To-do List

I'm sitting here staring at my to-do list. Every day there seems to be one. And even though I cross things off of it, I would swear the tasks seem to be breeding.

1. Buy a card/flowers for B's daughter, who just had another surgery back in Darncold, IA, where she's going to be laid up for six weeks in a wheelchair. (Reminder to self - do not ask WHY in the heck she decided to have surgery on BOTH FEET at once). Pray that their pipes do not freeze tonight.

2. Call the teachers at my son's school and try to persuade them to make special arrangments for him to take his final semester exams, since he's not allowed on school grounds after his pugilistic extravaganza of last week versus the ex-friend who monkeyed around with his girlfriend (Said girlfriend being the only one not suspended from school, incidentally).

3. Talk to new boss about taking time off work for Item #2.

4. Call around to orthopedic surgeons to find one who will do a consult on daughter, who needs the same surgery as in #1. Make sure they can do both of her feet in succession, work around school and her summer job, and the two pageants that she's planning on running for. Ensure they can change the surgery schedule in case she wins one of them.

5. Write letter to GM CareCredit regarding the $4500 credit line they extended me that I never used, since we decided against the cosmetic procedure we got the credit line for. Ask them why the heck they decided to write "Closed for account abuse" on the explanation line when they closed my inactive account, prompting a 50 point drop in my credit score. Follow up with letters of explanation to all three credit bureaus and beg for mercy.

6. Transfer money to daughter's checking account to cover the check she wrote this morning for the grande quad-shot nonfat Americano and low-fat coffee cake that it took me to get jump started into my Monday morning.

7. Drop off dry cleaning. Beg them to do whatever magic that they do that I can't manage to do at home - ie: NOT shrink all my husband's shirts by four sizes!

8. Whoops! Feed dogs....

9. Umm... take something out for dinner? (Realistically speaking - decide what to call out for for dinner).

10. Pay the neighbor guy (who owns an auto shop) for whatever he did for my daughter's car that made her text me "I don't know what J did to my car, but it's awesome! It doesn't want to do the speed limit!!!"

11. Look up ingredients for Afrin nasal spray on Rxlist.com to find out if there's a weird drug interaction with B's Requip, Sinemet and antibiotic that gave him dyskinesia all night long. Which he slept through. Like a baby.

12. Remember to take sleeping pill tonight after B uses nasal spray. Couch looks good too....

13. Put "Bridal show 2009" date on the whiteboard calendar. Reminder to self - quit blushing when someone mentions 'weddings' at work.

14. Work out on exercise ball. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

15. Work on painting.

16. No, wait. Clean house.

17. Decide to do neither and go shopping instead. B needs to go to Gottschalks, where everything is 50 to 75% off and he may be able to find shirts that AREN'T pre-shrunk. Vow to send all his clothes to the cleaners instead.

18. Help daughter finish scrapbook for best friend who is moving to Texas in a week.

19. Set traps for the dust bunnies underneath the furniture. (Call Elmer Fudd?)

20. Find B out in the 'man-cave', grin as he unzips his big down jacket and wraps me up inside it, against his chest, where the snuggle spot is. Listen to that heartbeat... let the silence of everything else fill the world until that is all that is left; his heartbeat and the suss of his breathing. Hold on tight and melt, feeling the slow dance of his body and it's motion, like kelp in a gentle sea. Give thanks, because this... THIS... is all that is, and all that matters at the close of the day.

And breathe...