Maintenance

Dermatologist is on the calendar for tomorrow at 9am - fun, fun, fun. Getting a skin check definitely falls into that category of personal health / maintenance that is SO not sexy and may be a bit scary. At this stage of life we all know folks - heck, may have been folks - who walked into some kind of appointment for a routine checkup and had startling news, with unpleasant consequences.  Maybe I should focus on getting my sunspots lightened and ignore the potential dark side of the new moles on my back. At least by tomorrow afternoon I will either have a reprieve or a series of next steps to take.

It's exactly the same thing as taking the van into the shop. Our trusty Toyota minivan has 88,000 miles on it and we just had a routine oil change that turned into an oil change plus two belts being replaced plus a taillight fixed. It's not a fun way to spend $200+, and when the kind men at the shop call to get my go-ahead before they make the fixes I am tempted to say "no." The specter of a car problem on the highway with my kids makes me steer in the right direction. In some ways I go to the dermatologist or the mammogram folks or the GYN for the same reason, so that nothing bad happens to the kids through me, the all-purpose, driven-into-the-ground vehicle.

This week has seen a lot of maintenance, as Colorado turned into southern Ireland and forsook its high-desert climate in favor of monsoon rains. We cleaned the basement, behind the piano, in the kids' rooms and even considered a trip to the grocery store a fun reprieve. We bought three bunches of bananas, since stocking the banana bowl is hugely necessary maintenance with three growing kids. And we cheered together when the sun came out this afternoon, ready to go out and play and forget all responsibilities in these last few weeks of summer.