Harboring An Alien

I know this is late but I've been out of town and when I wasn't out of town I was planning to be out of town and writing and re-writing the notes for my presentation. Oh, and shopping for pants. All the pants for sale today are a little stretchy, tight through the thighs and designed to rest on the hips. I wouldn't mind, but seriously, all of them. I asked the chick at J Crew where I could find pants that will fit my waist and drape nicely - I mean, they're for work - and she gave me this look...I suddenly knew I am old. Damn whipper snappers.

This post isn't about pants. It's about how freaking beautiful the weather was last Sunday. Actually, it's not really about that either, but that was a major part of the day. A prelude to spring. I saw it coming and got all excited. Jeremiah decided we should go out to Arabia Mountain with the girls because he'd missed the MLK Day outing. So off we went, just for a quick visit. We got off the trail and onto the rocks and Jeremiah was showing the girls how to skim rocks (and how to levitate, check out that photo there), Monkey was frolicking, and I was trying to get cute pictures of it all. Then, while squatting down for a good shot of the girls, I wobbled slightly and caught myself on my left knee. I knew something was wrong right away when I felt all the prickly pear cactus needles jab me through my jeans. At the time, I wasn't even sure that's what kind of cactus was nearly blanketing the rocks, I only knew it hurt to kneel on them. I rolled up my pants leg and began to remove the giant needles. One just didn't want to come out, it was in pretty far. Then, as I watched helplessly, my leg drew the needle all the way beneath the skin. Keep in mind that I've given birth twice when I tell you, that was the freakiest thing I've ever seen happen to my own flesh. My leg swelled up like a giant balloon and, more creeped out than in pain, I had to put the kibosh on the hike. Kate was annoyed. "Can't we take Mommy to the doctor when we're done hiking?" Deep down, she was really very worried about me.

I have a lot of Bea Provost in me, so naturally I became concerned that the cactus needles contained some sort of toxin and I probably only had about an hour to live. I called Steve, because he's supposed to know all about plants and stuff, and he sort of laughed at me but still assured me it wasn't a toxic plant. Then Jeremiah talked to the pharmacist at the near-by CVS and he said I'd know by now if it were a poison, and sent Jeremiah away with drawing ointment. Presumably this is stuff that will draw a foreign object out of one's skin, but mostly it smells horrifically bad and stains anything it touches dark brown. I put it on and we headed home and got lunch at Mezcalito's.The drawing ointment really didn't do a thing, but repeated applications of Arnica gel got the swelling down and even though it's still bruised and the needle is still stuck in my leg a week later, it feels much better. Oh, and Monkey made a new friend at Mezcalito's; Neil's dog Hugo.