new boots and wasn’t used to length of the toe, yes, that’s exactly what it was. 

This weekend, though, I kind of played into the normally unfair classification of myself as clumsy.  We were leaving a party at around 2 AM Saturday night / Sunday morning.  I had perhaps had a few bottles of beer.  Just a few, not enough to impair my abilities, just enough to raise the spirits, you understand.  Somehow, though, my toes caught on something, a paving tile maybe, a stick, perhaps a snail.  And I went flying face first toward the pavement.  Luckily, my face avoided connection with the pavement.  Unluckily, my hands did not and I ended up with a very ground up right palm and a somewhat less ground up left one.  Also a slightly twisted ankle. 

Then I got to walk all the way home looking like I had a bad case of stigmata.  And a bit of a limp.  Oh, and a less than sympathetic husband who may need a refresher course in how to be nicer to a grumpy and wounded wife.  That said, Jeremy helped me clean and dress my hands when we got home.  they’re feeling a little better today although they still look pretty gross (really gross, actually) so I have them covered up with big fat plasters and am trying to avoid things like child lock caps and sticky doors.

Perhaps I should look into taking ballet classes again, maybe that would give me back some of my former poise and grace?  Or maybe it would just open me up to more potential for injury and embarrassment?  Probably the latter.  I’ll stick with yoga in my closed off front room for now.  There’s less chance of either of those happening this way.

Dear Brain,

Please stop hurting.  This headache is the pits and I am tired of it.  I still need to go to the grocery store and get something for dinner and right now I am just feeling annoyed at you for hurting.  Uncool, brain, very uncool.

Thanks,

Carolyn