Monday, Monday

This is a momentous week at Casa Cooper. Lots of big doings.

For starters, even as I write this, my mother is having hip replacement surgery in Dallas. It's her second hip replacement so it's not entirely terrifying but any surgery like this is fraught with danger and so my heart is splitting time between New York and Dallas. The girls and I are planning to send her a little something every day, starting today since she will be home from the hospital on Thursday. (Ah, the caring, nurturing side of insurance that allows such an EXTENDED stay in the hospital after such a major ordeal. Yeah, NOT. I'm telling you, there is a special place in hell for the people who make those insurance rules.) I'm thinking about yarn and photographs but I'd love suggestions if you have them.

For seconds, Friday will mark our New York Anniversary. On March 13th, 2008, Coop and I loaded up four animals and flew to Newark, rented a van and brought everyone (except our children who were in Dallas with my mom) home. I had promised myself that I would reserve judgment on our new state (the state of New York, that is, not my MENTAL state) until we'd been here a year. Now I'm not sure even THAT is fair since, for me, the last 12 months have been a Big Life Lesson in living with chronic pain. It's colored everything, you know? I don't have many friends here and I think it's because dealing with the pain, plus the resulting depression, have led me to give in to my hermit impulses. The weird thing about being shy, at least for me, is that while my first instinct is to make a little cocoon for myself and just stay there, I'm really happier when I've got some good girlfriends with whom to pal around. It's starting to happen, but I think it's slower than if I had been healthy and un-depressed over our first year here in New York.

Bigger even than both of those things is Ana's Birthday, which falls on Wednesday and, for the first time in her life, it will not be during Spring Break. She'll be eleven. She already got a new bicycle (because my husband is too little to have his own money and access to a bike store) and we're going to use some points to take her and three of her friends to a hotel overnight where we will swim and paint our nails and put on silly facial masks and tell ghost stories and maybe play cards. (Actually, I don't really know what we will be doing because I haven't figured that out yet.)

And then, of course, I pick up my new orthotics on Thursday. I am pinning a lot of hope on those things and some of you have expressed concern that perhaps I'm pinning TOO MUCH hope of them. It's true. I'm very hopeful that I'm going to get them and then a walk around the block will not be out of the question. But even if they don't work, I had several weeks there without any pain due to the taping of my foot so I KNOW something can be done. It makes such a huge difference when you know there is some relief to be had. You can bear anything if you know there is an end in sight.

I'll be keeping y'all posted on all counts,
Barb