Stuart wanted me to cook. When he wants me to cook, I always do it because then I know that he has eaten that day and there are some calories in his body that don’t come from beer and there is a limit to his intake of sodium nitrate or sugar. I had lamb chops that I had taken out of the freezer but he wanted Cajun chicken, so I decided to make Cajun chicken.

It looked like there was a recent sale on chicken breast because the only stuff they had was organic, (which I would love to buy but it was 11 quid for two) or a big bag of breasts for six quid (each breast wrapped in plastic, which isn’t the environmentally sound choice). I went for the bag.

I got home by 7:30. Stuart had left work early and had been home since 5:30 and already had 4, 5 beers under his belt, which he tried to hide. I can usually tell because he develops grandiose plans or becomes generally lairy.

He also gets silly.

“Thomas! What can we celebrate?”

I was slicing each plastic packet holding a chicken breast open with a dull paring knife and plopping them into a marinade of lemon juice, garlic olive oil and a Cajun spice blend.

“I dunno. Maybe the end of an era with Jen leaving?” (Jen is moving in with her boyfriend and starting this June the flat will be our own little war zone  love nest.

 “I want to celebrate something so I can open up the bottle of champagne I have in the fridge.”

“You mean, you’ve run out of beer, you’re too lazy to run to the shop and you are trying to justify opening the champers.”

“Let’s drink to the koalas!”

“The koalas.” 

“The koala twins that were born today.”*

“The koalas.”

“Preston you useless bint! We’re going to drink to the koalas!”

Jen was in the front room. She had assisted Stuart in his drinking of the beer. She doesn’t get lairy when she gets drunk, but she does fall down stairs. Her voice travelled into the kitchen, “Okay!”

You know how they tell you to never work with a dull knife? It’s a really good bit of advice. I picked this moment to somehow to stab/slice my middle finger. Not a needing stitches slice, but enough that there was a happy amount of gushing blood. After getting it under control, (I don’t recommend Stuart as a helper in a case of medical emergency by the way) Stuart opened the champagne and we drank to the koalas.

“To the koalas! The drug addicts of the animal world!”

We drank.

*The koalas were actually born in October but Stuart saw a picture of them yesterday. They are very cute.

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I got home by 6 because I had been at the office in Victoria and caught a train home. (Can’t wait until I can kiss the tube goodbye.) Go to the store, grab some food, do the self-checkout, go to pay and. . . no credit cards. Where are my credit cards? OH MY FUCKING GOD WHERE ARE MY FUCKING CREDIT CARDS YOU FUCKING MOTHER FUCKER.

I didn’t say that, but I did think it. . .

Leave the food incurring the annoyance and wrath of the Sainsbury’s Lady and run out the door and hop on the tube to go all the way back to central London, back to Soho, not praying but something resembling it, shredding my fingernails to the quick.

First stop the Starbucks in Leicester Square.

I’velostmycreditcardsandthiswasthelastplaceiuseditthismorninganddidacardcasethatsays

I gesture with my hands making the international symbol of a card case

acardcasethatsaystrailerparktrashitlookslikeapulpnovelfromthe40sgetturnedin?

The Manager stares at me.

I gesture with my hands making the international symbol of a card case.

Did cards get turned in?

No.

Off I go to work, pushing over American tourists and chavs that dare get in my way. Get to the office, open my file cabinet and–

It’s not there.

I was resigned to this. I knew this was going to happen.

I sit down preparing myself to pull everything out of the drawer obsessively and there it is.

My card case. With the cards inside.
There was much rejoicing.

Back home, get food, avoid Sainsbury’s Lady in time to eat, relax, blog and watch The Daily Show. . .

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I ate an oyster Saturday. Three actually. I don’t know if it is the oysters fault that I spent all of last night vomiting into the toliet but they are the most likely suspects.

I feel very old.

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Friday night Claire and Dan drove down to see us and we went to a Japanese in our hood and shared two bottles of wine between three of us.

After we went to The South London Pacific and drank wicked strong concoctions with little cocktail umbrellas. The cocktail umbrellas ended up as hair decorations, as they do when you imbibe wicked strong drinks with dark rum and pureed fruit.

It was the fifth anniversary of the bar and the joint was jumping. Stuart was on call so when he got paged to go deal with work drama there were no boo-hoos from him since he didn’t dig the place. (I haven’t quite decided if it was a real page or not.) In any case it didn’t matter as Claire, and Dan loved the place so we happily twisted the night away and played a few games of table football (foosball).

A bit after two we found ourselves standing outside and realized that each of us hadn’t wanted to leave, but had thought that one of the others had wanted to leave. We considered going back in but decided to hail a black cab and go home instead.

Plopping into bed, I decided to hit on the man that was lying there. Luckily it was Stuart. At two-thirty in the morning, he wasn’t having any of it.

Curled against him, feeling rather. . . frustrated. . . my arm draped on top of the duvet across him, I felt something. Something that normally would lead a girl to think that even though it was two-thirty in the morning that the boy laying next to her may indeed be. . . er. . . interested.

“Then what is that?” I patted the lump under the duvet.

“THAT is my arm.” Stuart lifted his arm and waved it.

“Oh.”

We laid there in the dark.

“You do know that was a compliment then. Confusing the two.”

“Go to sleep Thomas.”

In a few moments I was snoring.

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Click away if you don’t. . .

But if you do–

Look. . .

At

My

Foot. . .

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Ain’t it purdy?

Ten days after I got trod on it’s still really bugging me so I went to the doc today and they sent me to get it x-rayed (good news- the radiologist didn’t see anything. Will see what the doc says)

Went to Bolingbrook hospital for the x-ray. The place has got to be haunted. It was built in 1880 and it is a creepy quiet place. It is The Shining of hospitals.

I need to try and not hurt myself anymore. I have this vision of myself shuffling along in a zimmer frame (walker).

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My brain is shrinking from lack of water and sleep and too much alcohol. The next time I take out clients I am going to drink fizzy water.

Okay. Yes. I know this is highly unlikely.

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It feels much better this morning. Really. I’m ok. If it had still been as bad this AM, I would have gone to A&E (Emergency Room) but it is mucho better. I’m still keeping off it all weekend.

So relax ma. Your klutz child is okay.

Bad news of it being better is I can’t get crutches to beat co-workers with. (Sorry Colm.)

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This morning, around 9:07 if you were at Lisle and Wardour Street, you would have seen a woman take a serious face first tumble on the sidewalk. (Hint. The klutz was me.)

I’m no stranger to tripping through life.

Late April 2000 I was on a two-week holiday with my then boyfriend and his parents in New York City. We were staying at his Uncle’s house in Pelham Bay, a tony neighborhood in the Bronx.

Little ole me went to Yankee Stadium, The Met, The World Trade Center. I had the best cup of coffee on the planet that I ordered from a guy in a truck on the street. I ate Sabrett dirty water hot dogs and chocolate egg creams.

I fell in love with New York City and I had barely seen anything.

One day toward the end of the first week we met up with a Uni friend of mine that had just moved to Queens. The plan was to go to MOMA. Only problem was when we got there, the curators were striking. Being good liberals that we are we couldn’t cross a picket line. We broke out the travel book and decided to go to Greenwich Village. I was wearing these boots with a chunky heal that were all the rage at the time. They had the benefit of being stylish and comfortable.

Walking down the sidewalk, I managed to catch a patch of uneven sidewalk, lost my balance and fell.

I heard my ankle snap even before I hit the ground.

I guess it isn’t a trip to NYC without a visit to St. Vincent’s.

The next few months were not a lot of fun, although the vicodin did make my job much more enjoyable.

Last night Stuart and I met up with Jen, Richard and Matt for a drink and tapas. Jen’s knee is giving her some problems and we talked about how London would not be a fun place to get around in if you weren’t mobile. People run over folks on crutches and maybe two stations on the underground have wheelchair access.

I think I was tempting the gods.

This morning walking to work I looked right then left before I crossed the street and I managed to catch a bit of sidewalk and I fell, flailing, grasping to hold on to air. I wasn’t even wearing ridiculous shoes—they were very sensible Mary Jane wedges.

As I fell, I thought, “No, this can’t be happening.”

Well. That’s a lie. I think it was more like, “No motherfucker, No!”
There wasn’t a snap this time, but there was a pop. And it was my right ankle rather than my left.

I lay there stunned. I struggled to stand up. A few iPoder Londoners stepped over me. (slight exaggeration.) One gentleman, (Polish, I think) asked me if I was ok. I smiled through tears, “Yes, yes. Absolutely. Thank you.”

I shuffled off and the ankle seemed ok. A touch stiff, but I was fine. I felt myself limping around the office slightly but I thought I dodged a bullet.

At lunch, things took a bad turn. I kept whining, “It’s really starting to hurt.” When it was time to go, my slight limp and become a full on hobble.

By the end of the day, it took everything in me to just to not put head down on my desk and sob.

I called a cab and went home.

It was mortifying limping to the lift. (Am I becoming English?)

Stuart picked me up some paracetamol with codeine and a pizza which made life a lot more better.

So good news. I didn’t break my ankle. Bad news. I have a rather nasty sprain that is having me hobble around the house like an old lady. . .

I think I will need to quit my Lindy Hop classes.

Damn my klutzy ass.

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The alarm goes off.

Stuart mumbles “What blah is it?”

I look at the clock. “6:15.”

“No, What day is it.”

“Thursday.”

He grumbles and buries deeper under the covers.

I’m awake now. I took the day off so if I were feeling rough I wouldn’t have to deal with work, which is hysterical because I feel fine. Other than being annoyed with myself.

“I need your keys.”

Stuart peeks over the covers.

In order to get in and out of our flat you need your keys. I’ve been meaning to make an extra set that we keep by the door in case of fire. If there is a fire the last thing you want to be doing is looking for your keys.

“I left my keys at work”

Stuart blinks.

“So, yesterday I switched out my bag at work. I was going to take the night bus instead of the tube because I wasn’t drunk and for karaoke they were doing Stand by Me at the end and you can’t leave if someone is singing Stand By Me.”

“Did you sing?”

“Yes.”

“And are you still employed?”

“So I was walking to Trafalgar, I put my hand in my pocket and my oyster wasn’t there. So I picked a busy bus stop where it didn’t look like I wouldn’t be mugged if I was digging frantically in my purse.”

“You are such a tourist.”

“No oyster. So I decided to hail a black cab which means that I am now over my overdraft in my checking account from pulling out the cash to pay for it.”

Stuart blinks.

When I had the cab pull over at the cash point, I went to get my keys so I could be holding them in my hand. And that’s when I realized I left the keys at work. Probably with my oyster.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“My phone wasn’t charged. So I am standing out there for 20 minutes hoping you guys were home needing to go to the bathroom in the freezing cold.”

“It wasn’t that cold last night.”

“I was starting to consider which of our neighbor’s gardens I could pee in when Jen peeked her head out the window and let me in. I felt so bad. I’m just glad that I didn’t go out drinking with the Irish team and Colm after. That would have been really bad. Or if Ravleen had come back to our place last night cause she was so drunk.”

“Isn’t she the one that is always so drunk?”

“Yeah, that’s her. So, I need your keys.”

Stuart blinks.

“I’m going to go in to work, get my keys and hopefully my oyster, then drop your keys off.”

“Don’t stitch me up. By the way, remember Danuta is coming today and some guys to fix the door on the cooker and the window in the hall.”

“Great day off. . .”

“You could always go to work.”

“That’s ok. . .”

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