Equal Parts

Being sick is BORING. Tonight I am finally blogging again because the latest latest meds have given me insomnia. I can't find the book I've been reading. And because there has been subtle but insistent harumphing among the blog fans. Also, I have gathered enough amusing things so as to not be BORING. I hope.

The 5 year old Little Man has been equal parts antagonist, stone-cold liar, and charming comforter. Recent quotes include: "Don't be sad, mama. If you have to be in a wheelchair, we can watch TV whenever we want! Dada will have to turn the cable back on then." And "When I die and they burn me into ashes, if you sift through the ashes there will be a little clump of gum."

In brighter Little Man events, he helped lead Vespers this week. I choked up a little as he sang along to "Come Sing a Song With Me" and when he wrote his gift of advice on a card to share: Be Cind to Uthr Peepul. On the flip side of his personality, he fessed up to the sabotage of my brand new med pack. "Those pills shouldn't pop out so easily." And he has offered his hand in marriage to another school chum. This one is a girl. The last one was a boy. Both have cable and dads who are professional musicians. At least he knows his type.

The 2 year old is equal parts attitude, charm, and surprise. In the past week she has gone to school in full firefighting gear, cowboy boots and bicycle helmet, and covered in stickers and homemade tattoos. The church crew has started calling her mini-me.

Tonight in the car she requested our favorite, Billy Ray Hatley and the Showdogs, on the hi-fi. I blasted several of her beloved Billy songs and left one on after we pulled up to the house. She climbed onto the console between the front seats, thrashed her curls, sashayed her teeny butt, and hollered, "Sing it, Bill-ay!!!"

Them apples. They don't fall far, do they?

The crew at physical therapy have been starting new things on me since I don't seem to be kicking this flare-up. They seem to be trying equal parts ingenuity and agony. I've had 8 perfectly symmetrical bruises down one shin for a week. They are the prints of my therapist's bony but magic fingers. I have laughed about this only because both the bruises and the procedure that caused them hurt way less than the underlying condition. And they make me look like I was attacked by a far-sighted, snub-nosed woodpecker.

Today the therapist gave me a new gizmo to try. I've been wearing a back brace for about a month now, just for an hour or two a day, or when I remember (ahem). It is an elastic and velcro engineering wonder. Now I have a sacral brace to match. It's mostly elastic except for the thing that looks like a giant clothing security tag that presses my spine down at the sacrum. I wore them both for a walk this evening. I moved with the upper body grace of the Tin Man mixed with equal parts Mummy and safety harnessed Trapeze Artist.

If I gotta' wear crap like this, somebody had better start prescribing narcotics. In equal parts.

They don't prepare you for this in seminary, folks. Maybe when I'm feeling better I'll share some of the fascinating Frank O'Hara and Wislawa Szymborska stuff I've been reading. Maybe when I'm feeling better, I'll give a hoot again about some of the larger issues within religion, the world, and cleaning our house. (Okay, let's be honest - maybe when I'm feeling better but AFTER I've gone to hear some live music.)

I do have one spiritual thing to say. I was greatly comforted and moved by last Sunday's service when the pianist played Kermit the Frog's "Over the Rainbow" and the guest musician did "Hambone." Inspiration comes in a lot of shapes, doesn't it?

Come out for our evening service this weekend. 6PM Sunday and it will be about a sense of home. It was inspired by our trip to Mississippi. No. I will not be wearing the velcro. My physical therapist might be there, though. Watch out for her fingers.