So the Zombie Thumb made life interesting for awhile. I never really think about how much I favor my left hand (I was originally a left-hander, but my step-father decided that it would be better if I were right-handed and therefore forced me to learn to do everything with my right hand, and of course, now I only favor my right hand if writing, using a scissors or a fork.
I invite you to try, right this minute, to unbutton your pants with your opposite hand. Feels weird, huh? Now try it with your dominant hand, but without using your thumb. EVEN HARDER? I totally get the whole evolution thing now, because man, that thumb is an important thumb! I use it for EVERYTHING. And even when I’m not consciously using it as a preference, I’m using it. For instance, try to sit in the passenger side of a car and buckle the seatbelt without using your left thumb. Try to close a Ziploc sandwich bag. Try to do anything with what essentially has become as ineffective as a molded Barbie hand. It’s like trying to knit with your toes. Fingers? Fingers are useless. Apparently, if I have a handful of thumbs, I would have found a way to save the planet years ago, because thumbs are where it’s at.
I was able to switch to a Band-Aid after a week, although without the padding, the stitches made the gash hurt whenever I, thinking that I had a full set of ten working digits, stupidly bumped it on anything. After the Chicago weekend, I decided that I had had enough and the gash had more or less healed and I didn’t feel like paying a co-pay just to do something I learned in the first week of Home Ec: an easy seam rip. Plus, the emergency room staff gave me all the tools they used to do the job, so I had a handy clamp, teensy evil looking scissors and a few other implements. And if I couldn’t figure it out, I’d slap another Hello Kitty Band-Aid over it and make an appointment. I was hoping that it would have hurt even a little bit, so that I could cop some kind of hard ass attitude about it, but actually, it was very anti-climactic. Of course, after I had the stitches out, I realized that, hmmm’ really probably should have left them in a little longer, since the flap hadn’t quite healed all the way. I stuck a Band-Aid over it but was satisfied that it hurt much less than it did with the stitches.
It’s pretty much healed now, although there is a very pink shiny area of new skin that is sometimes redder than anything else, and when I forget and put pressure on the area just right, it hurts very deep inside, where I’ve been suspecting there might be some slight nerve damage. But really, it’s so much better every week that I don’t even think there will be much of a scar when it’s finished healing. When I hold my hand the way I was holding the tomato, I’m a little amazed that I didn’t actually slice the entire tip off, so things are pretty good.
The worst side effect to the Zombie Thumb incident, however, was that I couldn’t go to the nail salon for fear of getting a staph infection. And without polish to pick off, suddenly it became so much easier to nibble on my nails. I’ve had a little set back on the nail biting thing. I did go back to the salon for a pedicure and the owner came by and clucked over the disappearance of my fingernails (she always complimented me on their shape, something only a nail salon owner would care about). Right now, there’s no point in getting a manicure, but I may have to throw on a coat of blushy pink, just to prevent myself from gnawing on them.
Apparently, I should have run through some kind of 12 step program for nail biting. Even after five years on the wagon, I’m still a nail biter at heart.
On Saturday morning, Esteban and I went to the Farmer’s Market and even though it was not even 9 am and the market is on a tree-lined street, it was brutally hot and humid. Despite our sandals, shorts and t-shirts, my head started to feel a little swimmy and Esteban even had sweat on his upper lip. We spent a grand total of fifteen minutes at the market. Total haul: two pints of Door County cherries, three peaches, caramel corn (CRACK), and a bouquet of flowers. The heirloom tomatoes were gone and we were both not in the mood to look at the artisinal cheeses, because it was, in Esteban’s opinion, anti-cheese weather. The only reason I would have wanted cheese would have been to make a tomato salad anyway, so I really didn’t argue. Panting, we made it back to the arctic air-conditioning of the truck and then slurped our iced mochas until we felt our core temperatures drop back down into sane levels. I had more plans for the morning, but since Esteban had to work on a freelance article and I really didn’t want to go back out in the 100 degree jungle heat, I decided instead to get through my (fucking) laundry. The (fucking) laundry took a backseat during the Zombie Thumb situation, since it was difficult to carry a full hamper of laundry up the stairs without a thumb, so most of the time, I just took everything in my arms without a hamper, greatly reducing the volume of clothes going up and down the stairs. Sometimes I could con Esteban into carrying it for me (sad face, thumb stuck up like a flag of surrender) but most of the time, it was just easier to wear something else from my closet. Apparently, however, it’s been longer than I thought since I got all the way through the entire dirty pile, because there were clothes on the bottom that I last wore in San Francisco. IN APRIL.
With that many clothes that needed to get stored in my six cubic feet of closet space, it was clear that it was time for my long overdue seasonal closet turnover. But my storage bins were still full of sweaters that I never took out last year, so it was clearly time to cull the herd once again. I cleaned out the bins that were in the linen closet, refolded everything, and had three 45-gallon garbage bags to take to Goodwill. I still have to do the ones under the bed, but since everything is fitting right now, I may just let that go until October or November, when I do it again.
I have way too many t-shirts, by the way.
I really wanted to finish cleaning out the linen closet and then get to the cleaning closet, because it is becoming woefully obvious that my six cubic feet of closet space is NOT ENOUGH, especially when you look at our antique coat stand behind our bedroom door, which is meant to be Esteban’s hat rack but which is overburdened with my purses, scarves and any winter coats that we can shove on there. In the dark, it looks like a hulking intruder lurking behind the door. And most of our winter coats are still hanging on the hooks in the kitchen. There was no reason that the cleaning closet needed to be stuffed to the brink with supplies, especially since we haven’t used most of them in over a year, not since the addition of The People into our lives. I mean, our vacuum cleaner broke over a year ago and I haven’t even missed it once. At some point, I’ll have a reason to get it fixed or buy a new one, but right now, it just doesn’t seem that urgent.
However, with the twinges in my abdomen and my overall crankiness, I knew that estrogen happy hour was about to commence and I would never be able to get through all of the bending and lifting involved with closet overhauls, so I put my plans on hold, popped some Advil and waited for Esteban to finish his work so that we could go to the in-laws and swim in their pool.
Normally, it’s too chilly to float on the raft for very long: with the water heated to the mid-nineties, the differential between the air and water makes the air seem colder than it is and I can only tolerate it for so long, until the warmth of the water is too tempting to ignore. I always savor the really hot days, because I can float until I start to feel the sun make its way through my SPF 50. On Saturday, the 92 degree water actually felt cool. After about five minutes on the raft, floating was too warm. Esteban would swim over and douse me with water when he’d notice my suit was dry, and at one point, I swear I actually heard the water sizzle as it hit my black swimsuit. Every fifteen minutes, I had to hop back into the water because I was starting to feel as though my ass was going to ignite.
Those are still the best days to swim ever, though. We stay in until we feel too pruny to continue, rather than sinking lower and lower in the water as the air gets colder and colder. When we jump out, the air feels nice and warm, and we stand on the deck to drip dry rather than huddling in white terry robes, teeth chattering and skin turning to gooseflesh. If it’s going to have the audacity to be 99 degrees, at least it’s on a Saturday and I can spend it floating on a blue piece of foam and sipping a mojito instead of staring at a computer screen and then walking across a seething blacktop parking lot to get into my black car with the scalding black leather seats.
I mostly hung out with the guys in the pool but after awhile, I was starting to feel too crampy and nervous about the princess time situation (cough), so I got dressed and tried hanging out with his mom and her best friend in the house. They were putting together a puzzle. With lilacs on it. And a white picket fence. They refused to turn the puzzle into a drinking game and shuddered when I shouted ‘Take that, bitch!’ when I’d find two pieces that fit together. I lasted about seven minutes. I’m not good at playing puzzle, apparently. And oddly enough, that fact doesn’t bother me in the slightest. There’s a reason I didn’t test well for the Amish career track.
