He Has Risen (and She Has Fallen)
Today was personally something of a shit show. I've not posted much this week because it would have been endless griping about the busiest tourist week of the year being in pain in the ass, or moaning about my stupid body. It's been quite the week. I'm not sad fishing, I'm just explaining how I got so turned around on Easter. Chop, chop, bitch, as a friend of mine says.
The Lyrica makes me want to sleep all hours of the day. I set my alarm to go off at six thirty because the process of waking up and drinking enough coffee along with warming up my voice takes a good two hours without the process of getting dressed when you have no balance. Jim reset the alarm to 8 am without realizing why I had it set so early. I woke up just in time to guzzle coffee and get dressed in a panicked state. No time to warm up the vocal cords.
I leave Jim picking up mangoes and moaning about his thrown out back. I get a block down the main road and there's an accident blocking both lanes. I decide to duck into the grocery store I was in front of while they were sorting out the wreck. I knew I had plenty of time for band rehearsals. Go in there to pick up cupcakes and a carbonated caffeinated beverage to get thru morning service. So so crowded by beachgoers buying beer and ice while wearing swimsuits. Someone, not playing attention, accidentally kicks my cane and down I go. First fall of the day. Thank whatever I had picked nothing yet.
Make it out to the parking lot just in time to see wreckers detangling the cars and reopening the road. Rip into the pastry I always buy on Sundays when I'm too pressed for time to cook, a plain croissant. Take a bite, take another one. On the third bite I taste the peanut butter, that substance I'm so allergic to. Spitting out croissant pieces in the parking lot and rinsing the mouth with soda again and again while preparing the pharmacopia in my purse for medication.
Get to church. Get out of the car and land right into a pile of brush I didn't see when I drove up. Fall down again. Go in, ignoring aches and pains from two falls before 9 am. Get on platform and its the third Sunday in a row with no real rehearsals, just a few minutes in the morn and several new songs. I ask the leader about this and am told no one has ever any time for rehearsals. I suggest someone lets me know at least a day or two before they add new songs, so I can listen to them on YouTube, and pick up the songs, to no avail. Too busy is the answer I got.
Ultimately I decided not to sing. I was crazy wheezy from the peanut butter in an item not marked anywhere on the package that it might contain peanuts, and quite frankly, I just not feeling it. It's Easter and my mind keeps circling back to Judas and his role in the story. I'm sitting there with Jim thinking how Judas lived with Jesus every single day, talked with him, walked with him, and still ended up betraying him. What hope do we flawed folks that don't have those advantages have if even he screwed it up so royally.
As I sit there, listening to Jim warbling softly off key, my eyes start watering heavily. I look around and wonder who or what is causing this. Bad cologne maybe? I don't know, and start medicating again, cursing my luck that my portable neb is not in the car, making do with an old inhaler. After a few minutes I see what it is. A visitor to the church with a large poodle. The poodle with it's hair cut into the traditional poodle puffs. It's wearing a vest stating it's an emotional support animal.
So how does that work, when someone else's ADA accommodations violate your own? I have seen so many times people with traditional pet type dogs claiming all sorts of support animal status. This is why Delta and a couple of airlines are no longer allowing them to board. Too many folks have taken advantage of that. Seeing this one I'd say it's likely the same. I see this woman around town often, even if this is her first church visit, and I've never seen this dog with her once.
I'm not allergic to all dogs. It seems to be mostly the long haired ones, like poodles or yorkies and very hairy ones. I'm fine around short haired ones like pit bulls or retrievers. I like dogs, their hair does not like me.
I take my purse outside and go sit on the porch. One of the church board members comes out and wants to know what's wrong. I tell her, pointing out that our last pastor had banned dogs from the building because of my strong asthma reactions to hairy ones. I also point out there likely shouldn't be piles of brush in the parking lot, the gate to the wheelchair ramp needs to be open on Sundays because wrestling it every Sunday when you have no balance is so hard, that there needs to be handicapped parking. ALL of it.
Yes, I'm a whiny "Chop, chop, bitch" head. I decide to ditch church, see if anyone even notices. Get home, start inhaling the contents of the crock pot I filled the night before, start medicating even more and my elderly aunt calls. Long phone call where I said very little and listened to her rant that Dr. Fauci and the entire CDC were lying liars. It's Sunday morning, do you know how much sacramental wine Nanna has consumed?
I lay in bed and read most of the day and pop pills, guzzle liquid meds, shoot, snort, rub into my belly all number of things. At least I tried, but my phone kept ringing. I'm thinking that next Sunday I'm going to switch it off.
By the time the day was over I'd talked to a friend puzzling over men's suits and online interviews, another about her religious trauma and still another over the issues of trauma from food insecurities in her childhood. I'm plumb worn out from all the active listening. I feel faintified now. Going to bed early and reading a hysterically funny camp book about the movie "Valley of the Dolls"
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