Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Living the Life

The 4WD died on my husband's Pilot yesterday, and our trustworthy (and inexpensive) Honda specialist is out of town for the weekend. So the huz took my car to work today, and I'm housebound.

That's not exactly a bad thing: Not driving to and from the high school (30 minutes each way in traffic) gives me an extra couple of hours for work today. I am getting things done. This is something you would not know from the amount of attention I've given this blog of late. Just because I've been absent doesn't mean I haven't been hard at work -- just toiling away at projects that you haven't yet seen.

For instance: I have a new auto review up at AskPatty -- my impressions of Mitsubishi's all-electric i-MiEV.

And yesterday, I got to do some legwork for another AskPatty automotive piece: Ford was holding a kind of open house, where invited writers could just hop into any of their current models and go for a spin. I spent a couple of hours just driving everything from an electric Focus to the Escape and Edge... and one of my all-time dream cars:

As they say: It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.

Cinco de Mayo: Journey to Boyle Heights

"I blame Lisa," my daughter explained last week, when she came down with a bad cold. I wonder who I should blame, now that I've got it, too.

I think I will revert to my usual practice of pinning it on trying to do too much at once. Whoever came up with the idea that multi-tasking is a good thing should be shot.

Needless to say, I've been busy: with the usual MOMocrats-related projects, household management, job hunting - and even some temporary work. I spent Friday and Saturday morning helping Jeannine Chanin-Penn set up for the Pregnancy Awareness Month event held at the Skirball last weekend. It was fun - but murder on the sore thumb, which was throbbing when I got home after a day of ripping open shipping boxes full of goodie bag swag.

But work finished early enough on Saturday to warrant going out on a little day trip with my husband. He never gets tired of photographing the sights downtown, so we headed south in the 101...

...and then I remembered that it was Cinco de Mayo, and that the area around Olvera Street is the site of a huge annual street party that weekend. It's not that I didn't feel like celebrating (on the contrary!) -- but neither one of us was in the mood to be caught up in a huge crowd. Also, we left the kid in the house (alone with her homework), so we had no intention of being out for longer than a couple of hours.

How about Boyle Heights? I suggested. I'd been dying to go back there since taking the Melting Pot Tour of East LA for an assignment at CBS Los Angeles.

I know my husband. He loved the idea, so we took down First Street and parked the car near Mariachi Plaza... And I guided him to all the spots we visited for the CBS piece. And since it was Cinco de Mayo, I picked up some fresh tamales to enjoy at home.

We also popped in to shop at El Mercado (also mentioned in the CBS post), where I showed him the fabulous upstairs restaurants. We both decided my sister would love it and vowed to come back for dinner some time when she's around.



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The Thumb Doctor

Forgive me these short updates: Jessica Gottlieb says I take too long to write my posts, and I agree. So I'm really trying to push myself to do it quicker.

It's too bad my brain doesn't operate at the same speed as hers.
Anyway: since my last post, I finally went in to see the orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hand injuries. He had me go in for another X-ray before our meeting.

The good news: Although he believes that I probably did fracture a bone, everything is in perfect alignment, and the time my thumb is taking to heal is actually consistent with the kind of injury I incurred.

He doesn't think I need physical therapy; the thumb is healing just fine on its own, and all I need to do is use it (which is what I have been doing since I got some flexibility back).

The bad news: I may never be able to bend it to the extent I did before I slammed it into a car door. "But all you really need to do is pinch, right?"
I am now able to pinch. So this may be as good as it's ever going to get. But at least, the pain and numbness will eventually go away.

One other thing he detected on the X-Ray: Arthritis. "But who doesn't have that at our age?" he said. (Yes, he appeared to be about the same age as I).

I know that my knees ache now whenever I use stairs, so I kind of suspected this. But it is unnerving to actually acknowledge yet another sign of aging.

All in all, I liked the Thumb Doctor and the medical group he practices with. I may end up switching my primary care physician.

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