Not This Week, I Have a Headache

I've tried to sit down and write on several occasions this week, but everything comes out all gloom and doom. Blame it on November, low seratonin levels, potty training, and the contractors who are demolishing our living room, leaving my toilet seat up, and forcing me to resort to emotional eating.

With every passing year, the cloak of the approaching winter weighs heavier and heavier. I dread the holidays, the C1eveland sludge, and the impending threat of illness more and more. I typically spend December through March wringing my hands and hovering around my kids' foreheads with an infrared thermometer, and this year I'm starting early.

And because I am so worried about my kids, it naturally follows that I am short-tempered and irritable with them. Such as when they all but lick the doorknob at the H1N1 vaccine dispensation center. I yell because I love.

Every morning for the past several weeks, I have been going down a list cobbled together through dumb luck and trial and error, calling various pharmacies and public health offices to pin down vaccine. It's been much like searching for a needle in a haystack, but yesterday I hit paydirt and J-dog and V-meister were inoculated.

Of course, the vaccine takes more than a week to kick in and meanwhile I'm sure they will have picked up swine flu in the waiting room. I myself was not eligible for the vaccine, but don't think for a minute that I didn't contemplate snatching a vial out of Nurse Betty's grubby little hands and stabbing myself in the arm with it.

In other news, the honeymoon is over between me and the decorators. I've been reluctant to complain about them here because what kind of person whines about the luxury of having someone update their house for them? It's just that . . . well . . . if I'm going to pay someone to coordinate my home improvement projects, well then by God I expect that someone to own a cell phone and answer it . . . and to show up on time for appointments . . . and to communicate with the contractors so they don't have to call me every morning as I'm herding the kids out the door wondering which color paint to buy . . . and!. . . to stop steering me toward styles of decor I've repeatedly indicated don't jive with my crumb-ridden lifestyle.

The first time we met to "talk about colors and patterns," I told the decorators "no plaid, no orange." Next thing you know, they're showing me a plaid curtain sample and trying to pass it off as "checkered." And goddamn if that little fucker wasn't peppered with multiple orange squares, plain as the nose on your face. I said, "I like Arhaus, Pottery Barn, and Restoration Hardware! Don't show me anything with feet on it!" and . . .

. . . ended up signing off on this 1920s hallway table:





It should be noted that the table will be refurbished with new knobs and maybe some burnished mirror panels. Now, even though cloven-hoofed furniture doesn't normally speak to my heart, there was something about it that I found almost endearing. Is it trying to scare me? Because it's not scaring me at all. In fact, it looks much like the way I feel.