Day: January 30, 2023

I locked myself out of the house on the way to school this morning. Definitely not the first time, but it’s been awhile and it’s the first for a middle of winter fuck up like this.
My neighbor let’s me in the garage but her ladders to short to get to the balcony. And even if it was tall enough, I make another jarring discovery. The balcony is quite literally falling apart and on the verge of collapse from wood rot.

I gotta call in a favor from the husband and he makes the 45 minute drive back home for me. To his credit , he’s not mean or angry. I’ve had many other run ins with dad’s or a partner or two where I’d have something like this happen and they start screaming at me about all the inconvenience I bring to their lives, it’s pretty shifty. Anyway, my man does me a solid here by not making me feel bad, so I do my best to make up for the time loss by emailing hoa while I’m waiting in the garage. Because the balcony is external, they cover repairs. The lady gets back to me immediately saying to keep off of it completely and she’s got the work order taken care of, so silver lining there.
I do some deep cleaning to make sure the place is extra pretty for later, and tonight I’m cooking up a thank you steak for the guy that helped me out without making me feel like a failure at life for needing it.

I gave up. It was my third time falling hard that day already and it wasn’t even 8. The first, trying to separate a cat fight and slipped and falling on my back. Then again walking the kid to school on ice covered sidewalks that had been neglected after the last snow. The kid and I went down together, then no sooner had I stood up I went flying back to the ground face first, cracking my jaw on the ice and concrete. I’m howling in pain and struggling to stand. We’re a half block from the house and I’m giving up on the day. My phone is shattered, I’m hoping I didn’t break my ribs again and even though I felt them shift in the fall, my face definitely took the greater punishment this round. No blood though, thankfully.
We retreat to the house where I’m better able to assess how bad I got beat up. (Still not as bad as the stairs) I email the school and my kids teacher and lament about my lack grace.

I get a little respite over the weekend when my folks come up so my husband and I can attend his company holiday party. It’s at the luxury Gaylord Convention center and hotel. The one in Florida has a pirate ship inside, the one out here is themed more around our terrain and has a big waterfall, mountain cave and and train inside. It’s daunting to approach if you’ve never been to one before. Larger than Estes for sure.

An open bar and some delicious fancy food was just what I needed to take the edge off of my bruised ego and body. I always feel a little awkward but by this point in my husband’s work career I’ve done a pretty good job of making friends with the wives and remembering names. We catch up a little in the cycling conversations before being seated at our little round tables for the feast. Everyone else is wearing button up shirts and black dresses, I didn’t get the memo. I went as gaudy as possible for our dress, ordering the hubs a custom rammstein sweater, and myself a the magnificent gremlins sweater that you’ll have a hard time getting me out of this season
A pleasant evening is punctuated with me getting licked cleaner than the plates .
It’s nice to have a little respite after the last few days, especially when we don’t have to pay for it.