From this morning, A Scene:

Foot doctor: [eyes go HUGE]

Me: It's OK, I slammed the door on it. But just a little bit.

Foot doctor: A little bit?

Me: I swear it's fine.

Foot doctor: "Does it hurt when I do this?"

Me: Nope.

Foot doctor: [eyes me skeptically]

Me: I swear it's fine.

Foot doctor: It could just be soft tissue damage. If it still hurts in two days, come back for an x-ray.

Me: It doesn't hurt at all compared to my ankle.

Foot doctor: Your ankle?

Me: Yeah, that's actually why I'm here. Remember the whole cast thing?

Foot doctor: Oh, right! Yes. Let's have a look.

Me: It still kind of pinches.

Foot doctor: It will probably stop doing that when you stop slamming it in doors.

Me: touche.

So, the good news is that my torn ligaments in the whatever part of my ankle area seem to be almost all mended up, other than some pain and swelling when I do stupid things like stand up for 14 hours straight or slam doors without being careful.

The other good news is that I (narrowly) avoided yet another x-ray this morning by not yelling and flinching when the doctor pressed on the new bruises.

The bad news is that when I went into the exam room, the exam chair/table thing had one of those chuck's pads on it. You know, for when your body is leaking? The chuck was at the foot of the chair/table, as one would expect in a *podiatrist's* office. I, however, did not immediately put two and two together and so I sat on the chuck, precariously balancing at the edge of the chair/table. The nurse was all, "You can scoot back."

And I didn't understand.

That's right. It took a full five minutes for me to realize, "Ooooooh. You don't sit on a chuck at the podiatrist. That's only at the OB/GYN."

At least I left my pants on.

So.

Two more weeks in a stretchy ankle brace and then I'm good. (Ankle-wise. I'm still working on this whole not-being-an-idiot thing.)

So I had this dream last night, where I was regaling the children with stories of animals that are possibly not real and/or are mysteriously cool, like chupacabras and pygmy elephants, respectively.

In the dream, I was talking about Black Russian Bats. In case you're wondering, there is no such thing as a Black Russian Bat. My subconscious made them up entirely. In the dream they were absolutely real, though. So you have to read the rest of this post in a reverent whisper, possibly with a flashlight shining up from your chin.

OK, here's the fake real story of Black Russian Bats, because I know you want to know:

Black Russian bats are small.
They are black.
They live in frigid Siberian caves.
They never leave the caves.

Seems like it would be hard for them to thrive, doesn't it? Well, they thrive just fine thank-you very much. But because of what?

Because of their super creepy eyes.

Yes.

When the Black Russian bats get hungry, they open their orange eyes, all at the same time. And their eyes all begin to glow. This glow gives their frigid cave a comfortable, warm appearance, which attracts animals and humans.

Once the animals and humans enter the cave, expecting a place to warm their frosty digits from the frigid Siberian weather, the bats all attack in unison AND EAT EVERYONE.

Thank-you, dream, for this awesome story. May Black Russian bats enter the lore of creepy fake animals everywhere.

PS. I would like to attribute this dream to a combination of vodka and progesterone supplements. (Not mixed together, but consumed within proximity.) Thank-you, Tito's and modern medicine!

Kitchen table sticky with snail trails
of ice cream from hours ago.
But I am too busy,
or too lazy,
to wipe them up.

Instead I sit at the table, wondering about it.
The cracked formica and rusted chrome.
The yellowing plastic chairs, the silver duct tape holding them together.
How old is this table, really?
Has it lived in Texas longer than I have?
Would it be offended if I had the chairs reupholstered,
as I would be offended if someone suggested I have my own
seat repaired?

It deserves better than an owner who lets the ice cream drips
harden into tributaries of
sticky filth.

It deserves better that rusty rivets
or whatever those things are called that hold the chair backs together.

It deserves someone who knows the name of those things.

My table deserves better than me.

(A statement that reflects on the good intentions of buying vintage,
but does no favors to my own poor self-respect
at this moment.)

And I hate that that's true. I'm going to have to start setting aside dedicated time to write here. I feel like the poor blog is getting ignored these days. Part of that is just being busy, but another part is that it's easier to go onto facebook or twitter and post a funny sentence or two, and then go about doing whatever it is that's preventing me from sitting and blogging.

Like, right now, I just interrupted this blogging to tweet:

"I am not a horse!" "YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRE A HOOOOORSE!" "I am not a horse!" "YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRE!" #sundaymorningkidfight

I always, always have this little voice in my head saying, "You should be spending this time writing your book. Finish your book!" and that little voice is right. (Except that little voice has to find me a place to write, where I'm not listening to the "you are a horse" fight, because it's loud and distracting.)

There's something about blogging that I still love, and I don't want to stop doing it. I'm just going to have to get better at it. My time management is not all that great right now (see interrupting tweet above). Probably because I only have about three hours to myself everyday once the kids go to bed (if I don't fall comatose onto the couch and if I'm lucky and they actually go to sleep on time). There's a lot to cram into those few hours. Too much.

Anyway, while I'm trying to figure out how to stop posting blog posts like this, and start posting interesting ones again, I invite you to follow me on Twitter. I'm @haikumama. I'm also @karianneholt if you're interested in what's happening on the writing side of things.

I realize that last paragraph just completely contradicted the idea of this post, and there's probably something insightful I could say about that, but someone just came into the room with a wagon and a ukelele and now I'm distracted.

Happy Sunday morning to you all. I hope your horse fights are quiet and have a bloody mary chaser.