Where the #*&% Have You Been?

My most devoted fans have wondered where I've been.  I thank both of you for your interest.  I've just been living my usual jet-set/rock and roll lifestyle. Although you're probably going to read about it in next week's People magazine, I thought I'd share some of this past week's low-lights.  There's so so much I just don't know where to begin:

• I celebrated a birthday.  In a fitting fashion, the auspicious occasion was heralded in with a shower of throw up.  At approximately 12:20 AM (EST) I was awakened in the wee hours of the day marking my birth by a screeching, retching, gagging, and vomit covered R.A.  He proceeded to make the event more memorable by his insistence of not only rubbing the vomit into his eyes but then becoming enraged that the act made his eyes hurt.  My husband claims that the R.A. was so excited by the prospect of my birthday that he made himself sick.  I disagree and instead believe something more sinister was at hand.  It's all part of the R.A.'s dastardly plot to take over the world.  The R.A. is consistently sick on any and all special occasions and holidays.  It's so bad that I'm more surprised when he isn't sick for a special event.  I think he does it as a means to break our spirit - remove the joy and the impending despair will do its worst.  The R.A. is a master of psychological warfare.  I'm at the point where I dread holidays.  Well played, R.A.!  A few more "strep throat" Christmases and I will off my own self with the nearest strand of Christmas lights.  On the plus side, this birthday finally superceded what had originally been the worst birthday - the year I set my own hair on fire blowing out the candles on my cake.
• I got my licensed renewed.  The only thing that made the whole experience even more harrowing was that I had to go to the RMV on my birthday.  Normally I am big fan of any activity which requires that I sit and wait for long periods of time (without my children - engaging in such an activity with my children violates certain portions of the Geneva Convention).  It's a rare opportunity where all I can do is sit where nobody is snapping orders at me that require me to fulfill them immediately if not sooner.  Unfortunately the lady at the RMV did bark at me.  As I suffer from PTSD as a result of my life with the R.A. in which all he does is bark at me, I fell to pieces.  We were doing the vision portion of our little registry tete-a- tete and she kept roaring, "Read the third row!  The third row!"  So I kept reading the third row.  The more she barked, the more flustered I became.  I panicked that I wouldn't pass the vision test - and then how was I supposed to do the McD drive-thru for those demanded "fre fies" and "keh up?" I was terror-stricken.  My life passed before my eyes.  I feared I was going to faint from the strain.  Finally I took a deep breath, stepped away from the machine and squeaked, "Do you mean the third row down or the third row across?"  We literally had our "wires crossed" as she meant down and I thought she meant across (btw - isn't "across" a row and "down" a column?)  Once that was sorted out I did pass the eye test.  As a testament to the R.A.'s strict training my license photo came out quite nicely - there is no evidence of how traumatic the whole experience was.  My favorite part about the RMV adventure was that at the end I had to give them fifty dollars. At least at the conclusion of an R.A. episode I don't have to then pay him.  Yet.
• I inadvertently became a contestant on "Man vs. Food Nation."  For this particular challenge, I had to see if I could shovel an entire sandwich into my mouth before the R.A. boofed all over the recliner, himself, and floor.  Boof won.  But it was a close match. I am not interested in a re-match.

As you can see, I've been going pretty much full out. You know it's been a long weekend when you're more exhausted on Sunday night than you were on Friday morning - and not for any merry reasons.  It's like my nana used to say, "It's a great life if you don't weaken."