Why I Am Giving the Bird...

As Peggy Noonan said in the Wall Street Journal weekend edition, I’m thankful to be here. What a totally haired-out, stress-filled year…I will not be sad to clink my glass of Proseco (it’s still a recession in my book) in a little over a month to put 2009 in the history books.

Here’s the latest. I went outside on Saturday to see what my son was doing. He was shooting hoops in the driveway and I stole the ball and sank a little jumper. We started a game of one on one and then I called a “time out” because I was playing in my socks and the pounding on the cement was killing my toes. I went inside to throw on the sneakers and to throw off the old Irish knit sweater I wear around my frigid house (the thermostat is set on "meat locker").

I go back out on the driveway to school that ten year old and the one on one continues. He’s losing…badly…because for some crazy reason all of my shots were going in. I never let my kids win, it’s my “bad mom” trait because I am just way too competitive by nature so I do not let up. He turns around to shoot a jumper and I go up to block it.

I successfully block the shot, but JAM THE DICKENS out of my right middle finger. I managed to suppress the f-bomb but shrieked in pain, wimp that I am.

It is hugely swollen and grotesquely purplish blue two days later. I have enough range of motion to type and to know that it is not broken, but the Costco grocery shop to get ready for cooking the Thanksgiving side dishes was brutal…especially when a ten pound box of sweet potatoes slipped from my grasp from cart to trunk and ended up pinning that particular finger to other boxes already in the trunk. (True confessions…I did not suppress the f-bomb that time.)

So basically, when I slice and peal and prep starting tomorrow and finishing up on Thursday, it’s going to look like I am giving everyone in my kitchen the bird as I keep this puffy finger elongated and out of the way.

In the end, the gluten-free side dishes will get finished! My kids think I should just stick to tennis, but for the record…the score was 20-7 in driveway hoops. That’s probably my last victory since my once-upon-a-time little celiac is now 100 pounds of solid muscle and the top of his head reaches my nose.

This finger will heal, a small thing to be thankful for. Health returned to my son after seven years on a gluten-free diet, a big thing to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to all-
Kendall Egan