Friday, February 11, 2005

The Curse of the Rooster


(Note: this is neither a monkey nor a rooster)


Chinese New Year marked the end of the Year of the Monkey and began the Year of the Rooster. It also marked the day my good fortune ran out and the shit hit the fan.

I really hope that whoever said "things happen in threes" is right; if not, I'm still screwed. I had three nasty things happen to me already, and we're only--what--two days into the new year?

On Wednesday, some old lady decided to plow into my car as she parked hers in the space next to mine, rendering what was left of my rear bumper useless. She took off, too, without leaving any sort of a note.

It wasn't the end of the world--all things considered. Mr. Na and I were out of harm's way, in Safeway. I was also lucky in that a good samaritan came up to me and offered herself as a witness. So, hey, fixing the car won't cost me a dime and my insurance company can hunt down and kill the old lady.

What sucked more was coming home to a crashed hard drive. I have to thank the stars in the universe that my marriage contract includes lifetime technical support. Once my husband pried me off the wall, he assured me he could save my manuscript. The additional problems, including my 3.6 gigabytes of music, 200 photos of Mr. Na (including the ones taken in Ukraine), and ours and my mother's financial files potentially fried forever...well, I suppose life goes on, no? I have only myself to blame for not backing up my files.

Finally--and while I had been dealing with this a few weeks before the Year of the Monkey ended--I had a huge chunk of my left ear removed yesterday and now my husband is calling me Van Gogh, or "Van Goat" to be more precise. (Van Goat is a Baby Einstein character that is currently teaching Mr. Na colors.) I have ten stitches in my heavily-bandaged ear and I'm living on codeine; but thankfully the doctors believe they took all of the melanoma cells so they won't spread to my lymph nodes and kill me. My second biopsy results should leave me "in the clear" next week...at least I hope so (and which is why I hope shit happens in threes). I guess I'm paying dearly for having spent my teenage years in southern California, without putting sunscreen on places like the tops of my ears.

This is going to be a long year, isn't it?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Margaret ... my thoughts are with you. My advice: take yourself a long hot bath. I'm into baths these days - hardly curative, but something.
k10

LeFemmeMonkita said...

That sounds like a fine idea! Will do, darlin. And hey, I'm counting the moments until we nosh (okay, gorge) at Dilletantes!

Mwuh!

nicole said...

Margaret, I heard things come in threes too, so I hope that crazy vibe has gone now. Sorry you've lost all those precious photos, that's too bad. :( But the manuscript is saved - phew! Hope the ear heals quickly: this little Aussie got badly sunburnt as a kid, so I know how it goes.