Catch Me If You Can

I have been wretchedly negligent in creating any sort of content for Interregnum as of late, even by my own lax standards, which on the whole is a most excellent sign:  it means that I am busy living my life instead of writing about it, and that it is neither sufficiently woe-ridden nor laden with burdensome truths so as to compel me to do so.  Joy, balance, contentment…  these are wonderful things to live, but they make for crappy journal entries.  (Or so I have remarked, on more than one occasion.  TenFootBoy seems determined to prove me wrong, though, so perhaps I had best qualify the statement with the phrase “in my own case”.)

Lest I fall totally off the wagon, however, a brief catch-up is perhaps in order:

My trip to the Golden Realm over the holiday break was fabulous.  Not only did I pay a long overdue visit to the redoubtable Opsimath and find him even funnier and mellower than on my previous visit five years ago, but I got to spend an entire day with Nickykaa’s young daughter River (and incidentally with Nickykaa, who kept wandering around after her and getting in her way.  Parents.)  And I spent many blesséd hours in the company of Orchidwile, who led me through forests and read to me poems and embarked with me gladly on nearly every adventure I had so been longing to have.  She and I have decided, quite sensibly I think, that our respective affections are best given to people more worthy of them than our previous partners-  namely, each other.  I can’t speak for her, but I haven’t regretted it yet, and I’m hoping to continue to not regret it for a really, really, really long time.

Work made me pay for taking the time off, big time.  I was sick when I left, and still sick when I got back, and the hole I found myself in was impossible to climb out of.  I hit the ground running the moment I landed, did the work of two people during the day trying to catch up, threw in on an extra freelance job I had already promised to do at night, and took my son Jack for the entire weekend on top of it-  all of which culminated in one terribly unfortunate morning in the City of Mists, during which I fainted in the Morris Street subway station and had to be revived by a kindly passerby.  I was shipped back to my mother Opal’s house in Willowview via car service, and then carted off to the hospital, where they tested me extensively and found nothing wrong.  The fall on the concrete screwed up my back again, though.  It also apparently screwed up some other, less obvious things:  this morning I reached across the counter to pick up a mason jar, no heavier than any of the pots and pans I handle on a regular basis, and strained all the muscles attached to my shoulder blade, badly enough that I could barely breathe or use my arm until I started popping pills.  Having my body betray me for prolonged stupidity is understandable, and appropriate;  having it betray me for doing something utterly mundane is incomprehensible, and crazy-making.  I’ll be damned if I let it stop me, though-  I’m going back to see Orchidwile again from the 7^th to the 22^nd, maybe longer, and I’m not going to let a blasted shoulder get in the way, any more than I let my back do so.

The job is now expected to continue until mid-June.  I would complain about that, but quite frankly, I’m just happy to have a job.  I’d rather be doing the work of two people than of none.

Opal’s arm, speaking of her (and shoulders), is healed;  she has continued grimly and determinedly with her physical therapy regimen, to the round approval of her doctors, and is expected to regain 100% functionality in the limb.  Unfortunately, she also felt compelled to go out and get the paper off the driveway on a sub-freezing day when everything was coated with ice, and managed to fall again, this time blowing out her knee.  She anticipates that it will need surgery.  My older sister The Empress has told her that if she does one more sufficiently traumatic thing to herself, we’re simply going to put her down, like a horse, and be done with it.  Affectionately, of course.

Little sister Iris, in the meantime, has “solved” the problem of Opal living alone by announcing that she and her husband and two children will sell their house, use the money to put an addition on Opal’s house, and then move in with her, an arrangement to which Opal has (seemingly reluctantly) agreed.  It’s purely coincidence, of course, that this course of events unfolded after Opal announced her intention to sell the condo in Florida that Iris has always considered to be her inheritance.  And that by doing so, Iris gets rid of an expensive mortgage on a house she probably can’t afford anyway, acquires ownership of an already fully-paid-for home with a in-ground pool upon Opal’s demise, and pockets the difference between the sale price of her old home and the cost of the addition in the meanwhile.  I’m sure none of that ever crossed her mind.

My father Hawkeye is still dead.

My son Jack continues to be himself:  wickedly intelligent, generally amiable and out of his mind on a steady diet of “Sponge Bob Square Pants” and video games.  His other grandfather, Weaver’s dad, got hit by a car and killed about two weeks ago, which he seems to be dealing with, despite it bumming him out massively.  The stress involved was generally acknowledged to be a contributing factor to this year’s Pinewood Derby Meltdown, wherein he was eliminated in the fourth round of the race (after having won Second Place last year), and the elimination set off a cascading chain of misbehavior and poor sportsmanship that ended in blubbering and tears.  But such drama is the exception rather than the rule.  He builds models, and draws pictures, and erects ever more complicated towers of blocks;  he takes Gifted classes on the weekends in such subjects as Earth Sciences and Egyptology.  His teachers, both there and in public school, outdo themselves in making sure that he stays challenged, and in finding new ways to politely tell us that he’s a goofball.  We sigh, and nod, and smile. (Parents.)

Astrid and Helena budgie will now both sit on my finger for short periods of time, thanks largely to the efforts of Weaver, who took care of them while I was away for the holiday and spent a lot of time working with them to get them to do that.  She’s good at that.  Has a great deal of patience for it.

And that’s everything of note-  at least factually.  The Year of Ruin is thankfully, mercifully behind us.  I’m excited to see what this new, un-Named year will bring…