Catching Up

I don't remember much about the 24th. We had dinner at J.C.'s aunt's house. One minor catastrophe, which involved whether or not people were going to smoke in the house; disaster for the most part was avoided.

Came home with homemade Chex mix, carmel corn, and lots of cookies and fudge.

The 25th: Brunch with my parents. My grandma--the one who we don't usually spend holidays with--came over. This is the woman who once ran into J.C. in a town about an hour from here. J.C. said, "Hi, E. I'm Chad's wife." My grandma smiled, said, "You know they got married in Vegas." She thought J.C. was my cousin's girlfriend. "It broke his parents' hearts," my grandma said. "They went out there for the wedding, but still." J.C. smiled, nodded. "And then the reception," my grandma said. "It was nice I guess, but there were a lot of people there. Maybe too many people," and then she looked at J.C. over the top of her glasses, all knowingly.

So on Christmas grandma came over and knew who everybody was, didn't diss our wedding or our reception, but when she got up to leave she was confused because she couldn't find her car. "C. drove you over," we said. "Your car's at her house." "Are you sure?" my grandma--who still quite regularly, somehow, drives to that town an hour from here--said. "I could have sworn I drove."

Came home with luggage, a Rubik's Cube, and Guitar Hero II. About Guitar Hero: Both my mom and I got one from my brother. He's been having little Guitar Hero parties for the past year or so, and he loves the game, so he wanted to get it for us. I was skeptical. We started playing Christmas morning, though, and my mom, J.C., and I quickly became, ahem, hooked. At some point, my mom said, "The whammy bar, Chad. Use the whammy bar."

Later that night, J.C. and I drank whiskey-and-egg nog and played more Guitar Hero. J.C. usually hates video games, but she was really getting into it, concentrating, letting that guitar have it. At one point, while I was mixing more drinks, she called out, "What should our band name be?" We decided on "Playing Doctor."

The 26th: An appetizer affair at J.C.'s parents' house. My father-in-law helped my nephew, D., build a squirrel feeder so that he can lure all the squirrels in the timber to one spot, where he can mow them down with his pellet gun. I said, "Isn't that illegal, D.? Baiting them?" D. paused for a second, then gave me a look. "You can't do it to deer," he said. "Nobody cares what you do to squirrels."

Came home with great books and movies, a Simpson College hoodie. Early in the evening, my mom called to ask how we were doing with Guitar Hero. I told her we'd beat the easy level but that we'd taken the day off, fearful of carpal tunnel. My mom said, "Oh, I beat the easy level, too. And I've started making money, but I just trashed my hotel room and stole some of the art, so I got charged for that. I'm low on cash, so I'm going back on the road."

Even later in the evening, J.C. and I started watching the first season of Homicide: Life on the Streets. She fell asleep, and around ten o'clock, when she stood up to go to bed, she screamed. I thought she'd stubbed her toe, but she was standing on the register vent; there was nothing she could have stubbed her toe on. She kept screaming, even after I asked her what was wrong. Eventually I learned she'd rolled her foot. She was in a lot of pain, so I put ice on it, and we decided to see how it felt in the morning. By the a.m., the bruising had started. I took her to the emergency room, worried that no one was going to believe she hurt herself by just standing up. Thankfully, no one questioned me.

The doctor guessed her foot was broken. Actually, when he first looked at it--the bruising was getting worse by the minute--he said, "Jesus Christ," which I'm guessing he would only say to someone with a foot injury, and not say, a wounded head or gouged eye. The X-rays, though, were negative. "Unfortunately," the doctor said, "it's just a sprain."

So, J.C.'s on crutches and Tylenol-3, and I feel like a mommy. I make her breakfast and pack her a lunch and drive her to school, I mean work. I pick her up. Two days of this and already she's going stir crazy, sitting at her desk all day, sitting on the couch all night. I'm trying to be as nice as I can because I'm worried that if I make one false move, I'll be at the hospital with a crutch-induced head wound. "Jesus Christ," the doctor will say. "What'd you do?"