TMI

While wiping The Ambassador's derrière:

THE AMBASSADOR: I want to see da poopy in da nakin.

ME: (WIPING) You want to see the poopy what...?

THE AMBASSADOR: I want to see da poopy in da nakin.

ME: (STILL WIPING) I don't understand.

THE AMBASSADOR: (EXASPERATED) I WANT TO SEE DA POOPY IN DA NAKIN!

ME: Okay, look, I'm not deaf. I don't understand you. You want to see the poopy in the... what?

THE AMBASSADOR: NAKIN!

ME: Nakin.

THE AMBASSADOR: (PLEASED) Yes. In da nakin.

ME: Uhhh... OH! The poop on the napkin? On the wipe?

THE AMBASSADOR: YES!

ME: Here.

THE AMBASSADOR: Dat not much poopy.

ME: Well, there was a lot on the first one, but I kept wiping and...

THE AMBASSADOR: (CUTTING ME OFF) Whoa, whoa, whoa... dat LOT infumation.

ME: Too much information?

THE AMBASSADOR: Yeah.

Me: Okay.

THE AMBASSADOR: Yeah. Okay.

Why My Marriage is Like a Coffee Table

After we'd begun dating, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I went to our favorite flea market and scoured the antiques, looking for cool things for his house. I pointed out a lovely old copper tray to Hubby and told him it would make a great coffee table. When he told me to buy it, I said there was no point. While I loved the tray, could conceive of it being a table top, and even knew a furniture maker who could craft the base, I know myself all too well. Despite my best intentions, I would never get around to making it happen, and the tray would sit in my garage collecting dust.

I had barely finished my lament when Hubby began negotiating for the tray. He carried it the rest of the morning as we toured the aisles of the market, and once we got it back to his house, he took the number of the furniture maker from me, and a few weeks later, he had a gorgeous coffee table in the kitchen nook overlooking his flower garden. I fell just a bit more in love with him after seeing it.

What I didn't realize at the time, but have come to deeply appreciate, is that we had just set the stage for our entire relationship. It's a partnership of two very different people. He is calm and methodical, even in the face of my darkest storms. He is slower to move and longer to plan, even while I am racing an imaginary clock and scouring a situation for shortcuts. I am driven by my intuition, which rarely lets me down; he is an intellectual to the bone -- a talent that has served him and us very well. And as the coffee table demonstrates, all the creative thinking in the world would be lost without someone to get things done, and that is how we function on a day-to-day basis.

That's not to say Hubby isn't creative. He is, and sometimes, far more than I. Nor is it to suggest that I can't get things done. As Hubby would attest, I can not only get things done around here, but I can usually do six things at once. No, it simply means we compliment each other and have the ability to build on one another's strengths; and every time I see that table in our livingroom or someone asks me to tell them about it, I'm reminded why we're together and what makes us work. I am also certain that if all of my deepest dreams come true, it will be because he helped me make them so.

Yet Another Milestone

Two years ago today, Missives was born with this post.

The 30 Babe Shred

Some of my favorite bloggers like Sarah and Pauline are doing the 30-Day Shred. I'm playing along, even though I've been Shredding most of the summer (and I promise to talk about the results in a few more weeks). Weebo saw me working out this afternoon, and the look on her face made it clear she was unimpressed with Jillian Michaels. So she put together her own workout video.

I want to warn you, this workout is not for everyone. Fleshy rolls on your thighs, dimply ass cheeks and no ability to open childproof lids are key to success. Do you feel like that description fit you to a T? Yeah... I can identify. Uhh... what was I saying? Oh, right. Disclaimers. You know, the usual disclaimers like don't try this at home, avoid eating a half hour before swimming and don't take any wooden nickels. The Golden Rule: He who makes the gold makes the rules. That sort of thing.

Without further ado, the 30 Babe Shred:

The 30 Babe Shred from Missives Suburbia on Vimeo.

Happy Aneuversary

BRAIN ANEURYSM
BLUE CROSS
NO MEDS, NO ALLERGIES
ICE: (Hubby's mobile phone number and name)

A year ago today, I was seven months pregnant, laying in an MRI machine and quietly, but desperately panicking and considering the possibility that I was having a stroke. That's not hyperbole. 15 minutes earlier, I had walked into the ER, nervously described my symptoms, and felt my heart drop into my stomach when the triage nurse's eyes widened with concern. I was prepped for an MRI before Hubby finished parking the car.

I was assured by not only the nurse but my attending doctor and neurologist that my suspicions were warranted. But I was not having a stroke. In fact, my symptoms had nothing to do with the subsequent surprise the MRI revealed, which was a brain aneurysm.

Three days later, I wrote this post, which I published very late at night and then promptly pulled down, because the initial reactions were more than I could deal with at that point. The next day I addressed both the diagnosis and my feelings about the previous post here.

It was a hard post to write. We'd been through a lot with The Ambassador in the previous year, so my love for the medical establishment and people's well-intended platitudes had worn thin. More to the point, I was absorbing a very large piece of news about my brain. My brain, people. I have pretty nice legs, but my brain has always been my best feature.

That news changed everything. It changed how I gave birth to my daughter. It changed the conversations my husband and I had. My will and medical directives were drawn up and stowed in our lawyer's vault weeks later. It changed the way I think about my daily life, even though I am not very vocal or open about the changes. But they're there, like that little bulge lurking in my head. In my imagination, the vessel flickers with light, and the light reminds me I am mortal.

This morning, I was coloring and painting with The Ambassador. As I removed my watch and my medical alert bracelet, it occurred to me that bracelet is a small summation of my life right now. I have a brain aneurysm. Anyone who treats me needs to know about it. Every doctor I work with now has it in my file, and any medical person who stumbles upon me in an accident will know about it, because of the bracelet. As aneurysms go, mine seems to be in a very good location; the risk of a rupture is thinner than the paper we colored on today. But people still need to know.

A week after my diagnosis, my neurologist called to follow up with me. He wanted to know how I was doing emotionally. I said I felt like the luckiest person in the world, and I meant it. A year later, I haven't fully soaked in the news, and I probably won't before the blood vessel is repaired*, because it's a lot to think about and imagine. As most people do, I live in denial about the possibility of my death most of the time (which will likely be under far more benign circumstances than this aneurysm). But nearly every day I stand in my kitchen and make lunch for my kids and that little flicker reminds me I am lucky. I am lucky to know.



*The vessel will be repaired sometime next year, after the tests can be performed to determine precisely where it's located. I'll keep you posted.