Stressmas

I evicted a couple of stink bugs from my storage unit and now I feel horrible. They were all snuggled in for the winter and I just threw them out into the snow. Actually, they are still in the cardboard boxes they took refuge in, and they're on the landing, but I still feel horrible. I told Ant that and he asked if I thought about putting them back in the storage closet and I said yes. He looked up from his phone- I could see him in the reflection of the sliding glass door as I pondered at the balcony- and he was just staring at me. "Would that be insane?" I asked. I did put the boxes together to provide some protection from the outside.

He helped me set up the tree and he decorated it. I taught him how to make baked chicken and we talked about politics. We made plans for dinners and then he helped me purge my gift wrap and tiny box collection. I organized my gift wrap bin and begged friends to do their gift wrapping at my place. Ant said the problem is that I don't give and send enough presents. I like that solution.

I landed smack in the middle of my annual Christmas anxiety tonight. Let's hope I get a grip within the next ten days. Tomorrow is supposed to be ugly sweater day because that's a thing now, so I'm going to wear my lovely green Mickey Mouse Christmas t shirt for the potluck that I just remembered is next Tuesday and I bought a goddamned bundt cake for it tonight. Jesus.

CP Fighter

I wrote this like a week ago. Sigh...

The other night I was out with Sarah for happy hour, and we went to World Market to walk off the food. Did you know they sell delightfully whimsical utensils individually? That makes for a great work fork and spoon instead of having to use plastic or steal from the home utensil set.

Last night I christened my Crock Pot with some horrible recipe I found online. It wasn’t healthy at all, and if that’s not bad enough, it wasn’t even GOOD. But whatever, it was four ingredients, very easy, and it got the Crock Pot out of the box. Of course, that turned out to be dangerous. I held the box and Ant pulled the Crock Pot out, but because he is still learning how the world works, he didn’t know that he should continue holding the Crock Pot upright. The lid fell first, and directly hit the floor where it thankfully did not break. The stoneware did not hit the floor directly because it broke its fall on my shin. The stoneware both hit my shin hard and scraped downward, which was a painful yet interesting sensation. Ant felt horrible and tried to make me feel better by telling me that MMA fighters deliberately kick wood to strengthen their shins. I’m sure that doesn’t really strengthen anything so much as build tolerance or

Actually, I just looked this up.

“Muay Thai fighters and Kickboxers train with repeated strikes using the forearms and shins. In Thailand, before the advent of heavy bags, pads and other modern tools, they would kick banana trees and other hard objects to condition their shins.  Many modern day practitioners use bamboo as a striking surface to both deaden the nerves in the shin.  Once the striking is done, the bamboo rods are rolled against the shin to further compress the bone.   This stress also creates micro fractures in the bone that induce repair of the bone material which leads to a more robust honey comb structure that is more resilient to damage.”

http://www.scifighting.com/2013/12/08/19992/kickboxers-get-tougher-bones/

So that’s roughly what I figured, only without the vocabulary, but basically scar tissue being stronger, building bone density, yadda yadda. This is apparently known as bone remodeling. Gggggguhhhhhh gross.

Let me know if you need me to kick a Crock Pot.