I have the swine flu. Oink.

I’m on quarantine. Entertain me.

The end.

Well, here we go!

I am scheduled to be scoped and excised (#6) on Wednesday, 8 July. If you are local, this means that I expect you to text me to schedule your visit. And to also bring presents. If you are not local, I expect you to text me with your condolences. And to also mail presents.

No, really, this ain’t all that cool. I had the whole hyperventilating, panicky kind of attack the other night about this being SURGERY and they’re CUTTING me OPEN, AGAIN. And last time? That didn’t go so swell, what with the ASPIRATION and all. And the low oxygen saturations. And the vomiting for twelve hours straight. NOT. SO. SWELL.

And now on top of the good ole laparoscopy for endometriosis, we’re going to indeed move forward with the vestibulectomy for the vestibulitis. Which are horrible words for HARRIBLE, HARRIBLE, HARRIBLE things.

I was chatting with a friend last night about it. He is the father of three-year-old twin girls—his only children so far—so he is surrounded by estrogen and will be spending many, many, many years thusly engaged. So when he said, and I quote, “I just googled images of ‘vestibulectomy.’ Do not google images,” then I believed him a million times over.

So what is that? Three-and-a-half weeks, it would appear. I have my consult the week before, when I’ll start saying things like, “Um, where’s my passport again?” and, “Reproduction: all it’s cracked up to be?”

Methinks not, thus far.

About six weeks-or-so-or-something-like-that ago, I packed up four of my girls and we had GIRLS’ DAY! It was pronounced that very way in the weeks, days, and hours leading up to it—mostly by Eadie, who could not WAIT to have BOTH her idols—Teya and Sage—to ogle all day long.

Girls’ day was mostly an affair I planned with Teya specifically in mind. She often complains—and I use the word “complain” denotatively, because she has every right—that I take the smaller children for “fun” far more often than I take her. There are several reasons for this—mostly that our schedules don’t usually align and I can’t ever afford to buy her what she wants … and that is my own issue because I shouldn’t avoid spending time with her just because I can’t spoil her. And, let’s face it—she’s going to be 12 years old in October and I just don’t know how much longer it’s going to be fun to hang out with Ashey for an entire day.

Several days before GIRLS’ DAY!, Teya called me to tell me about her “outfit” she had planned. It sounded utterly ridiculous. A tutu was involved and I thought, You know what? Not only is she going to be 12 in October and who knows how much longer she’s going to be able to tolerate my presence but also—a TUTU? In PUBLIC? Heck to the YES, baby, you work it all the way into tutu-ville if you want.

So, I informed the other girls that GIRLS’ DAY! would involve dressing ridiculously and then going into public. I offered to do everyone’s hair and makeup in a most ridiculous fashion.

I picked up Jesse & Sage early Saturday morning and got them dressed. I’d found four “fairy skirt” tutu-type ordeals at the dollar store that ended up positively, ridiculously adorable on the two of them.

We went down to Teya & Eadie’s house. They were dressed equally ridiculously. We set up shop in Dawne’s bathroom and I straightened and pigtailed and side-ponytailed hair. SIDE PONYTAIL. This would have been Eadie Gwen’s idea. I said WHATEVER YOU WANT, DEB. Jesse wanted nothing to do with the makeup portion, and requested very specifically that she have french-braid pigtails. I brought Meadow in for this procedure and she did a most excellent job.

Jesse ignored our makeupping and watched “Bolt” on her DVD player in the adjacent room. I glitter-, shadow-, and liner-fied the remaining three up somethin’ awful and they could not have been more absolutely, narcissistically pleased with themselves, judging by the way I could not peel their little 11-, 8-, and 6-year-old selves away from the mirror long enough to scream NOW! IN! THE! CAR!

I do have to say quite honestly that there is a very large part of me that wants to be Sage when I grow up. But only if I can have the boots.

We had lunch—where else—at the Training Table. We giggled, we colored, and we videoed the randomness that ensued. And of course, by “we,” I mean that I watched and somewhat disciplined the pouring forth thereof from the middle of the north side of the booth. We ate Sage’s very favorite cheese fries with “kick sauce” and I made sure they filled up on plenty of high-fructose corn syrup-laced beverages.

Because I am so very neurotic about timing and NEVER BEING LATE FOR ANYTHING EVER, we had plenty of time to goof off before our 1:50 p.m. showing of “Hotel for Dogs.” And because we goofed off, we were LATE and HAD to sit on the FRONT ROW of our 1:50 p.m. showing of “Hotel for Dogs.” And because they are sisters, Jesse and Sage fought over the aisle seat. I left Jesse, Eadie, and Tey on one side of the theater and Sage & I sat on the other. We waved to one another often, the novelty simply too much to bear at times.

The movie was definitely a Nickelodeon movie, but I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. My favorite part though, by far, was looking over during the whole foster-care part and seeing Jesse in the throes of the ugliest Ugly Cry I have seen in a long time. That child feels, and she feels very deeply.

Following the movie, it seemed like a righteous time to partake of the ridiculous yumminess of Maggie Moos ice cream. The girls partook of roughly 79 samples apiece, but finally settled on ridiculous (theme!) flavors and were heard randomly exclaiming I LOVE THIS PLACE.

We went to Target close to home following our expeditions and the girls were allowed to choose one prize apiece. Teya, practical child she is, chose an adorable belt that could probably wrap around her waist about 19 times. Jesse got a gold-glittery plastic ball filled with gold-glittery goo AND a tiny little animal of some sort—panda?—because a) I needed to bribe her into the rest of the evening’s plans and b) we called it her birthday present. Sage found herself a blue variant of the glittery plastic ball filled with glittery goo—which I’m quite sure she’s been using ever since the day after at church to tell fortunes and also see into the future—and Eadie took quite nicely to a blow-up alien. Who knows, really.

The tiniest little part of me thinks they may have had a little bit of fun together. Ridiculousness included.

Just about the time I could drag them all out of Target was just about the time it was to take Teya & Eadie home. We gave many hugs and goodbyes and the blondes and I headed out to ready ourselves for the closing night of their mother’s play—”Charley’s Aunt”—playing at a local theatre. She was the aunt. From Brazil. WHERE THE NUTS COME FROM.

As we were finishing up our mediocre dinner at A&W (cheese curds!), Gabby called and asked me if there was any way I might feel up to videoing the final performance. Because they NEVER EVER EVER EVER NO NOT REALLY allow video-taping of performances, and shouldn’t really, this was a Big Deal, and the blondes and I rushed home to find ourselves a camcorder.

We made it to the theatre in plenty of time for Jesse to settle into her seat up front, alone, and for me to arrange for Sage to sit with Madi, Gracie, Bruce, and Karen. I found my way to the sound booth, where it was determined that sound booth people must be generally around 9 feet tall to perform their duties. I spent the majority of the show on a tall barstool, kneeling prayer-style just so I could see the stage. I set up the video camera and waited patiently for the fun to begin.

And wow, those first 12 minutes or so were great fun! Until the battery on the camera died! The one that had been sitting in the charging cradle at the house! I frantically rushed back to Gabby’s house to grab the other camera, which I knew had roughly 47 minutes of battery time because THAT camera actually TELLS you things like that.

Blah blah blah, I got SOME of her performance SOMETIMES, and who knows if the lighting allowed for anything of worth at all. At some point, however, the mayor of our small town showed up with his Canon D-SLR and a 70-300mm lens and the insatiable desire to chat it up with me while I tried very subtlely to motion toward the VIDEO CAMERA that was CURRENTLY RECORDING his EVERY WORD.

I gave Sage $5 at intermission and told her that she and Jesse could have a snack apiece and to bring me change. That was translated into, “Spend every single dime of this $5 and offer me a bite of your Kit-Kat bar when you return, please.”

I took my no-longer-ridiculously dressed blondes to their home and snuggled up on the couch for storytime.

It was a ridiculously fun GIRLS’ DAY!