TheBanyanTree: A Good Holiday

[Monique Colver]

You can tell I've had a good holiday when my burns are only first degree.

Fortunately I'm only a danger to myself. Others are safe around me, unless I
trip and fall on them, but even then, there's usually a pretty good chance
said others can jump out of the way before my full weight descends on them
like a ton of bricks. The burns, on the top of my fingers of my left hand,
are only slight red marks now, and the swelling isn't bad at all.

Not bad at all. This is my mantra for getting through things like scalding
myself, cutting myself, and in general doing damage to myself. I have never
broken a bone, but I'm thinking that's only because they're made of rubber.

So other than the whole burning thing, which was only a slight inconvenience
and allowed me the opportunity to sit on the couch with my hand wrapped in
ice and later aloe while charming husband put together the rest of dinner,
life is good. Painful, at times, but what isn't that's worthwhile? (This is
another of my mantras that I use to console myself with.)

Last night, which just happened to be some sort of holiday, I started to
wonder when we'd moved to a war zone. It must have happened when I wasn't
looking, because when looking for a house, I'm pretty sure I checked the
option to be out of a war zone. Since I've never been in an actual war zone,
only pretend ones, I have no idea what one sounds like, but I'm pretty sure
I heard mortars going off, and air strikes, and explosions. I was also not
aware that there are so many people around here. There must be, for all that
noise to be going on. That, or we invited several other neighborhoods to
join us for the festivities.

I'm hoping the fatalities were kept to a minimum.

Used to be, fireworks were a cause for concern around here. Honey does not
like them. They hurt her ears, and it makes her upset. I'd be upset too if
my ears hurt. But now that she's mostly deaf, she really doesn't care.
Occasionally, when the racket was loud and long, she'd bark at it, as if to
say, "Shut the hell up, will ya? I'm trying to sleep!" But it wasn't with
the former panic she'd have when she was a hearing dog. It's not as if she
could hear it all that well. And Ash, he doesn't care much, except for a
particularly loud one that'll cause his head to pop up. He likes to sit next
to me and burrow into me just in case though. Then again, he likes to do
what when there's no sign of fireworks too, so I'm not sure it means
anything.

I do have the best life. It's not just on holidays that I notice, but on
holidays, no matter the reason, I give myself permission to slack off and do
whatever I want, the sort of permission I'm loathe to give myself any other
time. If you ask me, I should be doing something useful and productive all
the time. Not that I do all the time, but I do heap guilt upon myself if I'm
not productive. Not on holidays though. On holidays there's none of that.

Of course, I did do some work anyway yesterday, but it wasn't much, a couple
of hours altogether. This was before the burn incident, when I could still
move my fingers.

And today I can move them just fine again, so I better get back to work.
-- 
Monique Colver