First of all, I’m sorry. I don’t know why, but I want to cover my bases.

I flew to Wisconsin to visit my mom on Saturday. I knew, owing to the timing, that it would likely be Periods on a Plane again so I wore a skirt. I also brought the second half of my bbq ribs lunch from Everett and Jones in Berkeley. I ate them like a wild manimal while sitting next to a family that ate nothing but vegetables the whole flight. I hadn’t considered that I might be next to vegetarians but I wouldn’t have done anything differently. It felt primitive and smelled amazing.

I found my cute mom at the airport in her new OP glasses. We grabbed my bag and headed to the car.

At the house, as always, I was greeted by the shih tzus, Lulu and Maggie. They were fatter than usual. My mom’s husband came home and started watching the Nature Channel so we went downstairs into the basement because my mom said murder mysteries are more her style. I don’t know why Neal is the television alpha. Even if we’re there first he grabs the 10 foot by 8 foot television out of our grubby hands and we go down to the tiny one over the pool table in the cold. There’s always a new blanket made by one of my mom’s patients (she’s an oncology nurse)  in some sort of craft style. I don’t know if it’s called knitting but it’s a blanket. This one was orange and white.

I went to bed after some truly disturbing humanity, people killing each other, missing people. All the worst stuff. I would have preferred the nature channel but I wanted to hang out with my mom more than I wanted to protect my sense of well-being. I climbed into bed and listened to tons of frogs pluck at flat rubber bands behind the house. I fell asleep and in the middle of the night a train passed through. There were foxes outside somewhere.

The next day, Sunday, was my cousin’s kid’s graduation party. I had heard there would be a deejay. It was at my aunt’s large house outside Sheboygan. Well sorry for the CLIFFHANGER but I need to go to bed!

That would have made more sense if I had posted it and then offered a sequel…but I did not.

So anyway, naturally and in the spirit of every blog entry I write which seems to exclusively be in the realm of femalia, blood and painkillers, I now tell you that I received my period early in the day Sunday. I went to my grandma’s, dropped a percocet and ate some jello with fruit cocktail in it. My grandma went on an unusually vehement tirade about how Jesus is the answer when I told her just some random crap about my life. She doesn’t usually do that. We sat on the couch and I ate a few York peppermint patties and then she had to take a nap. As we were finally leaving for the graduation party, my yucky pills kicked in and I felt my head go full speed wobbles. When we arrived at the massive estate where the party was happening I said hello to two people and couldn’t keep my eyes focused. Also I felt like I was standing at a 45 degree angle to the ground. So I went up and napped in my uncle’s office where I heard 1.5 hours of Phil Collins. Either there was no deejay or a certain kind of deejay. It felt surreal to be drooling on a stiff cushion, spacing out, watching the rain outside and hearing neverending Phil Collins. My mom finally came up and coaxed me downstairs where I ate a square hamburger and we went home.

I had one more day in Wisconsin. The whole time was spent in egregious pain, taking the pills that made my whole body feel super itchy and didn’t let me sleep. I listened to the frogs and their rubber bands all night. A train rolls by at 3:00 a.m. every night (morning?). I felt dumb as a bag of hammers. I flew back to San Francisco and stayed that way for four more days. It really blew.

Now my pain is minimal. I mean, the red tide is over but I have this huge cyst, apparently, and I can feel it kind of aching a lot of the time. For that reason I look forward to surgery. Yes I do.