The Woman Who Dreamt She Was a Flea

.... or, I could be a flea who is just DREAMING I am a woman.

The other day I was talking to my sister about fleas. "Remember our cat Buffy? Remember how many fucking FLEAS she would have on her?"

Linda remembered. We used to look down at our feet, and our ankles would have about ten fleas each on them. Disgusting. We all had our own methods to kill them ... I would pick mine off one by one and wash them down the sink. Or, slice them neatly in half with a fingernail and flick them off on to the carpet.

"Remember how the fleas used to go nuts after de-fleaing!!" Linda didn't remember that bit, but I sure as hell did. When the fleas got so bad that mum had to call the flea guy, he would come and spray. For a few days after, the fleas would go PSYCHO. It was repulsive, you could see them jumping through the air, trying to bite everything they could. They never went without a Last Stand.

It dawned on me recently, after the herbs from the naturopath sent me SO TOTALLY CRAZY AND FUCKED UP and Daves all like, HOW much did you pay for that again??!!! I lost the plot big time, and accidentally forgot to blog it. Wailing, gnashing of teeth, etc.

And then?

I am better. I am now officially off the looney list, and expected to make a full recovery. (Whoops - can I use that word? Is it trademarked?)

Last year I would google random phrases containing the words "wife pregnant husband cancer help all fucked up" .... I really wanted to find somebody out there like me. I didn't, but recently I have found two other women in a similar circumstance that I was, so now I can be their trailblazer.

I remember a guy sharing in a Knitters Anonymous meeting a few years ago .... "I am where someone else once was. Someone else will be where I am now." He was talking about the ebb and flow, how we move and grow, learn and change. Sometimes trailblazing, sometimes following the trail marked by others.

It was the herbs that pushed me over the finish line, in the end. At first they sent me spinning around with wild emotion, like one of the scores of fleas I met in my childhood during the eighties. Except, of course, the fleas died. I have gotten well. It feels so good, true, and real. Of course, nothing will ever be the same again. My sense of safety will probably never return, I will not be surprised by anything ever again. Anything can happen, in life. Good or bad, we never know. Half of the people who learn they have Non-Hodgkins lymphoma are still alive five years after their initial diagnosis. So, whatever. I'm with Dave on this one ... totally doing an ostrich with my head firmly in the sand. At first I thought, "OH MY GOD YOU WILL NEED A FULL BODY SCAN EVERY FREAKIN WEEK."

But that is impossible. So. There we have it. Somebody once told me that "Happiness is the space between problems." Guess I'm happy, then.

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Our Valentines weekend away was good. I sat in the car on Valentines Day, plucking my chin hair in the rear view mirror while Dave was sitting right next to me, on the phone to a client. Ahhhhh, true love.

I missed the boys dreadfully. We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which was fantastic. Then I saw He's Just Not That Into You by myself ..... Dave got bored by Valkyrie, ha ha. We met each other in the lobby afterwards, and I hugged him and said ... "You are my Ben Affleck!" But, then we had an argument in the car on the way home and I jumped out and stomped off in the rain, crying, thinking, "Who does this? Who goes away with their spouse and ends up crying in the rain!?"

Apparently me. I ended up going back to the car, I was getting too wet. Was a ve-ry silent trip home.

We got home and my mother had cooked up a storm oh my God the food. We've lived off her meals all week, blessed relief not having to come up with meal ideas every freakin' night.

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Yesterday I walked in to the kitchen to see the baby sitting in the highchair, next to Dave. What was littered all over the high chair tray? Why ... it was roast peanuts, almonds, and cashews of course! The baby was just sitting there, playing with his nut stash.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After I scooped my exploded brains from the floor, I demanded an explanation from Dave. (In a really calm way, promise.) He said that he gave Rocco the box of nuts to "shake", like a rattle.

I tried my hardest but could not find "nut rattle" written in ANY of my baby books. Anyone?
Bueller?

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I'm getting this pic blown up and giving it to Dave as a surprise. The other day I went "MATE! You have THREE sons!!"

He laughed and said "No I don't."

Sometimes, I quite envy his brain.