The Daily Chai and How I Broke my Face

Today's grande Chai Latte came with a debate about whether Starbucks' pretentious size names are Italian or Spanish. I'm going with Italian and therefore ordered my grande with an Italian accent just for shits and giggles. The chai itself was foamy and hot and delicious. Well worth the $4.80. Crap, as I wrote that I thought, "No hot drink is worth almost five dollars." And yet...I will continue to purchase them because clearly I have no willpower.

2014 was a shit year. Many good things happened but it was the year I broke my foot, broke my face and topped it off by breaking my marriage. So you can probably understand why I was happy to say goodbye to 2014 and welcome 2015 with open arms.

Monday of the May 24th weekend: I've just had one of those weekends with the kids. Lovely little human beings that want what they want when they want it and to hell with everyone else's needs. They get along pretty well, but they'd been bickering and screaming for pretty much 48 hours. On Monday morning, after listening to Kate shriek at Anna about touching her stuff and Anna crying that Kate is so mean, I looked at my husband, wild-eyed and said, "Take these tiny monsters out of this house. I don't care what you do with them but I am this close to a homicidal rage here. Can you hear how my voice is getting high and squeaky? I don't like my voice like this. I need a few hours to bring it down an octave or two. I want to paint my nails, watch Grey's Anatomy and go for a bike ride. I need time to myself for five minutes." Perhaps sensing total  annihilation, he obliged quite quickly.  There were some protests from those sweet angels as they realized they were leaving the house and MOMMY WAS STAYING BEHIND but daddy was adamant that they need to leave RIGHT NOW. Go go go go

The next hour was spent happily in bed watching the BEST GREY'S SEASON FINALE EVER (Meredith and Christina say good bye and drink tequila and dance *sob*) and painting my nails, while happily anticipating my first bike ride of the season. 

Many of you might remember how much I love biking. It started in Germany with  the lovely, paved bike/walking trails all over the countryside. Great way to get in shape and explore the surrounding land. When I moved back to Canada, I didn't have as many chances to bike, working full time and going to school and now with two littles running around. However, this was the first really great day we'd had since my broken foot had healed so I was taking advantage. 

Everything started off well, the sun was shining and the roads were clear. I was at kilometre 18 and feeling pretty good about myself as I was coming down the highway just outside my town. It's a busy road with a gravel shoulder and I was trying to stay as close to the shoulder as possible so I didn't get creamed by a passing car. Suddenly my front wheel skidded off the road and started to shimmy along the lip of the pavement and the gravel. It started to wobble wildly and then suddenly turned sharply at a right angle. Since I was going downhill and probably doing about 25 km/h, you can imagine that my velocity pretty much took over...my bike had suddenly stopped, but my body did not. I went head first over the handlebars and for a split second I watched helplessly as the ground rushed up to my face and I knew it would be smashing into me in a second.  The peak of my helmet hit the gravel shoulder first, somewhat breaking my fall, but then my face skidded along the gravel, smashing my nose and cutting my lip open. My pelvis hit the handle bars and my right hand was crushed under them when I landed. My right knee took a bad hit too and I ended up with some nasty road rash that has left two large scars. I have no idea how long I lay there, but I got shakily to my feet and looked on the ground for my teeth, which I was convinced I had broken. Blood was dripping from my face but I didn't know from where, my nose? My teeth? Turns out it was from the split lip. My teeth, while the enamel was somewhat cracked, were miraculously unbroken. My nose, ditto. 

The first person to stop was, wonders never cease, a doctor. He asked me if I knew my name and where I lived and said he was going to examine my face. My mouth was filling with blood as he lifted my chin and I reactively spit to rid myself of the taste. Of course, I spit blood all over this wonderful person who was trying to help me and I immediately started to shake and cry and apologize.   He was very kind and said I was going into shock and it was okay, he'd been bled on before. Suddenly this wild looking woman skids to a stop on the other side of the road and comes running over to see if I need help. 

"Are you okay?" 

Now, you might think my first reaction would be "No, I'm not fucking okay! I'm bleeding from various abrasions and I think my hand and nose are broken. Other than that, I'm fucking fabulous."

Well, you would be wrong. My first reaction, not wanting to cause anyone trouble was to say, "Yeah, I'm okay, I just need to get home and get some bandaids. No trouble."

Thank fuck my humbleness got hit on the head with some good sense because I finally replied with:

"No, no I don't think I am. I need a ride home. And a hospital possibly. And oh my god, I'm bleeding so much and I can't find my phone but I can hear the music playing!" Because, you know, the whereabouts of my phone while I'm bleeding from numerous body parts is top priority. As is wasting the battery playing music I was no longer listening to. 

Suddenly I heard a soft voice to my right tell me I was going into shock and to breathe and could she help me, "I'm a doctor."

"Well, holy shit, it's doctor day in the 86 because this fellow here is a doctor too! Fantastic!" 

Clearly I'm getting a little delirious in the retellling of this story. Anyway, the first doctor took my bike home, the wild-haired crazy lady took me home and the second doctor left, seeing I was in good hands. The wild-haired crazy lady told me she and her passenger were out looking for corn (in May...yeah, my thoughts exactly) and just look what they found. Me! Bleeding and crying at the side of the road! Lucky them. Her passenger looked to be about 96 and quite decrepit. 

However, it was she that had to help me hobble up the sidewalk to my front porch because my knee was beginning to seize up and the shock was wearing off into extreme pain all over my body. My kids came tearing around the front to see what the commotion was all about and both started to cry when they saw mommy bleeding and crying and limping to the front porch. Anna is still traumatized by the incident. Just the other day she said to me, "You came home and you were bleeding and I didn't like that. You went to the hospital and you came home and you were still bleeding. I didn't like that either."

A trip to hospital showed nothing was actually broken and I didn't even need stitches to the hamburger that my lip had become. Nine months later and I have several scars but no lasting damage and even though my dentist suggested plastic surgery for my face, I've healed well enough that is wasn't needed. Thank fuck.  Who has money for plastic surgery?

Three weeks later I joined the gym. No more outdoor exercise for me. And I haven't ridden my bike since. PTSD. I keep picturing the ground rushing up to smash into my face. 

The Daily Chai is Hungover

Today's Chai is still at Starbucks and I'm lying in bed hoping it will magically appear at my bedside. No such luck.

Last night was a trip. Managed to drink enough wine that I got to see what it looks like coming up the other way. My buddy said, "Note for next time, stop about halfway through the big bottle instead of drinking the whole thing."  My reply, "Ha! Maybe I should stop halfway through a small bottle. That would be even better." Anyway, it's been a month or two since I indulged and I came out relatively unscathed. A little hungover but basically all in one piece. The last time I almost broke my nose when I tripped over my own winter boots and face planted in the icy snowbank. Nose bled for an hour and I cried to my bestie for longer because...oh, for so many reasons. Questioning my choices, worried about my kids, wishing things were different. I was in shock because the ground rushing at my face was reminiscent of my bike accident in May when I broke various parts of my body, including my face, which I'm rather fond of, so the experience was traumatic. 

My girlfriend came by around 7 and we got right into it. She's more of a friend of a friend, but it was a good time and we had lots to talk about. Seems to be an epidemic of men who don't take their parenting responsibilities seriously. Men...take heed! It's easy to let you wife do it all because she will naturally take on each new task, feeling like it's her duty. But just because she does all those things with the kids, doesn't mean she's happy about it and you can sit around playing video games with your hand in your pants. A word of advice (I might still be married if I'd insisted on this): take your kid(s) completely out of the house for a couple hours EVERY week. I know, you might be thinking that is just a crazy fucking thing to suggest, but trust me.  I don't give a shit if you just drive around with them, take them to the park, the mall, to work, I really don't care, but get them and yourself out of there. This serves two purposes. 1) the obvious one is it gives your wife a pause in her busy life so she doesn't go on a psychotic break and drown all of you in the tub one day and 2) you will get to experience HOW MUCH FUN it is to wrangle one or more children in an uncontrolled environment like the mall. I liken it to herding cats with a string. And maybe, just fucking maybe, you will realize that hauling those kids around everywhere, all the time, isn't, like, oh my god, such a fun job!! It's stressful and people judge you in public if you aren't the perfect parent and your kids CONSTANTLY ask you to buy them things and you have to say no all the time and then you say yes and your mother looks at you and says, "You spoil those kids!" Even though you said no five hundred previous times and just had a tiny weak moment. Or you are at the pool and one kid is hanging off you like a koala bear the other one is shouting, "Look at me mom, mum, mum,  MOTHER! Look at what I can do!" EVERY FIFTEEN SECONDS. If men experienced that constant pulling in every direction for even a couple hours a week, they would be more sympathetic to their wives. 

So yes, in my humble opinion, marriages everywhere could be saved if men would just take their kids out of the house once a week. Oh. And without fucking being asked to do so. A little voluntary action on your part would be the bomb.  Pretty simple eh?

Anyway, last night I had a surprise visitor from my way back past which was amazing. Funny how 15-20 years can pass and you are still buddies the way you always were, no matter how life has changed you. And he's still the same good guy I always knew, tucking me in on the couch when I passed out! I wonder how many times he's had to do that? Not much has changed! Still sitting on the same couches in my mother's house, shooting the shit about fights and tattoos and our ridiculous mutual friends who have not changed either. The only difference was my mom wasn't there smoking with us and we had to go outside to smoke. Good times.