Half of Life is Just Showing Up

is what I was telling myself Saturday night, still slightly nauseated at the shocking sight of my angrily inflamed hips ("lacy and symmetrical" is how the doctor described the rrrhash, which could sound rather nice I suppose if you're not the one wearing it ON YOUR ASS) and just slightly tempted to crash on the inviting bed, but I would not not not miss the chance to see friends old and new and I am not one to refuse an invitation, especially when it comes from the always pleasantly unpredictable Virginia and Dad agrees to be with the kids.

And so wonderful it turned out to be, sitting on a lichen covered stump that Virginia scavenged from the lot across the street before the giant condo went up, sipping her sweet potato soup out of teacup and swapping old clothes with V and company (no, I'm not contagious; it's an allergic reaction to antibiotics) in her secret garden, a bricked back patio that used to be Randy's and mine back when the trees were not grown so tall and enclosing. Although she no longer gets the sun that baked these bricks and my flower pots, there's still a friendly neighbor to the south who peeks his head over the fence and offers friendly drunken advice. Oh I do love the city. Maybe Avondale is the new Humboldt Park - I could hear a band practicing across the street as I left with my bags of new/old clothes, including my first black leather skirt(!) and a pair of Bobby Conn's silver jeans with embroidered snake for purely sentimental reasons.

Then on to meet Gillian Marchenko, finally in person in Roscoe Village after months of loving her blog and posts to CMB. She earned a Victory for All Moms by getting carded at the door and turned out to be lovely and fun and wicked funny.

I'm so glad I went.

The bed was calling today, too, after a restless night (I'm sorry for the ongoing catalog of aches; I know I'll be getting my mojo back soon when my daily walks resume) and waking with a headache that turned into the feeling of a hand gripping half my skull and left eye socket by mid afternoon.

But. We accomplished so much today - Mia drew pictures of a strawberry, a grapefruit, an apple tree, an amazingly well-shaped pear and a potato, then we filled tiny clay pots with potting soil and buried the fruit seeds and a quarter of a potato. Eleanor helped water and I took photos, hoping this might eventually turn into next month's Kindergarten Science Fair project.

I got Mia off to school safe and sound, though a little late cause we had a "Montessori lunch" together at home (that means I broke out the placemats and we spent extra time chatting about how nice it was to eat together) and then Nora and I went on to get the car vacuumed (drive-through dinner tonight took us nearly back to square one) and fetch a bag of canned goods for the food drive at school before I dropped her off too.

... (It's getting late and I'm losing my point...)

At the video store tonight the guy said, "We ask you to bring it back around 6:00 the night it's due" and then he laughed when I asked him if I could bring it back any earlier cause we were probably busy at six. And Randy came home early. And my headache is all gone.

And this made me laugh really hard AND it was preceded by the thrilling sight of one of Randy's rockin' commercials - although Suave had been replaced with mascara when I returned to it tonight.

My point - it was a show-up kind of day that turned into something really nice.