My Life in Slow Motion
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I have been reading nonstop, so thank you for all of your recommendations. I finished Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked, have read several stories in the Stephen King short story collection, Just After Sunset and I have digested the first few chapters of The Outliers. The best part is I have a big stack from which to pick the next.
It's been an interesting week so far, it's only Thursday and I've already told an inexplicable whopping lie to a kind Mexican purveyor of produce and I took a funny pill and almost had to spend a little time in the "bad trip" tent. Is your curiosity piqued yet? I'll start with the whopping lie.
Monday morning I went by one of our local farm stands to pick up pumpkins and inquire as to whether they would be open to selling me their ugly tomatoes at a cut rate. My garden tomatoes are all used up and at 1.99/lb and up, making homemade sauce from pristine store tomatoes would be an expensive venture. My thought was the blemished or overripe tomatoes might be had for a bargain. I told the farmstand man that I'll use them for sauce, that I make a lot at a time because I have a big family. As he considered my offer, I counted family in my head to figure how many pumpkins we would need. Me, hubs, kid 1, kid 2, bebe and visiting Grandma, just as I'm tallying up, the gardener asks me, "So how many kids do you have?"
I answer without thinking, "Six."
"Six?" he asked.
Now, yes, certainly I could have explained, "no, no, no, I don't have six children, I was only half listening to you and counting pumpkins in my head and trying to decide if Grandma should get a larger pumpkin like the husband and I or if I could slide by with one of the smaller three dollar pumpkins because in truth, she has gotten a bit smaller." But just answering "yes" seemed somehow less crazy than my genuine stream of consciousness and perhaps taking pity on me and my six children/mouths to feed, he'd fork over my tomatoes.
This man was friendly, sweet even, so naturally he asked after my six kids.
"Six, wow, that is a big family here in the U.S., in Mexico, where I am from, not so big, but even me, I only have four," he said this almost apologetically. "How old are they?"
Without skipping a beat(what is wrong with me that I can lie this easily) I answer,"Oh the oldest is eleven and the baby is two, and the rest are, you know, in between."
In my head I am quickly trying to do the math: given my age, would I have to have had twins to get all six in or should I just say I'm a few years older than I am? Great, now I am lying about my age too, what is wrong with me?
"Both girls and boys?" he asked.
"Yes, three girls and three boys,"(oh how convenient and seven brides for seven brothers perhaps?)
A spotted teenage cat, not quite a kitten but not yet full grown leapt from a stack of cardboard boxes and I leaned down to offer my hand jumping at the opportunity to change the subject before he starts asking me for names, I tell him I also have two cats and a dog. It's a wonder I didn't lie about them too.
I will carry this picture in my wallet from now on in case I need proof.
Then yesterday I was getting ready for work running about trying to get out the door. Husband was calling with information I needed to write down, Grandma was asking questions about where stuff was because she was staying home with the bebe, I was trying to, you know, leave the house in something that matched without forgetting any important "foundation" garments, again.(Did she forget something important another time you ask. Yes I did.)
The wind here in my area of Southern California have been whipping around in a frenzy and my sinuses have been going crazy. It's bad to have a drippy nose at work, especially during flu season, especially with H1N1 freaking everyone out, especially when I spend my days touching people(that sounds wrong--you know what I mean). So as I'm leaving the house, I think I have got to take a Claritin or Sudafed or something to dry me up and quell the sneezing.
So I write down my husband's info, get Grandma what she needs, figure out my adult version of Garanimals, pop a Sudafed and fly out of the house. I arrive at work and just a few minutes later, I start feeling very dizzy. Perhaps it was all the flurry leaving the house I tell myself. Then the sweating and nausea start and some little piece of my brain leads me back to the bathroom where I pressed a little pill I thought was Sudafed into my hand and washed down with the last sip of my coffee.
Oh my god, that was not Sudafed, I just took my RX migraine medication, Sumatriptan(see sounds the same no?) This is the med that last time I took it, I felt drunk, slurred my words, thought I might throw up, flopped on the bed and slept for three hours.
And I am at a new job, one where there are coworkers who I am still trying to be professional around, honeymoon period and all. And here I am, I will now be known as the girl who takes pills and gets all funny(half the women in Orange County by the way so not really the stigma you would think it might be, really but so soon?) And I feel like I have to tell at least our receptionist in case I need to make a quick exit. I look at my calendar, too late to cancel my first clients so I sip a diet coke intending to counter the sedative effects and hope for the best.
Something like this is what I was afraid of.
It all turned out ok. I didn't act intoxicated, or throw up on a client, I did nothing weird except ask the receptionist too many times,"I am acting normal right?" The worst part was the headache that came at the end of accidentally taking my headache medication. Still, I did learn two important things, don't take pills in a hurry and Diet Coke fixes everything.
7 comments:
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You totally COULD have 6 children (no twins) in a 9 year span.
A family who I'm friends with (ok, actually I dated 2 of the sons), had 6 kids (no twins) between December 1979 and February 1988. That's just over 8 years.
My uterus hurts just thinking about it.
You are so FUNNY!!!! And this is totally the sort of thing I do and which is life's way of telling me I have too much on my plate. Sound familiar hmm? Hope the new job continues to go well. Six kids. Hahahahahaha. Did you get the tomatoes?
The cold medicine in Australia makes you dizzy and paranoid, like you're having a bad trip.
I was totally getting nervous for you having to be at work like that.
Bwah ha ha ha ha
I know why you took that pill, by the way, (other than the obvious karmic payback for lying to TomatoMan). It's because I had a migraine and I was out of my meds. You compensated psychically by taking some for me.
HA.
-k
Ah, ill timed medication has defeated us all at some point.
I'm just glad that didn't turn into vagina waxing horror porn, because a drunken esthetician fondling my lady business sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
I do that whole accidentally lying to strangers thing sometimes and I too am shocked at how easy it is for me as well. I like to think that as an actress and writer, I'm just more practiced at making up stories in my head on the fly. So, consider it a perk because you are a writer! ;-)