A Real (Genuine, Terrible) Inconvenience.

Last Friday, rushing to get lunch ready for Rudy and me, I dropped a glass and it shattered all over the counter and the floor.  This is what happens: you think you're saving time and getting things done, but instead you've made a bigger, longer mess for yourself.  Like getting pulled over for speeding.  Not that that ever happens to me.  And on Friday, when I was cleaning up the glass, wiping up the last shards and splinters from the floor with a damp paper towel, I cut myself.  And it wasn't a simple slice.  More like a piece of glass slipped into my finger, and it's been there ever since.

Everything I read online told me that it would work itself out on its own.  But I still went after it with tweezers on Saturday, and then I spent Sunday searching pharmacies for drawing salve and dabbing that stink on my tiny wound.  On Monday I gave up and went to the hospital, because every time I put even a little pressure on my pinkie finger, it gave me a searing little jolt of pain.  After I waited three hours to see the doctor, hoping she'd cut me open and stitch me back up, I was told: it will work itself out on its own.  And it might take weeks, which is annoying and inconvenient.

Which reminds me.  Earlier this summer, my friend Liz and her family suffered the actual loss of their home after a fire.  Her husband had stained their side porch on Father's Day, getting things done.  He left his used rags in the garage, and they spontaneously combusted that night.  Liz called me as the firetrucks rolled in, and I raced through our neighborhood shortcut to her home, the entire left side lit orange with huge, roaring, terrifying flames.

Liz, her husband Brett, and her three boys were out in plenty of time.  They even managed to save some of their most precious belongings.  But since Father's Day, they haven't had a place to really call their own, first spending a month in a local hotel, and now living in a rental across town while Brett, a licensed contractor, begins demolition and reconstruction of a place that I am only now realizing is, aside from my own, the house where I feel most relaxed, unwound, and content.

We got a lot of visits from the boys this summer, and I helped to keep an eye on them whenever I could so that Liz and Brett could take care of the endless paperwork and planning they needed to do to move forward and eventually, back.  And these get-togethers were just fine with Marley and Rudy.  Marley and Will have been friends since they were babies, and that's why I think when she gets clingy with him, he lets her get away with it for a few seconds.  Will's brothers Ben and Sam love hanging out with the girls, too.  With Rudy, they play pirates and mermaids or spend time sorting Lalaloopsies.  And let's just say Rudy and Ben are no stranger to a pile of dirt.  

What I'm saying is, three months without your home is inconvenient.  And every time you consider that it could be at least three more before you're back in a place where you are truly relaxed, unwound, and content, even when you know it will work itself out, there must be a searing little jolt of pain.