...And A Bag of Frozen Spinach On My Head

For almost a full month now, Whatever is Wrong With me, or as I like to refer to it, "W3," has been in varying degrees of flare up, resulting in fairly constant iterations of second-guessing, internal sleuthing, and just plain old being tired and bored with myself (yeah, that WAS Bruce singing in the background). The usual suspects, painkillers that is, are doing what they do best, not touching the pain, but making me care less about being in pain. So I'm cycling through trying to figure out the source of W3, just sinking into miserable self-loathing, and occasionally deciding (aGAIN) that I'm doing my situation no good by giving in to the pain.

This morning I decided that since laying low hadn't made the pain go away or even abate in the least, it was time to tell the pain to fuck off and just get up, take a big dose of something strong, and DO something. I mean, come ON. I really like movies and computer games and reading, but it's summertime, the day outside is glorious, and I'm SICK of being down.

So I crabbed down the hall and into the kitchen to whip up the peach cobbler that I've been threatening to make since the peaches showed up in the bowl on the counter a week ago. I plugged Rod the Pod into my ears and queued up Cat Stevens. Hey babe, if you're looking for a hard-headed woman, here I am!

I peeled those peaches, slogged together the batter, melted butter in the baking dish and flung the assembly into the oven. In the process, the Demented One (the ancient weiner dog I inherited from my dad) had one of his increasingly and exhaustingly common "accidents" that required my immediate attention (what!? you need more details than THAT?! what're you, nuts?) in the next room.

As I pitched the paper towels into the bin, I noticed some trash on the floor instead of in the bag, so I kneeled down, grabbed it, and stood up. WHAM! went my head on the forgotten peninsula above me. I staggered backward from the blow, and almost managed to remain upright, but nope, down I went with a howl of pain.

Holding my head as I lay there, I felt just totally overwhelmed, so I let the tears flow. I just let it out as Peter, who'd heard the crash and thought I'd dropped something but came out to check ANYway, and uncharacteristicaly rubbed my shoulder in commiseration. After laying there, sobbing about how tired I was of being hurt, of being in pain; of how sick I am of every. single. day. being another challenge, I finally stopped. I got up, dizzy and with a massive headache building rapidly.

Peter opened the freezer and reached for an icepack for the rising goose egg on my skull. Of course all the icepacks never made it back in from the bus after the Fourth, so he grabbed a bag of frozen spinach and held it out to me. At the look on my face, in a completely guileless voice he asked "Would peas be better?" Rolling my eyes, I took the bag and flopped it onto the top of my head. After a few minutes, I realised that since I was going to thaw the spinach ANYway, I might as well make a casserole, so for dinner tonight we're having spinach and broccoli casserole to go with the short ribs leftover from last night, and a very nice peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream for desert.

Hey, when life gives you lemons; make lemonade, right?