People, I have news for you: the Holidays are here already, man! If the constant glittery ads on TV hadn’t tipped you off, let’s tick some stuff off the 2011 list: we gave out a buttload of candy to lots of little people dressed like Iron Man and Jack Sparrow, Black Friday has come and gone, the turkey carcass was picked up by the trash man today. The only thing left is Christmas, bro, and I am frightfully behind the times!
It hit me smack out of nowhere. I used to plan for the holidays starting in August. I’d make my list, hand-stamp some homemade cards, and choose the Turkey Day menu by the end of September.
This year has been a bit different. In August, I emailed my mom and Aunt Pam (my chosen craft fair shopping buddies) and sent them the list of all the craft fairs that were scheduled in our area, and which dates we could go. I anticipated, planned, and looked forward to the unbridled, cider-scented, hiding-gifts-from-the-girls-you’re-shopping-with goodness!
Then, on a random Tuesday early in November, I went to a meeting. It was for work, at a place that stretched my mileage budget, during a time that wasn’t terribly convenient, and with a Person I Don’t Incredibly Like.
That day, the Person I Don’t Incredibly Like sounded just awful. She was heavily congested, even more so than her normal heavy-smoker tones. No, she was beyond sick.
And close to me. In fact, she was so excited that I’d come all the way down to her town for her meeting, she made a point of coming over to talk to me (this Person I Don’t Incredibly Like being foreign, and having no Sense of Personal Space) extremely closely.
I backed up, she stepped forward, passionately exclaiming about our common cause. It’s a nonprofit, we are passionate. Fantastic. But why passion must invariably accompany heavy saliva spray, I may never know.
“If I don’t get this cold, I must donate my immune system to science for the study of its miraculous powers,” thought I, as I raced to the distant ladies’ room to wash everything she’d spat upon.
Too late. It had engaged the mucous membranes.
So, I remember the very moment I became ill. I then missed the first three craft fairs on my calendar, slept through a friend’s event with out of town family, promptly gave my husband the Creeping Crud I’d contracted from the Person I Don’t Incredibly Like, and he took it to a new level.
The Hubs doesn’t ever just get sick. His sickness life cycle goes from cold to bronchitis to freakishly bad pink eye at lightning speed. He wakes us both with a cough that sounds like death. Meanwhile, I begin to feel better, but then break out in a freak coughing fit in the middle of an important meeting with the boss. I run down the lane of cubicles hacking, crying, gagging, reddening, all the while nodding and holding out a thumbs-up at my harried coworkers as if to say, “It’s all good, yo!”
By this time, between my work and helping the Hubs with his business, I have an “Oh Crap” moment. I have to buy a turkey. Thanksgiving is next week.
I have to take a day off to clean the house. My husband is still sick. I’m not feeling that great, either. But I get up on Turkey Day, and things are looking good. I have my yearly heart-to-heart with Tom the Turkey, ease all twenty pounds of him into the oven, and take a breath.
Have I made it? Will I actually have a moment to enjoy the holidays?
The Hubs wakes up. His eyes are crusted over. He has pink eye. I host Thanksgiving alone, and he makes an Evita-esque appearance at the landing on our stairs.
That weekend, the hubs has some old roommates (and their wives and children– all under four, in a house made of nothing but glass and candles and sharp edges) over for dinner and we have overnight guests. In the past three years, I have never cleaned this house or gone up and down the stairs as much as I have in the last few days.
The Hubs is feeling better. I woke up today with another cold. I have to say, the Person I Don’t Incredibly Like has now become the Person I Like Even Less. Poo.
Poo is right! Hope you’re feeling better soon, Kellye!
Thanks, doodies! I hope you’re doing well!