Today marks six years since I started this blog, and in some ways, this is a very similar day. Okay, in one way: it is raining in SoCal.
However, on December 7, 2003 I was excitedly planning a Christmas visit to Wales, with a side trip to Paris. Today, I'm just trying to figure out how to get through the day without putting weight on my right foot.
That very first blog post is a better read than this one is likely to be.
On Friday, my doctor confirmed my suspicion that I'd sprained my foot -- very badly, she noted, as it was too swollen to wear a shoe, and the evidence of broken capillaries on my skin led her to believe that whatever it was I actually did to it was done with some force.
I still don't know how I got the sprain. My friend Jennifer thinks I may have stomped my foot in anger and frustration after getting hit by a car (just after getting it repaired from another accident that was NOT MY FAULT). I'm thinking she's probably right -- but I have no recollection of any of it.
The doctor administered a cortisone shot to reduce the pain and swelling, and it helped, as did my determination to stay OFF my foot for as long as I could.
Somewhere in our garage is a pair of crutches we bought just before my 45th birthday, when I broke my little toe. It's futile to go looking for them. They are most likely buried under a six foot tower of furniture and boxes of stuff that were in our living room before we removed the wooden floor.
I spent the entire weekend parked on the living room couch. When I absolutely must get off my butt (i.e., to go to the bathroom!) I've been getting around the house by hopping on my good foot. Why waste money on a second set of crutches I may never use for another decade, right?
So it was an exceedingly dull weekend. We had scheduled our annual visit to the Los Angeles Auto Show on Saturday, but as I couldn't put any weight on my right foot, we put those plans on hold... possibly until next year.
By that night, I was practically pain-free, and when my husband and daughter balked at preparing a simple meal of roasted salmon and vegetables, I ended up doing it.
Standing in the kitchen for just five minutes set the pain off again. Badly. And I made sure my family knew it. I guess all my complaining did some good, because last night, they did make dinner.
But this morning, I awoke to a sink full of dishes and no one around to do them but me.
Sometimes I think my family believes that the kitchen cleans itself. Megan did help out on Saturday by washing everything that had accumulated up to that point - but she seemed to think that having accomplished that, nothing more needed to be done. I guess she still hasn't learned the frustrating fact that housework is NEVER actually done. As soon as you finish a task, it has to be repeated.
Sending my husband out to shop was also an interesting experience. I've known for a long time that I need to be extremely specific about what I want, which can make it exhausting to write out a list. So when he calls me from a store and asks "do we need anything?" it can be risky to answer "yes."
I asked him to pick up some "wild-caught salmon" and to ask to have the skin removed. He returned with farmed salmon (skin intact) and the news that there was no "wild cod." We had a good laugh over the fact that after 20 years together, we still sometimes misunderstand each other's accent. I tried not to be irritated that after 20 years, he still can't remember that I'm allergic to cod.
And thus concludes this year's blogiversary post. I think I'll go hobble back to the couch to watch TV with my sick child... while I contemplate a meal I can get my husband to cook tonight without having to do too much shopping.
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