Escape to "Butt Crack"

"Butt Crack". That's the new word Moonbeam learned while I was gone all day at work yesterday.

It kind of sums up my day as well. Selah.

It was one of those days when, no matter how hard I tried, the end results seemed dismal. Of course, though work provides a never ending color spectrum of things I could write about, alas it is all confidential and sealed in secrecy. Just imagine a frazzled nurse returning home after more than 12 hours of a busy hospital emergency department.

After fighting tears and exhaustion, food, that old seductive foe had once again had his way with me. This was a real crime because just a couple of days ago I had spent a considerable amount of time constructing a scientific looking chart entitled "Swim Training Boot Camp" in which I was closely monitoring such things as exercise and edible fueling agents aka Food. I considered marking that space down as "F" but i think that would bother me as much as writing down what I actually consumed.

"Swim Training Boot Camp" is actually my plan of action as to how I am going to prepare for this year's 1.76 mile open water swim. It is about 4 1/2 weeks from now. I actually started getting ready for it a week or so ago when the weather turned warm. I began running a couple of miles and swimming .25 - .6 miles as part of a cross training exercise. It was fun and it made me feel a little bit like a spy or something. Here i was running down the road, sweating up a storm and then thoughts of the water would consume me. I'd detour down that familiar path to the lake and before I knew it I was stripping down to what propriety allowed to embark on a swim. It was pure bliss and a great combination of exercise. Then I'd do something crazy like canoeing across the lake and climbing the backside up through steep, thickly treed wood to another road home never knowing which route home i'd find myself on. Add to my "spy" exercise that "Blue Alice" had agreed to swim train with me weekly. She's a seasoned California swimmer who vacations up here in the summer. She signed up for the swim even before I did and I'm pretty sure she'll show me a thing or two. We're going to swim weekly together and today is our first meeting. I hope she doesn't find out how i've already compromised my "boot camp".


Now back to "Butt Crack". As I was saying, I was at multi level failure and i'm not sure even now that i've broken out of that mode yet, this morning. After my FAILURES with work and food, I had to go to the grocery store. We wouldn't be back in town for a week or more. My husband had balanced the check book and informed me of how much I could spend. The store had been taken over by mob style hustlers, namely some other franchise had bought it a few months back. Everything was changed around since I'd been in there. My brain, having been saturated to capacity and on auto pilot for the last couple of hours, refused to cooperate with me. The first thing I saw was this great deal on "sale potato chips". I spent about 10 minutes trying to decide which or how many bags to buy. After that it only got worse. There was a real deli with real deli meats next. That seemed exciting and I ordered some turkey. Crackers were next, then bacon. Soon the cart was loaded with things i've been wanting to buy for months. Then I noticed half the stuff on my list wasn't in the cart. I decided to add up my total. Each time I tried to hide in an aisle to do this, somebody came along and interrupted me. The produce aisle was last. A produce man, probably one of the hustlers, tried to con me into buying some expensive apples and tomatoes. In the end I put the apples back but kept the tomatoes. When I added up the total I was almost 1 1/2 times my grocery budget. The produce man eyed me suspiciously as I began dumping back produce out of bags into their respective sections. The bacon was next to be returned. Soon I was walking back down to the beginning aisles to try and lighten the financial load. It dawned on me that after spending 13 hours in an emergency department and 12 as the hospital supervisor I ought to be able to handle buying groceries and calculating a total within my budget, but some how this "common sense" escaped me. By the time my mass exodus of food was distributed around on wrong shelves and some poor shelf stocker was near hysteria, I had lightened the load enough to put in the rest of what was on the list. Eventually, after 13 hours at work and 2 or more hours in the grocery store, I proceeded with caution to the check out line. A young, red headed checker ditched my lane when he saw me coming and a kindly grandmother took over. After about 1/3 of the groceries had gone through the conveyor belt, I was over budget. I asked her what was wrong. She said I had to slide my special "member card" to get the real total. I emptied my purse pocket searching for it. Finally, it surfaced, though I was still 1/3 of the way over budget - ugh! I abandoned the chips I'd spent 10 minutes selecting along with some tuna. I knew I had to let the milk, eggs and toilet paper go through over budget or not.

On the way home, I dreaded calling my husband but I figured it'd be better get it over with. "Why are you still in town?!" he asked. I tried to explain to him about the the produce hustler and checker thugs at the store but he remained unimpressed. "Just come home" he said exasperated. Here again, I had failed on yet another plane.

I left home about 5:15 AM yesterday and I returned around 11:15 PM. The kids were all up and had many stories to tell. Moonbeam demanded to come in the shower with me. After slipping on some warm pajamas and trying Sock Fashion Experts delicious, fresh baked cherry turn over, the kids informed me of Moonbeam's new word. Once they said it, she, perched proudly on my lap, announced "Butt Crack" quite matter of factly in a rather proud sounding tone. Then she pointed to her butt crack. Other babies nearing 2 identify their body parts such as "hand" and "head". Mine says "Butt Crack". I had to smile. Maybe I'm breaking out of my multi level failures after all.