73 Days Later

Dear Neighbors:


It has now been 73 days since my right foot was reconstructed and turned into The Frankenfoot. In that time, I have been staying with my mom in the senior citizen's mobile home park and have accomplished all sorts of time-consuming, exciting goals, such as:

• Taking daily naps, whether I need them or not;
• Watching "The People's Court" and "Judge Judy" every day;
• Watching every episode of "Damages" on Netflix (if you haven't seen it, you MUST watch!);
• Catching up on Season 3 of "White Collar" on Hulu;
• Reading, reading, reading;
• Catching up on old lady gossip;
• Writing...here and there;
• Realizing that I can go up and down stairs on crutches like a boss;
• Resisting the urge to stick something, anything into the cast to relieve the itch;
• Figuring out that if I put my laundry in a plastic trash bag and put the ties around my wrist, I can still hobble on crutches to the washing machine and do my own laundry;
• Showering twice a week, whether I need to or not;
• Eating one salad a day so that I don't gain weight while sitting on my ass for an extended amount of time (I lost 10 pounds but I don't feel like it);
• Discovering that Target, Albertsons, Wal-Mart, Stater Brothers and Sprouts all have those motorized carts for those of us who need to shop and can't carry our purchases around;
• Discovering that while Rite-Aid still carried one of my favorite flavors of ice cream (Chocolate Malted Crunch), their freezers are located all the way in the back of the store and they do not, in fact, have those wonderful motorized carts. And their lines move slowly. Very, very slowly;
• Wearing a tank top and boxer shorts every day. Sans bra. Sans!!!

I have also discovered that in addition to walking assistance, crutches provide a variety of other functions, such as:

• Reaching from my bed to the light switch so I can either turn the light off or the ceiling fan on without getting up;
• Reaching for and dragging over a variety of items so that, once again, I don't have to get up. 
• Pulling the wheelchair over to me because I can't use crutches and the wheelchair at the same time;
• Shutting the door from a distance;
• Retrieving the other crutch when it falls to such a distance that I can't reach it;
• Propping the shower door open while I attempt to get up from the shower chair.

As I mentioned before, my cast was removed last week. I'm allowed to put a little weight on my foot while I get used to walking again, and I have advanced to The Boot:

You might be asking yourself...what are those owls? Those owls are the decoration on a blanket that a wonderful student gave to me before I left to have my surgery. I have slept with that blanket every day since then. It's probably time to wash it, huh? (Kidding...really. I can do laundry all by myself.)


Fortunately, things have been kind of exciting in the last month. My sister is getting married on July 28th. I was hoping that I'd be off of crutches by then, but that's just not going to happen. Nor is getting rid of the boot. 


Yesterday, I went shopping for a dress to wear to her wedding. Shopping at a department store is, in fact, not easy on crutches. Imagine trying to carry around dresses on crutches. There's no way to do it gracefully and without dragging something on the floor. The fitting rooms were in such demand that I was lucky to get one. I had to fight someone for it. I'm not sure what it was she yelled at me in Spanish, but I'm reasonably sure it wasn't nice. She had two functional feet -- she didn't need the handicapped room. 


Let me tell you what's in fashion right now, judging by the dresses I found:

• The "maxi-dress", which is a very long dress that was either designed to cover legs-only weight gain...or cankles... or to give the wearer the ability to hide another person underneath;
• Uneven hems -- longer on both sides and shorter in the middle; slanted from right to left or left to right. Not sure what this accomplishes, other than making me feel as though the rest of the dress is bunched up in my underwear and I'm going to realize it only after walking through a crowded room;
• Yellow, yellow and more yellow! Who the hell can wear yellow? I know I can't. 
• Maternity dresses not-so-cleverly disguised as ordinary clothing. They weren't A-line and they weren't Empire. They were decidedly When are you due?, which is a big Oh, Hell No! in my book. 
• Dresses designed for grown women with flat chests. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, I'm just saying that I don't have one. Given my size, the designer should anticipate that I might have some boobage. Without revealing my size, I will say I'm somewhere in between Juniors and Women's World. As far as I know, a C-cup is a perfectly ordinary size and any dress should accommodate that. Except they didn't. My boobs were either spilling out or being smashed inconsiderately. I tend to think that a C-cup is as good as it gets. It's somewhere in between I'll take the push-up bra, thank you very much and hey buddy, my eyes are up here!. 

Surprisingly, I found a dress on my first trip to the fitting room. It's a dark purple silky fabric with a thin black belt that will go perfectly with my shoe and my boot. It should show off my left leg to perfection while still being appropriate to wear in a church of some sort. Best of all, I can wear it again. I'm saving that number for Back To School Night!

Before you ask, no -- you don't get a picture. At least not until after the wedding when I've had a chance to make myself look presentable. After nearly three months of captivity --oops, I mean recovery-- I'm in serious need of a hairdresser and good session with that magical grey-hair-covering-goo and unibrow-waxing-magic. 

If only I weren't completely broke. 

Two weeks until my sister drops our sacred (ha ha ha) last name and becomes a Mrs......

D