But That was a Long Time Ago

22 years ago. I met my husband 22 years ago today. Around 2:00 or so to be exact. We were both seniors at different high schools here in town.

Bryan's best friend and my best friend had seen each other in a crowd and worked a mutual friend into getting them together to meet each other. The meeting was to take place at Bryan's best friend's home with an afternoon of horseback riding. (His friend's father owned a carriage company that gave historic tours of our city. They lived a short distance out of town on a wonderful piece of property that also doubled as the "off time" headquarters for the draft horses that pulled the carriages. Other horses lived there too).

This mutual friend of ours, Matthew, had worked it so that the best friends would meet to go horseback riding. My husband was one of the "other couples" that was there, and since Matthew's girlfriend couldn't go that day, I was recruited to go so that he wouldn't be a third in the group.

It was Christmas Eve and unseasonable warm. I was wearing a yellow Coca-Cola shirt and jeans (remember the Coca Cola fashion craze?). It was really a bit warm to have on jeans, but given that we were going to be horseback riding I couldn't get away with wearing shorts. So, I was there with Matthew, Bryan was there with another girl (we'll call her "C", I knew of her and thought she was his girlfriend), and my best friend and his best friend were there together. If there were others I don't remember, but it does seem as if there was one more couple along.

Off we go horseback riding through the woods and riding trails. We each had our own horse except for Bryan and C, they were sharing one. I remember there were lots of cat calls from the peanut gallery when C put her arms around Bryan to hold on. At the time I thought it was odd that they were cat calling people who were dating.

Some time during the ride one of the couples began sharing a horse and C got her own, leaving Bryan on his own horse too. We were at a point on the trail where the horses needed to jump a ditch that was full of fresh rainwater and Bryan and I had the only horses that willingly crossed. This left us on the other side long enough for me to feel the need to try to make small talk. Most of you know that Bryan was not a small talker back then (he's much better now). And the barrage of yes and no answers to my questions that were designed to get him talking left me with a feeling of "this guy thinks he's better than me - what a jerk". Really! And I couldn't wait for the other horses to decide to join us.

Our "conversation" went something like this:

me: Do you and Dan ride these trails a lot?
him: Yea.

me: Are the horses always scared; does this happen a lot?
him: not really

me: you're kind of a big guy, do you play football?
him: yes

me: do you enjoy it?
him: yeah, or I wouldn't play.

Looking back I probably could have asked better questions; ones that required more than a yes or no answer, but I hadn't met anyone who didn't want to talk about themselves before (what does that mean, I wonder?). I was stunned by the shortness of his answers and kind of wondered if he was being this way so as not to get his girlfriend upset with him. Turns out, he was just being this way. He was shy.

So, fast forward to mid January. Our best friends had begun dating and my best friend wanted to set me up with one of his friends. I was up for that; his best friend was fun and I imagined any friend they set me up with would be too. But the first name that came out of her mouth was Bryan's. Of course I remembered the thrilling conversation we had, and the fact the he was dating "C", and quickly reminded my friend that he was a jerk who was dating someone. She insisted that #1, he was not a jerk and #2, he was not dating "C", nor had he been the day we met. They kind of liked each other but definitely were not dating.

After I very hesitantly agreed to go out on a double date with them, she then called Bryan to set it up. Luckily for me, remembered me as the "cute girl in the Coca Cola shirt with the big boobs" and agreed.

After an evening at the $1.oo movie, McDonald's and the marina we actually had several two sided conversations. I hadn't needed to get money from Momma to pay for my half of the date after all (I seriously thought there was a good possibility that he would let me pay my share). All went very well. However, upon dropping me off at my house at the end of the evening, he just pulled into the driveway, said goodbye, and waited for me to get out. No walking me to the door or anything. I had been on many dates and I was expecting him to come open my door and walk me up to the front door. After a few awkward minutes of idle chit chat, I realized I just needed to escort myself out of the car and to the door. And I did.

I had no idea what his thoughts were of our date. We had a nice time and good conversation, but not walking me to the door threw me. I should tell you that it was raining that night, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my mind. I guess that's how intrigued I was by him. I normally wouldn't have gone out with anyone else a second time after not walking me to the door at the end of a date. But this time, I anxiously waited for our paths to cross again a week or so later. And now...yadda, yadda, yadda, here we are spending our 23rd Christmas Eve together.

(Yes, 23rd. 22 years ago, but 23 Christmas Eve's. You can figure it out.)

A Quick Aside

Why is it that every time I declare that I'm done with Christmas shopping I run out and get something else that needs to be wrapped? It's like I can't get enough and don't want it to be over. I would love to have more to give everyone, but I've got to stop. I'm running out of time and funds.

So, I will declare (for the first time here, but definitely not the first time this season), that I am done!

Now...no more last minute trips to Costco, the drug store, or to online stores. I'm done.
Oh, except for getting the provisions for Christmas Eve dinner and for staying at the house with the Red Tin Roof for a few days.

Two Things...

1) I did, in fact, get to wear a shoe today on my "bad toe" foot. Yay! I could tell I had a shoe on it - just a tad uncomfortable,. But, A SHOE! How exciting after 10 days of No Shoe.
So if that crazy lollipop owl asks how many days it takes to get to wear a shoe after a toe nail removal...the answer is 11. 11.

2) Overheard at supper after my 4th grader's Christmas performance tonight: (background: the whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles, Grandparents all out to eat yummy Mexican) the precocious three year old comes to tell me Hannah Montana has another name. And that name is: Miley Sinus.

You laughed just a little bit didn't you? I did. I made her say it again, and again to make sure I heard right and because it was just so DAMN cute (or funny - whichever way you look at it).

Big Toe Update!

10 days later on the toe....

Ugly! Not nearly as sore as it was immediately after nail removal; but I'm still not in a shoe.
I was released from DC (Doctor's Care) today. Man those people are really nice - I actually enjoyed going (5 more times) to get my toe looked at, cleaned, soaked and wrapped. And today I was given the blessing of having the toe "out in the air" to dry out a little but back under bandages and Neosporin at night (who am I kidding, it's generic Triple Antibiotic Ointment, not Neosporin).

Did I mention that it's crazy ugly? I mean CrAzY! Mostly because of the black stain from the silver nitrate they used to cauterize it. This kind of makes the hole where the 1/2 of the nail used to be look a bit gangrenous. Sadly, today is the first day where I actually think it's beginning to look better. And that's mostly because the nice Physicians Assistant spend time sloughing off the black, stained areas today. (Grossed out yet?) Luckily it didn't hurt.

I may get brave and try a shoe tomorrow. I may also chicken out - we'll see.

Julia had me search YouTube to see if she could see a an ingrown nail removal procedure. Sure enough, there's plenty to choose from if anyone's interested; I could barely stand to watch it (phantom sympathy pains) so I won't link it here. You can go on your own if you're so brave. Julia may have a future in the medical industry given her lack of squeamishness over my toe and this YouTube clip. Hopefully the medical industry will still be lucrative when it's her turn to enter the work force.

There's a Magnet in my Car

Over the years, my car has hit (ie: I have hit), or has been hit by the following odd things...

1 - A water balloon. Close to curfew in high school (read: almost midnight) this thing hit square on my windshield. It sounded like a gun shot and the water made the windshield look shattered for a split second. This was done on a road where I know I personally wasn't the target. I was just lucky enough to be the next car driving by.

2 - A squirrel. He just fell right off of the overhead power line. Again - right smack in the middle of the windshield. I got to see him land, dead, on the road in the rear view mirror.

3 - Bambi. He leapt right out of the kudzu vines on the side of River Road and head butted my rear hub cab. I of course caught a glimpse of him spinning 'round and 'round on the road from the rear view mirror. Even though this happened in the middle of a pretty good curve, I turned around and pulled him off of the road. Rendering my hands bloody. Luckily I was near the home of my boyfriend and his parents (now my in laws) and stopped to regain my composure and wash my hands. Did I mention I'm a good crier?

4 - A Turkey Vulture. O.K., this actually hit Bryan's windshield when he was driving on Johns Island, but this is such an odd one that I had to add it to the list. It decided to take flight right as Bryan was passing by. He barely got lifted up off the ground and into the lane when the car went by. The bird was so big that it actually cracked and slightly "concaved" our windshield. Nice.

5 - We won't mention all of the countless frogs and possums and the occassional raccoon - I really try to avoid these. In this list, these may be the only things I have hit. They didn't jump out at me or anything weird. And I think Bryan really tried to miss that dog that time.

6 - The latest odd thing was just two nights ago. Headed to "The Pig" (For those of you not in SC, that's the nickname of our grocery store. It's full name is The Piggly Wiggly; redneck sounding I know, but it's a staple here in the south) anyway, I'm headed to The Pig around 9:30 pm (for morning milk that we realized went bad wwaayy before the due date) and from out of the cute shrubs lining our subdivision entry road comes a yellowish blur that clearly flies into something attached to my car. I'm guessing the wheel well by the sound of it. Well I immediately flash back to the water balloon and think someone may have been hiding in the bushes throwing things, so I circle to take a peak. No. It was a precious....ready for this...owl. An owl! Are you kidding me?! I took out a precious owl. Well, technically he flew in to me, so maybe he was depressed or adventure seeking or something. He won, or lost depending on which it was. But there is a dead owl here, nonetheless. And since I google everything I have decided that he was possibly a Barred Owl or Barn Owl. I guess this based on the beautiful orange color and the patterns on his feathers.

I've got to find that magnet and get it out of my car. I'm tired of feeling guilty because these creatures feel the need to jump into me.

3 Doctor Visits for a 4 Day Weekend

Three out of the last 4 days I've been to one doctor's office or another .

First- to the allergist. To finally find out what is causing the incessant sneezing and itchy, rash-y eyes. That was Thursday.

Then, Saturday I went to Dr.'s Care to find out what the tumor-like growth was on the side of my toe/nail since having stumped it 2 weeks ago. And then again today - back to check on the toe.

So, to back up; Thursday I found out that I was allergic to: some kind of little known weed that only blooms in the fall and is already gone. Ragweed. American Cockroaches. Mold. Mildew. Dust Mites. Cats. Dogs.

Let me remind you. I am the girl who has NEVER been allergic to anything in her 39, nearly 40 years of life. I live in Charleston, home of the biggest American Cockroaches (aka Palmetto Bugs), and to some of the highest humidity this side of London (ie: lots of mold around). I have recently had a housekeeper quit (lots of dust around) and I have lived with cats since I was in 2nd grade (I currently have 2 residing here) and dogs on and off since I was 4. I have been with at least one dog non stop since I was 26. There is currently one living with us now.

So I call this "Rapid Onset Allergies". What the @#*&?

On to my toe: After stumping my toe about 2 weeks ago, I resorted to Epsom Salt soaks and band aids loaded with triple anti-biotic ointment. And still got a weird little tumor thingy happening. Yesterday I decided it was getting bigger quickly, had husband look at it, and decided to go to Doctor's Care (hereafter DC).

This is where we determined I had an ingrown nail (do these things really happen? Yes - 3 times yesterday at DC alone).

Getting testing for the allergies consisted of approximately 22 "pricks" on my back that yielded not much. This then caused me to have to have the same 22 "sticks" in my arm. That's right...22 little shots. All in the upper arm area. Whew. But not soo bad.

Then there's the ingrown nail. That included 1 tetanus shot (I was due), 2 painful and agonizing lidocaine shots into the big toe. One removal of 1/2 of the Big Toe's nail. This consisted of cutting and yanking.

So now, my sneezing and rashy eyes have subsided - YAY! But my toe is now VERY swollen, throbbing and generally painful.

But...the infection that was looming there is under control and I will be able to wear a shoe on the left foot in just a few days. And my nail will be grown back in several weeks. Hopefully NOT ingrown this time.

I recommend Allergy testing if you sneeze and itch a lot, but NOT having an ingrown nail. 22 shots are way easier the 1/2 a toenail removal. And that is just as unglamorous (is that a word?) as it sounds.

And that's what I've done since Thursday. What about you?

Oh, Christmas Tree

During my Christmas Ramblings last year, I made a brief mention of the name of our Christmas Tree. I don't know why I started naming them, but I did - a few Christmases before Bryan and I were married. When we got married he gave me a journal and I have written the names of all our trees in it. The first year I named one, I just picked a name. Then it dawned on me to go in alphabetical order. So I backed up, started at "A", and then skipped the letter I had already used when I got to it.

I thought about sharing these names with you guys when my children and I were picking a tree out the other day and I thought how funny we sounded walking around the tree lot ooh-ing and aah-ing over "how cute" they all were. (Bryan was at work, we were surprising him by buying the tree. Much to his delight and relief).

Christmas Tree Names
1992 - Charlie
1993 - Uncle Arthur
1994 - Beauregard (the year we were married)
1995 - Dale
1996 - Elmo (and we didn't even have children)
1997 - Franklin
1998 - Grady (the year our daughter was born)
1999 - Hector (he had a Spanish accent)
2000 - Issaac (the year our son was born)
2001 - Jerome
2002 - Kyle
2003 - Linus
2004 - Mary Christmas (not merry - "Mary")
2005 - ?Ned? Noel? We didn't write it down - we think we called it Ned
(that's what's written in the book)
2006 - Opus
2007 - Popcorn

and drum roll...........
2008 - Quasar

A little background on that choice: Quasar is in honor of all of the Star Trek and Star Wars movies the children have been watching. The baby name websites say Quasar means shining star, radiating energy. Pretty fitting for a Christmas tree although that's a lot for a tree to live up to. I think this is the most thought that has gone into any Christmas Tree name. But when you're on "Q" you have to be creative or you end up with Quincy or Quaid. And aren't those kind of obvious?