Catching up

My head is full of untyped posts again. What are the chances I get them all out? First let's back up to how Lee broke his wrist. He was at football practice, I was cooking meal for the Rec. Board. The pager goes off. The ambulance is needed at the practice field. Dh is a first responder so he is scrambling to get out the door. We both look at each other and know it is Lee. Throwing myself into the pie crust I am making I try to keep the idea of head injuries off of my mind. It is not working. I call the school. Of course no one is in the office at this time. As soon as I hang up the phone it rings. It is just a broken wrist. Wrists are no big deal. I return to my crust. From the pager the story unfolds. They are taking him by ambulance to the hospital (seventeen miles). This is a quirk of small towns, any excuse to drive that thing is a good reason. We drive him in our van to Garden City for the surgery they think he will need. The doctor thinks a closed reduction will work. Of course Lee had to sit in the waiting room for an hour without any pain medication. That broke his mother's heart. I am ecstatic about them not having to cut him open, but a little surprised. The emergency room doctor at the last hospital was sure they would put a plate in.
Since then I have been told the drill they were doing, bull in a ring, is an illegal drill. I haven't really looked into it and have mixed feelings. Football is a rough sport, practices should be rough too, but he was hit from behind in this drill and hitting in the back isn't encouraged in high school football. I see it as a gray area, but if the drill is illegal the school could be sued if the wrong child is hurt.
We were supposed to go up and bring Drama Queen and all of her stuff home the next day. We weren't released in time and couldn't make it up to get her until Wednesday of the next week. All weekend I kept trying to think of a way to squeeze in the time to go get her early, but it just didn't make sense to make a trip for her and an extra one for her stuff. The phone rings at 3:45 A.M. Tuesday morning. My groping hand finds the phone after dh has already answered the other handset. Drama queen crying. She is telling him she is starving and hasn't ate in three day. I hang up, since he is handling this call. She has no car and quit working the week before, since we were already supposed to have her out of there. I know she may be exaggerating, but I don't know anyone who can not be moved by the sound of their baby sister crying. How can I get her food? I lay in bed and worry for thirty minutes before the answer hits me. How such a simple answer took so long to come to me I don't know. To feel like I'm doing something I get out of bed and get on the computer. I look up the numbers of several restaurants in her area that deliver and write down their numbers, even though I know I can't call any of them until later in the morning. I return to bed.
While I lay there my life circles around me. It seems so fake, a charade. I pretend to have control, but at any moment I'm going to drop it all. Out loud I say "I am a failure." It is one of those moments of clarity. I realize that when I do drop it and my life spins out of control my children will be the ones who are hurt. There stable childhood will evaporate in seconds. What will they think of me then? Who will save them? The sane voice keeps trying. "Look at all the people who love you." "Only because they don't really know me." I respond. I cry uncontrollably until it is almost time to get up. The alarm wakes me fifteen minutes later. My eyes are puffy all day. Fortunately every one chalked it up to my allergies. Curly Top and I do a good job of staying busy doing substantial things all morning. We turn the compost and plant garlic.
That afternoon dh calls. His truck has broke down. There is no way it will be ready to go get Drama Queen in the morning. We decide to try pulling a trailer behind our van.
This trailer hasn't been moved in a year. There is a brace missing in the front, so walking across it I can feel it is very squashy. We aren't even sure if our van can pull it fully loaded. The tags are expired. We are going to do it anyway. We check the mail, the new tags are here. One problem is solved. We don't wait until morning. Four hours later we are in Wichita. The big furniture items are loaded. It becomes very obvious we are going to have to make two trips. We drive home and unload it into a storage unit, eat, dh takes a nap, while I get everything ready to be gone another night. We drive back to Wichita. As we are packing up the last odds and ends we are all three getting a bit silly. It is three in the morning. Dh is throwing the things from the freezer into a garbage bag and comes across a bag of shrimp.
"You hadn't ate in three days and you had shrimp?" He asks her.
"I hate shrimp that is for the girls." She replies. He pulls out a package of hot dogs. "Now I would have ate those if I would have known they were in there." She says. He finishes up the freezer, checks on the pool to make sure it is still draining, moves on to the fridge. He pulls out a bottle.
"Look you have a whole bottle of ketchup."
"You expected me to drink ketchup?" she asks him
I but in with "You could have put it on a fuckin' hot dog."
It is nice to have her home safe and sound. It is really nice to be done with the moving. Although dh and I both agree that the thought of two four hour trips (one-way) is a lot worse than actually doing it.
This blog is nowhere near caught up, but I'm going to take a break for sleep.