Bi And Large

OK, so I have a car. It's a 2004 Sienna XLE, and it's all TRICKED OUT. It's a few years older than I originally was planning on but worth it in age for all the stuff it has in it. Leather, sunroof, JBL sound system, power everything, navigation system telling me where to turn, DVD entertainment system in back, heated seats, all kinds of crap. It's slate gray and I am pleased with it.

On Friday it will be a year since Sam died. It feels weird to even write that. A year and all this pain and it hasn't even really sunk in. What a year. A year ago, I had a pretty normal boring life. Now I am walking around in this fog of pain all the time, every day, trying to make sense out of my world since Sam sin't in it any more. A year ago I had a husband who liked to talk to me and gave me backrubs and would laugh with me sometimes. Now I just live with this man who hates me, I don't know why, and I'm trapped. A year ago I missed Australia and everything about it and wanted to go back as soon as we could. Now I can't stand to even hear about it because it's all too horrible to even contemplate. A year ago I believed in God. I don't think I do any more. A year ago my biggest struggle was dealing with physical illnesses and figuring out how to lead the healthiest life I could. Now I don't even care. I only want the grief to stop, the pain that grips me all the time and never leaves and makes me feel like I can't breathe while I watch the life I had swirl down the drain.

Nothing's the same. The people I cared about most in the world have left me. Everything I believed in was false. It's not really a life worth living any more.

With all props to Elastic Waist:

"An epiphany: there's this beauty ideal, right? It changes, sometimes, but let's say for now that it's the Barbie body, six feet tall, long glossy hair, giant tits and little waist, a flare of hips, legs ten miles long. That is what beautiful is supposed to be, right?

It really is beautiful. But it's not the only beauty. It is not the only beauty. It is not binary, not you are a one or you are a zero. It is not either or. You don't have to look like that. You can be short and round and boobless, or boobtacular, bootylicious or boyish, and you are still gorgeous. This is so simple--so ridiculously, insultingly obvious--and it is still something we forget, every single day. We still spend hours and days and years of our lives berating ourselves for not matching up exactly to a single, lonely, teeny tiny facet of beauty. We waste so much time because we think we are not beautiful in the correct way, the proper way, the right way, and it is bullshit. The correct way to be beautiful is to look like yourself. Write that down. Remember this."

Could any more things drop on me.

Iris has had a really bad rash for a few days. I thought it was just her breaking out in Fifth's, but it didn't present like Fifth's. It started at her hairline and worked its way down over her entire body, breaking out her trunk, legs, hands, and feet in red spots or a lacy rash. I took her to the ped today and they seem confused by it. Definitely a viral rash. COULD be Fifth's, because Amy also had it, but if it is it's by far the worst Fifth's rash they have ever seen. Could be measles.

Yay. Measles.

Treatment for either is the same, basically keep them comfortable and wait for it to pass. So they pretty much are leaving it at that. Poor Iris.

On another note, as you know I have had an incredibly crap week. Among other things, I have been shopping for a new car. I have decided on a Sienna, but I haven't quite figured out where to get one yet. Just this morning, as I was frustrated and feeling lonely while looking through the cars, I flipped through the same old same old. Grey, grey, grey. Red, grey, bue, grey, white, grey. Grey, silver, grey, grey. All the standard colors. And then something caught my eye - someone close by is selling a Sienna in the year I want, in the options I want, at the price I want.

It's purple.

I take that as a sign,

I love you, big Sis.

I miss my Sammers.

Tomorrow is my birthday. Everyone send cake and flowers!

So we're sill looking for a car. And tonight we were out at a dealership, talking to a dealer while the girls checked out the cars on the showroom floor next to us. All of a sudden we hear a slam and a HOWL that didn't seem to stop... Amy had slammed her thumb in the door. Which is always rotten and it REALLY hurts, but this was a particularly bad slam. The latch itself was caught right on her thumbnail, which had broken her skin while mashing up her thumb and was bleeding, getting blood all down the door of the white showroom car (lovely!) She had panicked and was still gripping the door handle which kept her thumb caught so it took some wrangling to get her free. The VERY kind people at the dealership helped with ice and cold washcloths and bandaids, but even so her thumb looked pretty horrible. It was swollen and purple-black, although that faded to red after some time. And Amy, who is not a big crier by nature, howled for a good 20 minutes I think. So we started to wonder if she had broken it.

Cue the Urgent Care clinic, 10pm at night, tired kids, X-rays. I am having flashbacks to 11month old Amy and her fractured tibia and I am wondering just when CPS is coming out to remove this poor kid we keep mangling up. She was terrified of the Xray machine and I couldn't be in the room with her which was hard. Iris was so tired too, and her nappy was overwet, and it was just a rather exhausting experience on top of a string of exhausting experiences we've had lately. The good news is nothing broken. But her thumb looks really nasty and will look worse before it gets better. Yikes.

So the update is we're all home, kids are going to sleep at last although it's about midnight. I don't have a car and we're all feeling a little housebound. I don't really know what I will look at for a car yet but I am leaning towards a Toyota Sienna. Readers who have known me a long time will remember how enamored I used to be of my silver Camry, and the Sienna reminds me of that. But with space for 2 kids and their bikes and the giant dog. I don't have a job yet either, and I don't even have my resume written up because I can't even remember where and when I used to work most places and the only record I have of my work history is an old resume in Word 97 format on floppy disk. And my disk drive is non-functional. Hmmm. But I do have a lead on a local vet hiring entry level Vet Techs and providing training, plus I could work the hours around the kid's school. So that is one great idea. Heaven knows I am ALL about the pets!