My Daily Buzz

I may not go so far as to call myself a "Renaissance Woman," but I do try to learn something new every day. Okay, every few days. As I get older, my expectations drop as quickly as my body parts.

On Friday morning, I finally figured out how to get my teenage daughter to interact with me in the car on the way to school. The day started out like any other. By seven thirty, I had already been up for three hours -- not by any means unusual -- and accomplished the lion's share of whatever was on my mental "to do" list for the day. (As each day wears on, my energy level goes the way of my sagging expectations and body parts, but my energy level, unlike the rest of me, has a bit of a resurgence in the wee hours, and I try my best to catch it before the inevitable downhill slide.)

When it was time to go (which I know only because some time each weekday morning between seven ten and seven thirty-five my daughter announces we are leaving, and since the announcement is only made on a need-to-know basis and I don't need to know beforehand, I am usually in the bathroom or just starting to eat my cereal), I stopped everything and slipped on my pretty new suede jacket as I rushed to the car.

"OUCH!" I literally screamed as I sat. She reacted to my comment as she does to everything I say in the morning, with a bored eye roll and an impatient grunt. "Something stung me!" I was still screaming as I tugged at the soft suede over my right elbow. At least she's consistent. She continued to react accordingly, bored, annoyed, staring straight ahead.

I yanked my jacket off, and she turned her head, presumably to find out what on earth was the hold up. She looked at me in abject horror, and, frankly, I looked back at her the same way. It was the Friday of Homecoming weekend, and she was wearing bright red lipstick in honor of her high school colors. I forgot about the sting for a moment, thinking maybe she had simply caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "What?" I shouted, horrified yet grateful that the school colors were not black and green.

"There's a wasp on your arm!" She looked stricken.

"No shit!" I shouted back, wondering how long it would be before she made the connection between my agonizing wails about a sting and the nasty little bug on my arm.

We sprung into action simultaneously, each of us pushing our own car door open and flying out, each of us running around in tight circles screaming in unison. Our very own two-part harmony. Her: "AAGH! A wasp!" Me: "AAGH! Get it off me!" By this time, we had bolted out of the garage, both of us flapping our arms wildly. Maybe, at least, we were giving the neighbors something new to talk about.

Eventually, she worked up the nerve to peer at my arm, and she determined the wasp was no longer there, which led us into another round of screaming and circle running and arm flapping as we wondered where the damn thing was hiding. We determined it must be dead, if not from stinging me then from listening to all the screaming while it hung on for dear life during what must have seemed like a terrifying ride on an insect-sized "Tilt-a-Whirl."

Back in the car, we chatted the whole way to school, about how the wasp ended up in my sleeve, about  how it didn't hurt so much anymore so there probably wasn't a stinger in my arm (we were both too scared to look), about how frightening her red lips were. Like I said at the beginning, I try to learn something new every few days, and on Friday, like I said, I learned how to get my daughter to interact with me on the way to school. Yay me.

No I am not done. The experience put me in kind of a learning mood all weekend, recharging my quest for knowledge. By Saturday afternoon, I discovered that my entire right arm had blown up to more than twice the size of my left. "Hmm," I wondered. "What could that be about?" Okay, well it doesn't take a rocket scientist -- or a Renaissance Woman -- to figure out that it may have had something to do with the wasp sting, so I went to the pharmacy and asked the guy what to do, and, after reassuring me there was no stinger in my arm, he sent me home with instructions to ice it and take Benedryl. Problem solved, but I was by no means out of the woods. My arm was starting to look larger than your average leg, and I had planned to wear a cute short-sleeved dress Saturday night. Shit. Now things were really going south -- not just my expectations and my body parts and my energy level, but my entire evening. Shit, shit, shit.

It already goes without saying that eating more and working out less does not make you look skinnier. The sight in the mirror of the squishy little handles on either side of my waist reinforces that lesson for me every day. And, it goes without saying that allowing a wasp to sting you multiple times on your elbow does not make your arm look skinny and toned. In fact, it makes your arm look really really fat and misshapen. But there's a corollary worth mentioning: it makes the rest of you, especially your left arm, look quite thin and buff. Even the love handles appear shrunken. Yay me. Another lesson learned, in the same weekend no less.

It's Monday morning, and it's time to practice what I have learned. I'm thinking about maybe smashing a glass in the kitchen so when I get to the car I'll be bleeding profusely and my daughter will talk to me on the way to school. Then, I'm going to spend the day striking poses and picking out outfits that accentuate my left arm.

Maybe I  am a Renaissance Woman after all. Nobody said it would be easy.