Birthday on Crutches

I sure didn't expect to spend my 36th birthday on crutches.

Nevertheless, it happened. I was at a friend's house Wednesday evening, following another friend down some steps as we were heading to our cars. At the bottom step, my left ankle popped.

I spent the next 20 minutes -- 30 minutes? more? -- icing the ankle, feeling faint and counting my lucky stars that I could still wiggle my toes. I hobbled to one friend's car while the other drove my car home.

It was a painful night, and the next day was even worse. I barely made it down the stairs in the morning, and when I later tried to move from the couch I realized that I couldn't put any weight on it. I called Paul at work.

He called a friend who is a doctor, who confirmed that a visit to the doctor probably wasn't necessary. Instead, Paul picked up a compression bandage, air cast and crutches, and dropped them off at home before a meeting.

I was on crutches through my birthday on Saturday, only leaving the house to sit on the porch (where the mosquitoes promptly ate me up, so happy birthday to me). Now I don't need the crutches, but I keep the ankle wrapped when I go out. I limp when I walk and I can't stand for long periods of time, but I'm much more mobile than I was a few days ago.

Garage Door Drama

Coats on, ready to go. I pressed the button on our garage door opener.

But the door opened only about two inches, and only on the left side. I punched the button a few more times, same result. We were stuck.

Paul went in the side door of the garage, and a quick inspection proved that a spring had busted. And he couldn't force the door open by himself either. We really were stuck.

Of course, this happened on Sunday, about five minutes before I was scheduled to arrive for my monthly Sunday School duties. The car was out. The bike needed air in its tires. So I texted the Sunday School coordinator that I would be late, loaded Edith into the stroller and walked the mile to church as fast as I could. I got there in 15 or 20 minutes, found that the middle-school classroom assistant handled things beautifully and got on with the morning.

The weather was chilly but not all that bad. Edith and I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a few essentials for the week -- stroller baskets can hold a surprising amount of food. When we got home about three hours after we took off, Atticus was sleeping in Paul's arms and a garage door repairman was already explaining our options to Paul. We're scheduled to get a new door and spring system this week. (And the repairman and Paul strong-armed the door open so we could get out our cars and park them in the driveway until that happens.)

Sunday morning was annoying, but it could have been worse. Luckily it was the weekend. And even more fortuitously, the broken spring or wire or whatever it was didn't snap across the garage, damaging our cars or worse, a person. We had been having garage door issues for a while and even had someone out to inspect it recently to no avail. All things considering, we got off easy.

In New York for Half of Our Marriage

Paul and I have now lived in New York for more than half of our marriage.

It's a milestone for no one but me, but it seems like I should mark the occasion somehow. It's not quite worthy of a glass of wine or a piece of cake, so a short blog post will have to do.

I'm not sure which is harder to believe: that Paul and I have been married for more than eight years, or that we've lived in this Brooklyn apartment for more than four.

When we stowed away boxes of books, knick-knacks and who-knows-what-I-can't-remember in my parents' attic in preparation of downsizing from a bi-level house to a small apartment, we thought we'd be reopening their dusty covers in two years, tops.

Time flies, and I'm still having fun.

My Sister, Now in Paulding County

I told a coworker that my sister and her husband recently built a house. Her response: "From scratch?" That sort of thing just isn't done around here.

After about a year of work, Katie and Jay just moved in a month ago. Last weekend was the first time I had seen the finished product.

They have 10 acres in rural Paulding (is that redundant?) with an old house and a few out-buildings on the lot. They built a new barn and converted part of it into a living area until they decide to renovate the house.

Can two sisters be more different? But where she sees wide open spaces, I just see land that needs mowed and farmed. And where I hear the exciting buzz of a city, she just hears plain old noise. To each her own.

The house.

The land.

The slobbery dog.

The wedding, the shower and the wedding shower

I already explained the low point of my trip home. Here's what I did the remainder of last weekend:

The wedding: Paul's good friend Joe got married in New Castle, Indiana, and Paul was in the wedding. New Castle is a small town right off Interstate 70, about 2 1/2 hours from Columbus. It reminded me of Defiance, except instead of a mall it had a large box store called "Rural World."
I knew a surprising number of guests there-- people I had originally met through Joe (including one of the members of the book club I belonged to!) as well as one of Paul and Joe's joint friends through Tang Soo Do (that's Joe, Paul and Shane on the left).

The shower: The wedding was outdoors on the farm of the bride's family, but luckily the rain showers stopped before the 5 p.m. ceremony. It was still cold, and I was dressed wildly inappropriate for an outdoor wedding. I obviously didn't pay close attention to the invitation, because I didn't realize the ceremony was outdoors until the day before. I gladly would have traded by spring dress and high heels for a pair of pants and sensible shoes! Either way, I had a wonderful time at the wedding and rehearsal dinner and was mildly amused by the kitschiness of our motel, the Steve Alford All-American Inn. What, you didn't recognize the giant shoe?

The wedding shower: We drove to Defiance immediately after the reception, another 2 1/2 hours in the car. My sister, Katie, is getting married in less than two weeks, so we decided to hold her bridal shower during a weekend I would already be in the state. Yup, we played a couple of silly games, during which it was confirmed that I know my sister not at all. Katie got a lot of lovely gifts (who's even heard of a foldable griddle?) and I saw a lot of my family, of course. I also met several of Katie's future in-laws for the first time.

Only 12 days until the wedding!

Sour ending to a lovely weekend

If love is carrying someone's barf bag to the nearest airport trash receptacle, then Paul must adore me.

I had a lovely long visit home this past weekend, except for the final four hours. I was fine at Joe's wedding. Perfect at Katie's bridal shower. It wasn't until I was somewhere in the air between Columbus and Detroit that I started to feel queasy.

Without going into too many details, I was sick the entire plane ride from Detroit to New York. Luckily, Paul and I had the entire last row of the plane to ourselves. The flight attendant told us at the end of the trip that the pilot even delayed take-off for a bit to consult with air traffic control about whether I should get off the plane. Great.

Needless to say, I stayed home from work the next day. I was fine again and eating normally by the evening. More about the pleasant aspects of my trip (along with pictures!) later.