Mother’s Day 2022

Er. Hi.

Listen: I survived, okay? I started this particular blog post right before our society Annual Meeting this year and it got dropped until now, 2 months later. And lemme tell you… After 3 years of NOT being at annual meetings and conferences, I was not prepared for how hard it would be to jump back in. I was especially out of practice with spending 14 hours a day in fussy business wear yapping with other people. My eyes were burning with exhaustion by 3pm every day and even in my most comfortable heels, my feet felt like raw stumps. HOW IN THE WORLD DID WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME BEFORE, YOU GUYS.

Add to that! Meeting over, I spent the next week holding committee/Ed. Board meetings, several hours of talking and running meetings over Zoom. Not my forte. Right after my last Zoom (like literally that afternoon) we left for our whirlwind trip around Kansas for 9 days. Then back home and straight into the holiday season. I survived solely on sparkling rosé and all the holiday cookies/candy (pretty much how I live every holiday season, YOLO babyyyyyy).

But now we’re on our usual Dry January bus and all the junk food went right to the garbage cans. And the new workout regime begins. And I’ve got some serious gut bloat from my new diet and also I was hobbling from a hardcore leg day on Friday but you know what? It feels really good. I always look forward to January, as weird as that sounds, because while obviously you can change habits/diet at any time: we’re usually home-bound in the winter anyway, so it makes perfect sense to start back up during that time. And also the hope is that I can catch up on this blog. If I have enough coffee to power me through, anyway.

ANYWAY. Who wants to see some 8-months-late content, you up? Because I’ve got it for ya.

Last winter was long and cold, the frigid temps hit in January, earlier than normal (and god bless, I’ll never forget that day when the school lost Linus because they accidentally put him in the bus lane and I stood outside by the back pick-up door for 20 minutes in the -20F temps before they let me in to help find him and LORDY THAT LEVEL OF COLD, YOU FEEL IT IN YOUR BONES AND MY EXTREMITIES WERE EXPERIENCING A STABBING, THROBBING PAIN OKAY. Some of my toes got frostbite!). Then the snow hit rather late, and hard. We had just thawed out come May, so when Mother’s Day rolled around and it was time for our annual visit to Olbrich, I have to admit: it felt really good to have a day of fresh air.

Well, fresh air until we got to the Corpse Flower in the Dome, anyway.

Okay, I exaggerate a bit. It was close to the end of the bloom when we went to visit, so to smell it you really had to stick your head in that bloom there. Like I said in a past post: smelled like rotting veg, reminiscent of a dumpster in the alley behind a restaurant. Missing that certain musky, unnervingly perfumey smell of dead animal, but still! Fun to have experienced it finally, after years of hoping to catch one of these things when they are blooming.

It’s always so nice to return to Olbrich. More images to follow without the captions because the words aren’t really necessary. That first outing after a cold winter, can’t beat it.

These two knuckleheads, what would I do without them.

The annual waterfall-wall pic, at least we remembered not to sit on the ledge this time (for the first time in what, 9 years of doing this…). Woohoo to no wet butts this year.

After Olbrich we went out for Mexican at my request. I had a margarita for the first time in ages and it was DELICIOUS. (Then I had one every night over the course of our Route 66 trip, livin’ the dream!) Also enjoy some pictures of the pictures I took with the instant camera.

Can’t sign out without a nod to the Queen, the Muzz. Two years gone and while I miss her every day, most days it’s a low wave of wistful sadness. But man, when that deep need for my mother hits there’s nothing else like it, really knocks you on your butt. Most of Mother’s Day was bittersweet but once the sun went down I missed her so much, I cried most of the evening, darn it.

Love you, Muzzy.