wood-davers

[dragonlady7]

Mom sent me that picture this morning, along with an adorable Roon squinting at the camera in his smug kitty-smile way, and a picture of the mural of Iraq Dad painted on the wall at the Armory to be there when the rest of his unit got back.
Mom called last night, to ask Z's underarm measurement. She's knitting him a sweater, and I'm more psyched about that than he is-- I don't really know why; her knitting him a sweater means she likes him, but I already knew that. Still and all, it'll be a cool sweater.
So I measured his arm, and from his armpit to his wrist it's 22 inches.
"Hm," Mom said. "The pattern suggested 17."
"That's because people are short," Z answered.
Dad's getting tattooed today, which I thought was odd, but apparently they've decided for his cancer that because it's aggressive they're doing hormone therapy plus both internal and external radiation, and they have to put little tattoo marks on him to show the radiologist where to aim the external radiation. "Are they permanent tattoos?" I asked.
Mom was on the other end, but I could hear Dad's answer: "We'll find out, won't we!"
Dad's not the tattooed sort, but Fiona (who is) would be pleased. (Actually both my younger sisters are, apparently, the tattooed sort. Fiona's is not to my taste-- a cartooney magpie on her upper thigh near her butt which, I suppose, suits her, given her love of shiny things-- but Ann's is actually pretty striking-- a thick black line tattoo of the Ogham word for ... I forget what, but it's in the Ogham stone-carving script in Gaelic, which is all straight lines. So it's kind of abstract and almost looks like stylized stitches across a scar, and it's on her shoulder blade, which I always kind of liked as a tattoo location. For their sakes, I hope Mom's not reading this. NA HA HA.)

I had a few things I wanted to do this morning, among which was taking a shower, but Z missed the bus, so I had to drive him, which takes pretty much an hour, so there went the free time. I am horribly sore and stiff-- my thighs are so tired from nonstop moving around that it was hard for me to lift my feet in the snow boots to step on the gas pedal this morning. The weather is fine, though-- just at freezing, so all the ice is melting whenever the sun comes out. I heard not one but four plows go by this morning, and was dreading having to get up and shovel the driveway, with my back as sore as it is-- I was actually lying in a state of paralyzed dread from about 5 to 7, not strong enough to get up and look at My Inevitable Fate Of Shoveling, but not asleep enough to ignore it. I think I had several dreams while in that state, including one that Jennifer Aniston had become a cheerleader for the San Diego Chargers and the world was titillated to watch her doing flips in flesh-colored underpants, which somewhat disgusted me-- a rather uncharacteristic dream for me, but better than dreaming about work, anyway!
So around 7 I finally stumbled up out of bed and went to the door, and realized it'd only snowed about 2 inches. Immensely relieved, I went back to bed.

Z shoveled the end of the driveway where the plow had left a snowbank while waiting for me to put clothes on to drive him to work, so I actually got off absolutely scot free as far as shoveling goes.
Really, we got off very light as far as this weather goes. Mom, over by Albany, has another snowday-- her second consecutive Friday off-- so she is full of glee. (Hence the email this morning with cute puppy photos.) Atlanta and Charlotte are, most likely, devastated, and will probably have some continuing delays this morning. But it's a gorgeous day in Buffalo, and I have to say, it was an over-hyped storm. Which is usually good, as it means they've already arranged for the plowmen to work overtime. Last night on my way home, there was a brief moment of panic when the white Cadillac in front of me driven by an elderly black woman totally Lost Its Shit on the curvy exit lane from the 33 to the 198, and fishtailed all over the place in a total Losing Its Shit panic. I was so alarmed I forgot myself entirely and pumped my brakes to warn the person behind me, which was risky as I keep forgetting the Prius has anti-lock brakes. Fortunately they didn't freak out. (My father has this vendetta against anti-lock brakes, which is why I've never really entirely learned to drive with them. Please understand that I am not kidding when I say I'm still getting the hang of an automatic transmission. Three years and I still sometimes try to shift the Prius, which is why it's good that the gear lever is sticking out of the dashboard so I wind up grabbing my coffee cup instead.)
I admit I am the sort that shrieks things at other drivers. But in this case, as I followed the recovered-but-obviously-shaken Cadillac down the 198 to Parkside, I was shouting encouragement as she tremulously made her way through the not-that-bad-slush. "It's ok, honey! You can do it! You're all right! Come on! You're doing 30 on the 198, but I'm behind you so if anyone comes along doing 60 they'll smack me not you! You're good! Keep it together!" I wound up following her all the way up Parkside, onto Colvin, and down Colvin all the way to Kenmore, and she didn't lose her shit again. I considered getting out at a stoplight and offering to buy her a drink, as she evidently needed one.

Meh, I haven't really got time to do anything else, so I'm trying to drink the rest of this quart of water and this entire pot of coffee, and if the two Ibuprofin I took don't kick in in another ten minutes I'm taking two more. It's going to be A Long Day today, and tonight? Z's work's Christmas party. Which, I've been told, is the sort of affair to which one usually takes a cab. It's at the publisher's house, and he lives in Allentown like right next to all the bars, and sometimes when his girlfriend kicks the partygoers out of the house, they wind up on the strip drinking at all the bars down there, and then sometimes when the bars close (I might remind you, that's 4 am in the 24-hour city of Buffalo: they close when the diners open, and such is the glory of a blue-collar town full of shift workers: shit is always open because it's not that the city never sleeps, it's just that they take turns doing so) they'll come back to the house and keep drinking. The last partygoers often leave around 8 am.
I have, of course, no idea what to wear, and will be so exhausted that I am considering volunteering to be the designated driver, and just spending half the party asleep in the room where they've stowed the coats. I have to work tomorrow, of course, 8 hours, of course. But perhaps I'll have some fun in the meantime...

OK, time to go pee a whole lot, and take more painkillers. More! My back hurts. I'll definitely be wearing a corset to tonight's party, one way or another-- am I the only one who thinks they're so fucking comfortable they should come back into fashion? They're awesome back support and render my boobs (which I admit I don't usually mind) like utterly weightless, which is beyond awesome... I'd wear them to work but they're uncomfortable for aerobic exercise and also I have this terror that they'll ring coming through the metal detector and I'd hate to explain that.
I need more corsets.

Yeah, I've had a bit of caffeine. "Wood-davers! Get on the wood-davers train! It's a Newwww Century!"