not trying to be antisocial, but...

After almost 2 years of writing on this blog I have still not really decided what is blog-worthy. I admire the people who can always stick to or rotate around one main topic on their blogs. I just don't want to start any more of them and so therefore this thing has turned into a hodge-podge. Without apology.

Tonight I was planning to go to a party for a co-worker who is in the military and will be leaving for a stint of active duty. The half-hour drive there will take me an hour (that is just me driving on the highway in the dark). The party is in Lebanon, which I pronounce Le-ban-on, which has my coworkers asking "where?" if only to be sarcastic. According to them it is "Lebnin" or something like that; I'm sure I still have it wrong. "You are too proper," they scold, "would you call it Louis-ville too?".

I was going to bring the infamous 7-layer taco dip. I originally asked what Tennesseans eat for side dishes. If it were up to me I would bring Hawaiian salad, potato salad or pimento cheese. They said that the taco dip would be fine. So I soaked the beans overnight and cooked them this morning, and now I have several pounds of black beans sitting in my refrigerator anxiously waiting to be married to cream cheese and Rotel.

I don't think that I'm going to go to the party though. Today has been a miserable day for me and I have spent it fighting the urge to rip these damned support stockings off with two hands and say the hell with it. Yesterday morning I had one of my large leg veins closed because the valve was warped from too many 8-pounder kids resting atop it, and I was instructed to wear these things for 5 straight days. Easier said than done when they are itching and pinching and rolling themselves down over the "baby fat" on my abdomen. How can I go to a party, with all the laughing and drinking and playfulness, when I am in a struggle to resist the urge to scratch, lest I appear to have scabies? I won't even be able to take any alcohol myself because I was advised to ingest 1600 mg of ibuprofen per day, which is surely eating away at my stomach lining and liver as I sit here typing. And that reminds me, I shouldn't be sitting like this, I need to get up and walk around again, lest I get a blood clot. Oy. I'd better have some nice-looking legs after all this!

The taco dip will be for work tomorrow night. I have the chips and everything already. It will help to get us through the shift, especially with all the beans I'm putting in there.