But anyways, I have a kidney infection.  Waaaahhhhh!   WAAAHHHHH!

I woke up one morning this week thinking I’d pulled a muscle in my back, but then came the “telltale signs.”  I tried powerhousing water, but it was too late.  I popped into the chiropractor and when he very gently brushed against my back on the bad side, I almost jumped out of my skin.

I decided not to call my new (to me) local GP (Dr Mitt Romney; seriously, he reminds me a lot of Mitt; it’s actually a little disconcerting.)  Instead I called trusty old Doc Langford, who has seen me through quite a few of these infections  because I unfortunately tended to get them during my pregnancy with Jane.

So now I’m being a huge baby because I HATE taking antibiotics.  (Though it was pretty funny standing in line at Target on Valentine’s Day eve night with my bottle of medicine and a Valentine’s Day card, and noticing that  every other person in line was a man holding a Valentine’s Day card.)  I hate drinking tons of water.  I hate feeling run-down.  I hate admitting I am sick!  There is pretty much nothing redeeming about any of this.  I even had to cancel my morning as a tennis sub which meant I didn’t get to meet the “good one.”  (The one other time I played with this group, she was the one I was subbing for.)

Oh, also, I hate the fact that I’m 42 years old and still cannot swallow pills.  I have to hide them from myself like a dog.  Since I’m vegetarian I can’t roll them in a slice of bologna or stuff them in a meatball; I bury it in a glob of applesauce or Yo Baby vanilla yogurt.

I unfortunately tend to get “gastric distress” from antibiotics.  My anti-gastric-distress plan is working okay so far.  I hide my pill in food, then take it with a bunch more food.  My two biggest meals of the day have to be the time when I take my pills.  Then at the “opposite end of the clock” I take my (chewable, of course) probiotics. Because I can’t swallow pills, everything I take is either for kids (e.g. Gummy dinosaurs, Yum Yum Dophilus) or from the 1800s (BC Headache powder, elderberry elixir.)

If all else fails, I just eat toast and a banana.  So far, so-so.

There are a couple of silver linings to all of this.  First, I keep hearing about people with kidney stones.  Of course that first day, I figured it had to be a stone.        That just seemed like the type of thing that would happen after the way 2012 began for us.  But no, it’s just a plain, old, garden variety, run of the mill infection.  I started feeling better on antibiotics right away plus they “cultured” my urine (I am so highbrow that even my urine is cultured,  hee hee!)

Also, I am devoting myself to drinking more water.  I even bought this fancy stuff to doctor up my water.  A facialist in my hairstylist’s building sells it.  (And if there’s a better  endorsement for a health product than that, I don’t know it.)

Here’s what else I’m drinking:

• plain water with a slice of lemon (I found Meyer lemons at, of all places, Walmart; ordinarily, living in hardcore citrus and avocado country, I would never buy lemons at Walmart, but we popped in for something else and I was so excited I had to buy a bag)
• seltzer water (the elusive Canada Dry in cans is at Stater Bros.  When  I remember, I buy Pellegrino bottles at Costco or Smart and Final.)
• Alvita organic cornsilk tea (ancient Native wisdom!  My former doctor up in Riverside, Dr Shaker, recommended this for urinary tract health.  The taste is not bad.  It’s a little bit corn-y but mostly kind of neutral tasting.  I  buy it at the health food store.)
• Sleepytime tea (love!)
• green tea (Salada – still working my way through the gigantic crate of Salada tea they sent me when I auditioned to be their blogger)
• rooibos tea (just plain/unflavored. Love it!  I  buy it from California Tea + Coffee Brewery in Temecula)

Sadly, I am not supposed to have sugar now because I have read that sugar is one of the worst things you can consume while fighting a kidney infection.  Damn!  Our hallway is piled high with crates of Girl Scout cookies.  Great timing, huh?

I am weaning myself off my habit of putting sugar in my morning black tea.  I usually do two teaspoons of Sugar in the Raw.  It’s not a huge amount but since I have two cups a day, that is four teaspoons of added sugar that I probably could do without.

I immediately lowered it to one teaspoon (I measure it in a measuring spoon that I flatten with the edge of a butter knife like Ms Zwick taught me in 7th grade home ec.)

After a couple of days, I lowered it to 3/4 teaspoon.  I plan to progress like this until I am drinking tea with no added sugar whatsoever.  Revolutionary!  Finally,  this big baby will be a Grown Up.

The studio happens to be next door to the hair salon, so while Eva was having her hair trimmed one day last week, Jane and I popped in to check it out.

An earnest, extremely buff possibly Brazilian guy handed us a packet of materials. He circled some classes on a schedule filled with a rainbow of color coded lessons (the belts! oh, the belts) and told us about their $99 special: nine weeks for $99, including free uniform.

The kicker (well, the first of a few as you will see) is that kids have to take lessons at least three times a week. More, the higher they go. Who has three free days a week? Who?! Not to mention four or five? But anyway, that’s all mere details, because I actually burst into real, live LOL-ish laughter as I read the packet.

I’m not (at all!) laughing AT K. Kim Taekwondo. To the contrary. Master K. Kim sets admirable and lofty expectations for his students. To the point where Eva was (literally) crying and the more Eva cried, the more Jane laughed.

“Eva, why are you crying?”

“It’s just not fair! These rules! They’re so strict. Why?! It makes no sense.”

Bear in mind I haven’t even signed her up for anything, and we probably couldn’t do it anyway even if she wanted to due to the schedule. Crying. Real tears of despair.

Student’s Home Rules

1.  Children shall always be respectful of their parents, teachers, and elders, Sir!

2. Children shall be kind to their brothers and sisters, Sir!

3.  Children shall keep their household neat and clean.  (Acceleration of crying at this one.)

4.  Children shall greet their parents with “Hi, Mom” or “Hi, Dad,” and “Good-bye, Mom,” and Good-bye, Dad,” when leaving, Sir!  (For some reason this one really cracked Jane up.  For the past few days she’s been saluting me and calling me Sir.  I feel like Captain Janeway.)

5.  Children shall keep their hair, teeth, and body clean daily.

6.  Children shall not interrupt Adult Conversations.  (Normally not a fan of meaningless capitalization, but this one is kind of awesome.)

7.  Children shall fix a recipe for Straight A’s daily:  when you come home from school, open the refrigerator, have a glass of milk or juice, open your books and review what you studied in school that day.  Do your homework.  Preview what you will study tomorrow.

CHILDREN WHO DO NOT OBEY THEIR PARENTS MAY BE REDUCED IN RANK.

Okay, so seriously.  I want to make a plaque that says “Children who do not obey their parents may be reduced in rank,” and hang it on our front door.  My soft, spoiled American kids were so traumatized just by the mere reading of Grandmaster’s rules that Eva kept saying, “Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

There are more rules, too, like the Do Jang (“dojo”?) rules.  I won’t show you the entire long list, but note it begins with saluting the flags upon entering the practice hall and includes “Use words of respect when speaking to the instructors; the instructors need not take particular care in their choice of words.”

So it’s unlikely either of my kids will  take the “Oath of the Student”:  To obey the tenets of Taekwondo; to respect the instructor and senior; to never misuse Taekwondo; to be a champion of freedom and justice; to work for a more peaceful world”…

Which sounds great, unless taken with what is printed in 36 point font on the next page:  PAIN IS GOOD.  TRUE WISDOM COMES FROM PAIN.  PAIN TURNS FOLLOWERS INTO LEADERS AND MAKES THE WEAK STRONG.

Hoo-ya!

But really, how often does the Three Day Blinds lady leave a message on your answering machine telling you to go f*&! yourself? How many “Lost bloodhound!” signs are there? Sometimes life throws me a dry spell.

For instance last week we got a new dryer. People came and stood outside their houses on the sidewalk to watch the men in the truck unload it. This qualified as excitement here on the street. I’m not hating; if my neighbor gets a new hot water heater, I’m out there chit chatting with the neighbors while the Sears guy cuts open the box.

I’ve been playing something new (to me): Lexulous on Facebook. I started playing Words With Friends, which was fun, but then one of my friends messaged me: “I like Lexulous better. You want to try it?” I did. Likey likey! I haven’t played actual board Scrabble in years but it all is coming back.

Lexulous is fun. People “chat” which seems to consist of writing short little messages which mostly consist of cryptic combinations of initials like “TYGL” (thank you, good luck) or “GL2Y2″ (good luck to you too.) Some people say they are up for “flirty chat” which seems weird to me. How does that even work? “What a sexy word!” “Thank you!”

Oh, and I did not suck at tennis! That was my goal (yeah, I set a high bar for myself): to not suck. I did not double fault on my serve. Wait, maybe I did once. I can’t remember. I think I didn’t double fault but might have but if I did it was only once.

We played doubles, and at the set change we traded partners. My first partner and I won by a lot and my second partner and I lost by not a horrible amount. The group is chatty which is fine by me. Also in doubles you have several more feet of court so that’s a plus for trying to get the ball in.

We chatted all through two sets, then went to Starbucks and chatted some more. I picked Jane up from kindergarten in a tennis dress and you would not believe how many people said, “Tennis! We need to play sometime.”

So far the only other person I’ve played with is Scott. We are very rusty and the day was hot. Midway through playing I turned to him and said, “You know what would taste good right now? An Arnold Palmer!” I felt like we should be in that ’70s Nestea commercial.

When we got home, I tried to make iced green tea with honey and lime like I used to when we subscribed to a farm basket (tons of limes) and it didn’t work. It looked like dishwater and the moment that thought popped into my head it tasted like it too. Blech.

Scott came home and I announced that starting tomorrow I’m going to start keeping a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge. Doesn’t that sound refreshing?

And that’s what’s been going on around here.

I used to get cold sores often. My worst time of year for them was cold yet bright days of winter. There’s something about that combination that triggers them.

Stress and being tired are also triggers and I was very stressed on Tuesday night. I slept only a few hours and was a zombie the next day. The day after that? Cold sore.

This is my first one in years, too. I’ve gotten very good at spotting the signs (telltale tingling) and slathering the would-be sore with Carmex, while carefully NOT touching it, plus resting a lot and eating and sleeping really well.

This one caught me off guard.

I veer between two opposite philosophies when I have a cold sore.

Philosophy One: careful hair styling, makeup, jewelry, dress in a “real” outfit with matching earrings, maybe boots and/or a scarf. It’s a look that says: I’m snazzy, so please disregard this cold sore!

Example: I worked in Jane’s classroom on Thursday and was wearing a cardigan and pearls.

Philosophy Two: hide, don’t put anything near my face (not even moisturizer! What would I be thinking with actual makeup?), heal my body by napping in comfy sweats. I’m not talking about cute post-Pilates yoga pants while waiting in line at Starbucks. No, I’m talking full-on grey Champion sweats, slightly baggy in the seat.

If history is any guide I have at least another day or two of cold sore hell before I look normal again. I hereby pledge before God, my dog, and all dozen or so blog readers to hew to Philosophy One this week.

I will thread my brows. Yes, they will cluck and “aah” at my cold sore. Yes, they will probably slather on the hand sanitizer the moment I leave the chair. But I will do it. And yes, I will keep my hair appointment, even though it means staring at my cold sore for an hour and a half. If I feel faint, I will read People or In Touch instead. I will wear earrings. I will wear mascara. I will tie a jaunty scarf around my neck.

If you see me, please avert your eyes and compliment my jaunty scarf. Thank you!

But even as I was tanking midterms and freezing up in the middle of “the Socratic Method,” people thought I was this great student. People actually wanted to study with me. They’d pull me aside “to pick my brain” about something or ask my opinion of page three of their outline.

I do have a point here. I am not (at all!) athletic. But people often will make comments to me which tell me that I somehow seem well-coordinated. Physically fit. Agile. Sporty.

Sporty! Me? But yes, there are people who don’t know “the real me” who believe I am sporty.

And much like how I became good at law after actually leaving law school, I am actually morphing into a somewhat sporty girl after all these years.

I am Suburban Sporty: the mythical fifth (sixth?) Spice Girl. Sporty Spice’s older, whiter aunt, maybe.

Suddenly I went from someone who does nothing to someone with a weekly yoga class (medium level of difficulty, thankyouverymuch), weekly golfing workshop (“ladies” only), and now I am a sub for a weekly tennis game.

Mo’s girlfriend Pussycat’s mom asked if I’d be interested in subbing for their regular twice-weekly game. I love tennis though for some weird reason haven’t played for the past 25 years. (But I’m sure it’ll all come back to me once I get out on the court again, right? I hope…)

The first week, they did need a sub, but thank GOD it rained. Then it rained again. Woo hoo! I was off the hook, but on the other hand, couldn’t get out to practice because duh, it was raining. D’oh.

This week started out cold and rainy, but today, the sun came out and it was gorgeous. Sure enough, I get home to a phone message: Can you play Friday?

Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!

I grabbed Bits to be my ball girl and ran out to the court by our house to practice my serve. I had a pretty good lefty serve back in the day, but I actually had a scary moment when I couldn’t remember which side you start out serving on. Oops. I’m sure all the details will come back to me. (And when I say “I’m sure,” what I actually mean is, “I hope.”)

And you know what? It did come back to me! I can still bang out a pretty good serve. It was not amazing but it went in the square and with a little bit of spin, even.

So now I’m excited for Friday. We’re playing some doubles then heading over to Starbucks. I can show off my dog bites to the ladies.

Pussycat’s mom assures me this group is “not that great” and they play “just for fun,” though don’t people always say that? I am taking the place of their best player, so I might bring their overall skill level down a titch. Gotta start somewhere. And if all else fails, at least I look the part.

First, there was my shoulder.  It started hurting in the summer.  I ignored it and ignored it, hoping it would get better, but instead it started getting worse.  Finally, in November, I started going to a chiropractor.

I used to go to a chiropractor when I was in my 20s.  He was great and I felt  good, but I always felt like I never quite believed a lot of the claims he made.  Everything seemed very speculative.  We moved, I stopped going to him, and I still felt the same (good!) and for the next several years I was chiro-free.

This chiropractor is very nice.  He’s calming.  I like his soothing voice.  Other than the heavy sweet-spicy scented candles that are always burning at the receptionist desk, I enjoy going to his office.

We seem to have pinpointed my shoulder pain to actually originating in the muscles of my upper back, in the region my former masseuse “Esther” used to call the “chicken wings.”

Sometimes my entire arm down into my fingers goes numb. When that happens, my new chiro pops or rolls everything back into place. It is heavenly!

So I’ve been going to this new guy and have been feeling good.

Then January happens.

We go to lunch at my inlaws’ place in Laguna Woods (formerly Leisure World but call it that on pain of death!) Jane is still on limited activity from her concussion. She has a ball she keeps bouncing but is of course doing it very dangerously so I grab it from her. Thirty seconds later I have bounced the ball into a river, and thirty seconds after that, Scott is in that river, retrieving the ball. Yay, heroic, woo hoo.

He climbs out and thinks it will be hilarious to pretend to push me into the river. His push literally lifts me off both feet and I am freaking out, like already imagining myself having the same CT scan we just had for Jane a few days before. Concussion buddies! So he’s grabbing me and I’m grabbing him and I wind up just killing my shoulder.

The next day, I’m running errands with my entire arm numb down into my fingers.

You know how on Gilligan’s Island, Gilligan would get hit on the head with a coconut and have super powers, or the professor would get hit on the head and become a ladies’ man, and then in the last two minutes of the episode, they’d get hit on the head again with another coconut and go back to normal?

That’s what I did to myself! I was lifting a heavy bag and Gilligan’d myself back to about 50% normalcy. Woot. But though I can feel my fingers, “50% good” still leaves the other 50%. Fifty percent is an F.

So January is just getting started and I am the Hunchback of Notre Temecula.

Then last week I get bit by a huge German shepherd! (They say he’s six months old but I don’t believe it.) I’m dropping Mo at a new (to us) drop-in daycare place. Mo’s already back in the waiting room/induction center and I’m just standing at the counter filling out paperwork and thinking of how awesome it’s going to be to have a dog-free day at home, when suddenly another customer’s dog runs over and bites me.

(And the kind of funny thing is that I DO have one previous experience with this place: one of the few negative Yelp reviews I’ve written. I tried them for DIY dog washing and was unimpressed. Now the owner, who didn’t make the connection, is like, “Oh, don’t think it’s always like this! This is very unusual.” I hope so! And I will say, Mo had an amazing time and came home way too tired to eat the couch, which is the goal.)

It was completely unprovoked; my back was to him. He really clamped down hard, then when I spun around and got him off my first leg, he immediately sank down for a chomp at my other leg.

Pain, bruising, shakiness, worry, Tetanus shot.

So now both legs are in pain, plus my Tetanus arm. (Never again will I doubt my kids when they complain three days later that their vaccines hurt.)

Completely vulnerable and in pain, I realize I have a dentist appointment scheduled for this week. Yay! Time for some deep scaling.

So that is my litany. It’s only mid-January, people! How are we going to survive 2012? I am actually afraid to do my paperwork this afternoon because I know I’m due for a few paper cuts.

Today I am turning to chocolate. I have the last of my Gayle’s nonpareils (why are they called that? But whatever; they are so good! Maybe that is why.) I am hoarding them. I leave the Laffy Taffy and Smarties to the kids. I get the good stuff. Let the healing begin.

I love the sun. After the solstice on December 21, I swear I can actually feel our part of the world brightening a teeny bit more each day.

Here are some ways a sun-worshipping lizard like me likes to make winter a bit cheerier and more comfortable:

1. HYDRATION:

When we spotted this cool carafe with matching drinking glass at Container Store, we knew Jane had to have it. She has always loved her “night water” and now she can keep a fresh pitcher at her bedside.

2. MORE HYDRATION:

I am around tons of kids every day so I wash my hands all the time. I have a different hand lotion in every bathroom plus several in my purses and coat pockets. Weleda Skin Food is the one I put on before I go to bed at night. Weleda is expensive, but for most of their bodycare products, a little bit goes a long way. I buy mine at Henry’s/Sprouts during their 20% off Bodycare sales, which they seem to run about once every other month or so.

3. HOT AND HEARTY BREAKFAST:

Kodiak Cakes are amazing! This mix makes delicious, hearty, filling pancakes, and it is SO easy because you just need to add water. I hate buying something thinking, “Yay, a mix,” then realizing I need eggs, oil, butter, etc etc. I like the ingredients list. Yum.

4. HOT SPRINGS:

We are very lucky to have Glen Ivy right up the road in Corona. Glen Ivy gets busy in the spring and summer, but the top-secret best time to visit is in the dead of winter. The pools and springs are hot, so they warm you right up. No fighting crowds! No sunburn! No bachelorette parties! Heaven.

I like to think of her not so much as bossy, but rather as a skilled manipulator of people.

I don’t think “manipulative” is always a bad thing.  We are just going to have to work with her to teach her to channel her powers for good, not evil.

For example….

Jane is on two weeks of light activity following a bad concussion.  (Side note:  her concussion was called “moderate,” which is apparently really bad.  You never want to hear the words “vegetable” come out of your pediatrician’s mouth unless he’s talking about something you need to be eating more of.  Moderate doesn’t sound bad, but “mild” is the good one and “moderate” is the bad one.)

Light activity has been torture for our entire family.  Jane is extremely active, and she is very restless.  Just watching her walk down the street, in her crazy, bouncy way, I want to wrap her head in bubble wrap.

So yesterday afternoon, one of the neighbor kids brings over a new Monster High karaoke microphone toy.   This little girl is in Jane’s class so they know each other pretty well.  I’m sitting outside in the driveway doing Sudoku and watching them play.

It was fascinating because the first words out of the girl’s mouth, even as she’s lugging her karaoke kit across the street, are, “Only I  can sing.  Nobody else can sing.  You can watch me sing but you can’t sing.”

So does Jane get frustrated or angry?  Does she frown or yell?  Does she try to reason or argue?

No, Jane does not.  Instead, Jane says, “Okay, that’s fine.  Yes, that’s very good.”

So I’m doing my Sudoku and I’m trying to not get involved, but just to observe and jump in if anyone is about to get a moderate concussion.

And then I get to see Jane in action.  You see, Jane is masterful.  The field marshals of the world are different from the rest of us.  I seriously doubt you could teach skills like these.  It’s something inborn.

Jane says, “Well, I have my art kit here, and of course we’re going to need tickets.”

(Jane at this point is like some wily creature out of an Aesop fable.)

“Tickets?”

“Yes, of course!  You’re going to have a big audience, right?  You’re going to need tickets.”

And it goes from there.

“You’ll need an announcer, right?”

“Announcer?”

“Yes!  To introduce you.  You’re not just going to walk out there.  You need someone to get the crowd excited.”

And within ten minutes, we have this:

"....a VERY special guest"

The neighbor girl was struggling to keep up with Jane’s rigid quality control specifications for the tickets. (I missed how Jane got the girl to make the tickets, but I know for a fact Jane wrote one and the other girl wrote 24. It looked like a really tedious job, especially when you’re watching someone else sing on your karaoke machine and you can’t sing because you have to finish the damn tickets. No, nobody exactly told you that you can’t sing until you finish them, but you just know it’s true.)

Well played, Madam Jane.  A little scary, to tell you the truth (she reminds me sometimes of a much nicer version of Stewie from Family Guy), but pretty awesome too.

Love it! It’s a brick of chocolate imprinted with Wilson Garage, my parents’ auto mechanic. The chocolate is actually pretty good, and the brick comes surrounded by teeny little dark and milk chocolates in the shape of cars and trucks.

And then there’s Security Bank, which is something of a boutique bank in Riverside. Several of the Ladies of the League have Security Bank connections.

They presented my husband with this:

The tag around the neck of the bottle reads:

Cachepot. Behind the bottle…the story of Security Bank’s 1st cuvee. A close friend of the Bank owns a beautiful 14-acre vineyard of 100% Merlot in teh southern area of the Napa Valley. In 2009, they had an exceptional harvest, which after all contracts were fulfilled, yielded several additional tons of the prized grape.

The bank took the grapes to Spelletich Cellars in Napa to be prepared et voila: a Christmas gift worthy of Marie Antoinette. Cheers!