Susan fell down.

Susan and her friend Anna met after work for fancy cocktails and dinner. She knows what you're thinking already; falling down and cocktails in the span of thirteen words?

Yeah, OK.

The girls spent two hours happy to be in eachother's company, during which time Susan had two cocktails (vodka house-infused with pineapples, freshly muddled mango, lemon juice and a thin slice of jalapeno), a bowl of spicy lobster bisque, and seared tuna over rice with avocado and fruit salsa.

At the end of the evening Susan went to visit the ladies room, and within the first few steps she felt her heel slip in a direction she was not headed, but she caught herself, recovered and said under her breath let's not fall down. Five or six steps later she felt the same heel slip and this time she just kept going until she was on the floor.

Whenever Susan has fallen, which averages once every four or five years, it's always in slow motion, and as she's always surprised how far she has to go to hit bottom. Like she's taking an hour to tumble down a mountainside. On this occasion she watched a family eating dinner watch her, then stare until she resurfaced and gave them the double thumbs up.

She checked her heel for foreign matter and resumed her navigation to the restroom where she surveyed her knees for damage, then went on to buy a pair of gloves in Macy's without further incident.

That wasn't Susan's husband yesterday, she's got more than one dead guy making her sad. That was Jeff, her daughter's former figure drawing teacher, although this description of the relationship is very inadequate. Suffice it to say that Jeff was important to Susan's family and also had the distinction of having the best, most entertaining wake.

Seriously.

Susan's husband died two weeks after Jeff, so she still has that jubilee looming on the horizon, but first she'll have to endure Cousin Lisa's birthday, the day before. Susan made it through 54 years intact, there were losses, but they belonged to other folks. This double whammy is hers.

Anway, Susan's gonna give you all a break tomorrow & BLAHg about normal stuff.

While loading groceries into the fridge Susan found a forgotten head of cauliflower way in the back. Susan doesn't have one of those big fridges where everything is up at eye level, she's got the old-school-white-freezer-up-top-type requiring her to bend way down to see what's in there.
Anyway, as she retrieved the cauliflower & backed out of the fridge she banged the top of her head on the bottom of the freezer and went insane.
Insane.
She immediately began beating the Dickens out of the fridge with the cauliflower while cursing
f*ck you m*therf*cking c*ck s*cking f*cker! and spitting all over everything, even herself.
The half dead cauliflower was no match for one crazy assh*le & a fridge so it quickly disintegrated all over the floor where she just left it.
Strangely, Susan was actually mad at the cauliflower but not the fridge.

Every night before Susan goes to bed she gets her food ready for the next workday, this preparation includes a green smoothie.

Susan threw a banana into the blender, covered it with soy milk, a fistful of spinach and an over sized spoonful of frozen orange concentrate then blended the sh*t out of it for a few minutes. She sliced up an elderly mango and threw that in too.

During the cleanup Susan saw that a scrap of sticky mango skin had adhered itself to a plate. She banged the plate against the garbage but the mango skin hung on.

Susan was determined to enforce her dominance over this defiant piece of fruit skin.

She took the plate in her right hand, turned it upside down and smashed it with extreme prejudice over the garbage. She did this two or three times in rapid succession. Unfortunately, one of her fingers was in the line of fire.

Susan was smashing a dinner plate against the thumb of her left hand.

It took a few seconds for the pain to reach her tiny dinosaur brain. She stuck her thumb underneath the faucet & turned on the water. It didn't come out cold as she expected, but blazing hot and burned her almost immediately. She burns herself at least once every other day because she has been lazy about figuring out how to turn down the water temperature.

With finger burned and throbbing Susan calmly hit up the secret stash of Vicodin left over from the husband's dental surgery and ate a pill.

The she went to bed.

Poison Ivy Timeline

Tuesday: Susan scratches an itch on her wrist. Later she finds a teeny bump while scratching. Did something bite me? 

Wednesday: A cluster of tiny bumps sends Susan for the hydrocortisone cream. F*cking poison ivy!

Thursday: An explosion of poison ivy blisters assault Susan's delicate arm. She finds relief by turning on the shower as hot as it goes and thrusting her arm underneath.

Friday: Oozing, gauze. Temporary hot shower relief.

Saturday: Oozing, gauze, angry inflammation, relentless itching. Three hours in Stat Medical. First dose of Prednisone. Can't sleep because of the ITCHING.

Sunday: Oozing, gauze, relentless itching. Second dose of Prednisone.

Monday: Oozing subsides, still horrifying ugly, hot shower relief is back. Third dose of Prednisone.

Tuesday: Itching under control, ugliness continues to be hidden by gauze. Seven more days of Prednisone to go.

Who remembers that Susan's previous bout with poison ivy required medical intervention too?
No? CLICK HERE.

Susan got stung by a wasp twice in less than a minute. Ow! Ow!
As she was being attacked by a swarm of two or fewer wasps she used her awesome shrieking powers in combination with a crazy dual arm protective flailing motion while running away.

Susan's never been stung by anything except skeeters. It may have been payback for an earlier incident in which she murdered a family of wasps. Who knows. She ended up smashing this one too.

Beware wasps! You have now made an enemy of Susan.

Susan opened a kitchen cabinet and five glass bowls stacked in descending size flung themselves downward ("Hey!") exploding on her fancy granite counter top.

This was no safety glass. Shanks and shards flew from the kitchen to the dining room.

Mercifully, Susan got only one small cut but the cleanup involved a three step process;
a straight edge was employed to sweep the debris directly into a big black contractor's garbage bag,
then the cumbersome wet-dry vac,
lastly, a series of wet paper towels to wipe up the sparkly glass dust.

There were no casualties beyond the glass bowls. Spared was the the brand new candy thermometer used for the panforte Susan made last night and the French press filled with hot coffee, a mug for which Susan originally opened the cabinet.

Does the last part of that sentence sound right? Susan opened the cabinet to get a mug and the sh*t fell on top of her.

The husband claimed responsibility for improperly stacking the glass bowls, Susan forgave him and they had coffee.

Susan's poison ivy has almost completely disappeared and been replaced with a general itchiness all over her body. She's not sure if it's an actual medical condition or a manifestation of the extra thinking her brain has been doing about life and stuff.

Regardless, it's itchy.

The husband had been pushing Susan to pop some Benadryl but it makes her jumpy, so she stuck with the itching. But, the itching is insane. When she's not scratching she's thinking about scratching.

Eventually she could no longer stand it and ate the pill. It had a minimal effect on the itching but made her feel simultaneously lethargic and anxious, an unpleasant combination.
She slathered on the cortisone cream and went about her business.

This week Susan is hosting her parents, catching up on her medical appointments, seeing people, doing things and getting ready for her immediate future.

Susan lives in an area teeming with poison ivy, she keeps it off her property by pointing it out to the husband who kills it with chemicals. However, it's an invasive little f*cker and they must make monthly patrols to ensure eradication because Susan is super allergic.

Two weeks ago Susan shaved her legs. She really hates this chore because she has delicate flower petal skin, but she understands the necessity during warm weather when her prickly legs are exposed for anyone to rub up against. 

In no time Susan had a poison ivy rash across the front of her left leg. By the next day it appeared to have exploded beneath the shaved parts becoming an attention grabbing purpley red mass twice in size. Susan controlled the itch with a paste of baking soda and water but she couldn't control the horrified stares from family and co-workers. Recommendations that she go to the doctor were laughed off, her strategy was to ignore the leg until it returned to normal. 

Then her ankle swelled. 

Over the weekend Susan attended a family event and kept the spectacle hidden under a pair of black pants. When eagle-eyed aunt Eileen caught sight of it she cornered Susan and shamed her into making a doctor's appointment.

On Monday, Susan's 54th birthday, she went to the doctor and got a cortisone shot in her ass. Then she filled a prescription for some methylprednisolone, slathered her spectacle with cortisone cream and went to work. That night little sister and the available members of her family came over to celebrate and give Susan presents. 

In the morning Susan's husband brushed his teeth with her cortisone cream.

It's been ten days since Susan crash landed on her living room floor, she's been stiff, bruised and sore ever since. Her ribs took the biggest hit and as a result she hasn't been able to sleep in her preferred position; curled up on her left side like a little green inchworm. Instead, she sleeps flat on her back, stretched completely straight, and when she wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to roll over she can't because it hurts.

The bruise on her hip started out the size of a fist. After four days it exploded into a purple splotch shaped like a steak. It was pretty intense. Now it's simmering down and is only about half a steak with a bump.

Discomfort notwithstanding, Susan has only eaten about a half dozen Advil, and not all at once.

Susan and her son were horsing around in the living room, he's eighteen with a wrestler's physique and she's an elderly woman. Shortly after the son's cell phone hit the floor and Susan faked like she was going to stomp on it she found herself flying sideways through the air. She's not sure what happened, but her brain sped through a checklist of everything in her way and she knew it was going to hurt.

She crashed into it all and slammed to the floor.

The son and husband were on her in a flash, but Susan was in no condition to move. Lucy the dog came over and licked her face, Susan didn't care, her immediate thought was of the old bottle of Vicodin she found in a kitchen cabinet yesterday.

After a few minutes of wondering if she had broken anything other than the IKEA table, Susan was hoisted to her feet nauseous and in pain. She limped out the back door to get air, and to make sure she could walk.

The pain was concentrated in two areas; her left hip & ribs. Nothing was poking out, so that was a relief, but she couldn't take a deep breath or bend without wincing then crying. The hip turned a purpley black and was quite impressive getting a wow! from the daughter. The son stuck around long enough to wait for his ride to the movies then he was gone.

Feel better soon, Susan.

Susan fell down yesterday.

DOWN.

She hit a wet patch and the next thing she knew the floor was coming toward her face in slow motion.

Susan prefers to spend most of her time upright, or at least seated, so she was kind of stunned to find herself on the floor in front of an audience. Her enforced respite didn't last long, before she had a chance to yell OMG, what are you doing? her co-worker was picking her up in his arms. It took him two tries, because you're heavier than you look he explained.

Susan didn't seem to be any worse for wear and was tremendously relieved to see that nothing bad happened to her beautiful vintage pants, the lined ones with a wide cuff. Unfortunately, by the end of the day it was revealed that the heel of her much beloved shoe had been compromised.

Arghhh!

Susan has a tourniquet on her index finger. She cut herself removing an avocado pit in order to make avocado ice cream which was a recipe she found too ridiculous not to try. It called for 1/3 cup of tequila which she didn't think was appropriate for the demographic in her house, but she had no issue including two tablespoons of ginger liqueur which she regretted not increasing to three.

The morning started off with great excitement when Susan scored a 1930's typewriter on eBay for the daughter's birthday. Then she had a cup of coffee and read a number of juicy stories in her fave paper, the Post.
Go, Kerry Kennedy!
Then she cleared off her old, dead dog's grave and oversaw the son as he arranged a bunch of paving stones into a heart shape on top of it. Then she went inside and tried to chop off her finger.

Who wouldn't want this for their birthday?

Later on Susan was amused when the daughter pretended she didn't know how to pick up dog sh*t.

Susan made chicken salad from the dark meat no one ate at dinner. To minimize how unappealing all dark meat chicken salad is she threw in a bunch of nonsense like Craisins, walnuts and cilantro. As she was adding orange zest, she accidentally zested her knuckle.

This was to be tomorrow's lunch. She wanted to eat it with crackers, but she had none. Susan had been wanting to make crackers since she watched Mark Bittman make them, so she made some.

On their way out of the oven she dropped a pan and the crackers hit the floor. Susan slid them back into place and went to pick the pan up with her bare hand. Susan watched two of her fingers blister immediately; big puffy white blisters that took almost thirty seconds to send the message to her brain that OW, THEY HURT.

She reflexively reached for the small stash of Vicodin left over from her dental surgery. Reflexively? Immediately and without thinking she reached for the Vicodin and ate one, then she removed the dog hair from her crackers. It took another half hour for that loopy, boozy sensation to arrive but by that time she was in bed watching Celebrity Rehab.

One side of Susan's face is still swollen and a little black & blue. She's been using her tongue to play with the disintegrating stitches in her mouth but has been able to downshift from vicodin to ibuprofen for the pain.

Wild Bill came out to spend the afternoon which forced Susan to take a shower and change her clothes, something she hadn't done in 36 hours.
His daughter met them for lunch at a local hippie cafe, Susan ate the carrot ginger soup. Afterwards they walked a few doors down to the used book store where Wild Bill purchased forty pounds of books on WWII for nineteen dollars.

Their little sister came over for dinner and Susan ate some real food; soft chicken breast on top of salad greens with cranberries and goat cheese.
Again with the goat cheese.
She spent the rest of the evening farting.

Ow. Hugs Hurt.

For the length of time Wild Bill is in NY he has a home at Susan's house and a job ninety minutes away. After a few weeks of getting home in time to sleep for four hours before he has to get up again he's taken to bunking at a buddy's house. This is a nice arrangement for him, at least until the buddy's wife decides she's had enough of the loud, guitar strumming stranger sleeping on her couch.
In the meantime both Susan's kids ask 'When's Uncle Billy coming home?' until someone answers them.

His current schedule is to show up every three or four days, stay a day or two, then split. Even with this abbreviated arrangement his sisters are happy to have him close because this is the most amount of time they've spent with their brother since they were all kids.

Wild Bill wears a khaki fishing vest, it's got a crap load of pockets that he fills with all his belongings.
It's like his pocketbook.
Anyway, the other night he shows up just shy of midnight and gave Susan a crushing bear hug which drove something bumpy and metal into her chest.
By the time she realized that she was being impaled by something in his pocket, she was released.

The next day Susan was sporting a bump just south of her collarbone, a little inside. Ow, she couldn't resist pressing the bump making it hurt.
The day after that the bump still hurt. Ow.
Three days later the bump is a little smaller but still hurts. Ow, because Susan keeps pressing it.

Ouch

Susan's parents drove up from the heat stroked wasteland of eastern-middle Florida to bunk with her family for a week. Susan's little sister had been hosting them for fifteen years and now it was Susan's turn.
She doesn't mind because you know, they raised her.
Anyway, they're pretty good guests.
They play cards with her kids, put up with the deaf, flatulent dog and pitch in with the chores, even the ones Susan doesn't want them to do.
Susan's old man washes the dishes by hand although Susan has explained that the dishes go in the dishwasher. This isn't an arbitrary rule, if the dishes start getting washed by hand then there won't be enough dishes to run the dishwasher and then they'll all have to get washed by hand. This is a scenario Susan avoids at all cost.
The last time Susan caught her father at the sink he was washing a lasagne pan and she gently reminded him to knock it off.

The next morning Susan was in the kitchen preparing to make a cup of coffee when she saw the lasagne pan.
She picked it up & walked toward the cabinet to put it away but she hit a wet spot. She slid across the floor and didn't stop until all 160 lbs of her, and the lasagne pan, crashed into the wall.

Susan's daughter was reading in the next room and surely heard the sound of the wall stopping her mother's trajectory, yet there was no inquiry. As Susan sat there, she reviewed whether she heard a bone snap. She did not. Eventually, the daughter came in and assisted Susan by taking the lasagne pan so that Susan could crawl across the floor, hoist herself up and make coffee.

Grrrrrrr !

Susan hates it when she bangs her shin into the hard plastic container in which she stores the elderly, deaf, flatulent dog's food. Particularly when she kicks it out of frustration and knocks everything all over the floor and onto the piles of laundry she's been throwing into the machine all night.
And, why is the husband in the room asking what she's doing as she's flinging dirty clothes and dog food all over the place?
He's obviously there to make her scream at him to
leave her alone and she'll take care of it, a few times,
and bang sh*t before stomping off to drag the wet/dry vac up the stairs from the basement.
She hates all of it, including catching the kids in the crossfire by yelling at them to clean their room
and go to bed
and vacuum the house
and brush their teeth.
The last thing she hates is the sore throat she gets when she's done.