12 banana muffins sitting on a wire rackPractical Man–my main squeeze, my boyfriend, my love–is in the kitchen whipping up a batch of banana muffins.

As he does.

I am mostly sitting in his favourite chair (as I do), holding my belly button with both hands and trying to take deep, cleansing, banana-muffin-scented breaths.

My hands are cupped, as if I’m carefully holding a baby chick, but what I’m really doing is attempting to keep my belly button from making a fast getaway.  It’s a task that requires vigilance and dedication, even through my bewilderment.  I don’t honestly know why my belly button has forsaken me in this manner.  I mean, I’ve been good to the thing, over the years.

  • I’ve kept it (mostly) from being sun burned.
  • I’ve kept it (mostly) from being mercilessly tickled.
  • I’ve never pierced it (my sister holding the waistband of her pants out for two days after she had hers done a hundred years ago, was a good deterrent).

As in most things, I am a belly button goody-two shoes.

Yet, here I sit.  In full-on Belly Button Betrayal.

I got terrible books out of the library and Olympic Golf has officially come back.  This is what misery looks like, my friends.

Every once in a while, I limp into the bedroom to the full-length mirror and lift my shirt to look.

Is it still there?  In one piece?

Now, I’m navel gazing.

For real.

Except, not like Gandhi or Elizabeth Gilbert (author of the wildly popular memoir, Eat, Pray, Love).  Someone with important socio-political/existential/spiritual (Gandhi) or even spaghetti questions (Elizabeth Gilbert) on their minds.

I do have those questions but, tra-la-la, the Olympics are on.

So, I’ve been navel gazing for a week, on account of the laparoscopic surgery I had.  Note to self:  my belly button does NOT look like the ones on the Canadian beach volleyball team.

Actually, navel gazing and fussing.  Lots and lots of fussing.

I don’t remember Gandhi doing much of that, do you?  Maybe you lose your belly button when you’re fasting for important, civil rights reasons.  Not that I’ll ever know.  I came out of surgery after lunch, ready for a 3-course meal, since I hadn’t eaten since MIDNIGHT the night before!

I’m really more like Elizabeth Gilbert than Gandhi.

More foodie than faster.

Uh huh, that’s me.

By the way, do you think making banana muffins is a sophisticated avoidance technique?  Practical Man is…well, practical.  When there’s a problem, he usually has a very practical solution. And, making banana muffins does afford a brief respite from your fussing/navel gazing wife doesn’t it?  Actually, don’t answer that.  I’m not sure I care if it’s a sophisticated avoidance technique, so long as I get some banana muffins out of the deal.

Naval gazing and fussing.  I feel like that might be on my headstone some day, darn it.  Kind of sums me up pretty well at the moment.

And, while I am a talented fusser, as Practical Man can no doubt attest, I would like to stop.

Really, I would.

It’s just that I never thought my belly button could hurt quite this much.  On account of, I am a documented ‘fraidy cat and I’ve never had a single baby and everyone knows (or at least, I knew with utter certainty when I was 6) that babies come out of that aperture thingy in the middle of our belly buttons.

YAWN.  (That’s how I thought the aperture part opened, when I was 6.  The doctor would tickle it a little, and the mama would YAWN and then the baby on the bench nearest the belly button door, would pop out.)

Uh huh.  Inadvertent childbirth.  That must be it.

That’s really the only reason I can think of that my belly button would feel like it’s had a grapefruit pulled through it.

Ta da!

Ouch.

Maybe not.  As far as I know, there is no tropical fruit lurking in my belly.

I’m more of a vegetable–okay, carbs–girl, to be honest.  With an ice cream chaser.

Good thing, too since I now know how much it hurts to get (what feels like) a grapefruit pulled through your belly button.  All you women who gave actual birth to an actual human and not a grapefruit.  Pfffffff.  Sure, that’s cool.  But, I mean, really.

Have YOU ever had a grapefruit pulled through your navel?

It’s almost time to head to the mirror again.

Watch for my life-changing memoir:

Eat,

Fuss,

Banana Muffins.

Copyright Christine Fader, 2016.  Did you enjoy this post from A Vintage Life?    Share on Facebook       Tweet

 

 

 

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