Pogo Sticks

My father used to say, sarcastically, (Did he speak any other way?) when you were feeling well that you were "Back on your pogo stick." If you were feeling shitty, you were "Off the pogo stick." If something was distracting, in a good way, it would "Keep you off your pogo stick." To my knowledge, my father never rode a pogo stick, nor had a real affinity for them. But the mental image is hilarious--and it may be somewhat obvious that my family appreciates a hilarious mental image.

I think I started this post in that manner for a reason, and now I can't remember why.

Oh, there it is.

My cousin is doing famously. He is up and about, going to movies and being social. But he is not back on the pogo stick, and seriously pissed about it. He cannot go for daily three mile runs. He cannot drink alcohol. He cannot lift anything. (Like a martini glass.) Not pleased.

I have the mental image of my 6'5" cousin sitting next to an egg timer set to go off when his 8 weeks of recovery are up. When it dings, he leaps on to a pogo stick, straps twenty pound weights to himself and dons a beer helmet, filled with Makers Mark Bourbon. He then pogos for a minimum of 17 miles, laughing the entire way.

Or, you know, goes back to every day life, with a stronger heart and a bitchin' scar.

Yeah.

So, I have been engaged for a little over a week, and already my mother is dictating what she feels should happen at the wedding, my sisters are interfering in the way of money (this could be good or really, really bad), and the reactions have largely been "About Damn Time!", followed either by an enthusiastic "I/we will do everything and anything you need to help!", or, "Enjoy that."

I don't know what I was expecting, really. But it's nice to know there are people in your corner, even if some of the people you thought would be there for sure aren't in it.

It was over eighty degrees this whole weekend. Now it is raining buckets. My garden may not like this.

Oh, hilarity.

T asked my hand in marriage, gave me a ring. In response, I appear to have placed myself in the higher echelons of "Catch-dom" by buying him a new lawn mower and shower head, which I installed MYSELF. (Thank you very much! I know it isn't that big of a deal, but work with me here.) I picked T up at work and when I opened the garage door, there was his new lawn mower, all shiny and poised in the doorway....You would have thought I gave the man the Hope Diamond, he was so excited. So excited, in fact, that after working a 12 hour day he mowed the lawn. (I too love the lawn mower. Self propelled, baby.) And then took a shower under a shower head that doesn't shoot a cone of badly pressured water at random places on your body, depending on its mood.