Saturday Night

It’s a rare Saturday night for me. Tiago has sent me home with instructions to take a day to myself...write, paint, be creative, and rest. I guess he’s taking stock of the bags under my eyes...
It’s a rare Saturday night for me because my house is a mess: books and newspapers scattered all over the living room floor, my bed uninhabitable, the dishes unwashed, my nasty second attempt at dinner still on the stove (attempt number one was opening a package of preservative packed alfredo and broccoli noodles to discover the bag crawling with crunchy brown beetlebugs), and generally, things in a state of uncomfortable disarray. And I’m leaving them like that so I can write this update. See, what usually happens is that I have good intentions when I get home. But washing dishes and making dinner and doing laundry and all the other urgent little things take up my time and I end up putting it off for another day...
Today is that day. Or rather, tonight, since it is 11:48 pm.
I’m sort of twisted up on a mattress, writing this. My bruises prevent any really comfortable position right now. The front room, where I normally keep my computer, is a mess due to my still-in-progress painting job. So I’ve set up shop in the spare room, surrounded by loose furniture and bags of who-knows-what that I’ll have to go through when I put the front room together again. I’m painting in honor of Walter and Adriana’s visit (WMF friends) who will be arriving mid-September. The black hand and foot-prints on the walls weren’t really all that hospitable. My new buttercream and burnt bloodorange walls are fabulous!!! And so are my bruises...sustained after flying through the air when my stool failed to support me properly...I’ve got four or five inches of bruise on my hip, plus a nasty one on my back and several dotting my arms, knees, and legs. That’s what happens when you decide to fall along the doorframe before you hit the ground...
If I had a digital camera, I would take pictures. They’re pretty impressive. Of course, my favorite part wasn’t Tiago washing paint out of my hair, or looking at me like I was an idiot for laughing and crying at the same time. The best part was that falling PUT MY BACK IN PLACE! I’ve been whining for a chiropractor for ages. My back was hurting so badly that there were days I wasn’t walking properly...and no one could seem to get it to “pop” like I felt it needed to...and then I fell and knocked everything straight again! There are blessings to being clumsy, sometimes.
I’m about half done with the painting in the front room. It’s going slow because I’m doing it alone. Tiago helped that one day, but he’s going to be working all this next week with a deaf team (American sign language interpreter to English, English to Portuguese, Portuguese to Portuguese sign language...MINIMUM three translators for any conversation...) and won’t be available to help me. My girlfriends are too small and sissy to help and my other American peeps have given me solid “no’s.” I’m re-evaluating those friendships now...

(I think I’m joking there...)

So unless I’m willing to call the skinny and tall ex-boyfriend to help me, it looks like I’m going to be on my own. Thank the Lord I had a mother who was a Jane-of-all-trades!