If I had to share one thing about myself that would help you in your dealing with me, it is what is written on this mug. I am not so great at dealing with unanticipated changes the moment they are happening. But, if you give me a few minutes, I will pivot, accept the situation, and move on. I just have to be dramatic and whine about it and act like it is a much bigger deal than it actually is first.
My youngest sister gets this about me. When Julie was moving to Connecticut, I told her I would drive out with her and fly home. The day before we left, she let me know her car was very full. In addition to the last and most important of her belongings, we would be making the journey with her poodle, Jezebel. Julie kept telling me that I had to make sure my cross-country bag was small because her car was packed. So, I packed a small duffle bag for the three day trip and the flight home. When Julie pulled up, I noticed her sweet dog was not in a kennel, which is where I expected she would be for most the ride. Instead of a kennel, Julie had Jezebel’s dog bed. That was when she told me I would be riding with the dog bed on my lap with Jezebel in it. I wanted to lose my crap and get all dramatic, but what could be done about it? Nothing. We had to leave and this is how it was going to be. So, I got into the passenger seat, put Jezebel on my lap, and we were off for the 1900 mile drive. Julie told me later that she didn’t tell me earlier precisely because she knew I would get all dramatic about it. She also knew that if she just showed up and dropped the bomb on me minutes before we had to leave I would have a lot less time to be dramatic and I would just get over it. She was right. I did.
So, now you know the secret to dealing with me. When I am backed in a corner, I might grumble a bit but I will get on board more quickly. If I have time to be annoyed about it, I will still still get over it but you will have left me more time to whine about it. I still say I am flexible. I always adjust. Sometimes I just complain about things for a little bit longer.
There are some television comedy shows I can watch over and over and not ever tire of them. These are the shows from which I still have zingy one-liners memorized. I can’t remember what I did yesterday or what my son’s phone number is but, dammit, I can pull lines from television shows (and movies and songs) from the recesses of my addled brain like some idiot savant.
This mania began, I think, when I started watching Cheers when I was 14. Ask my family members how many lines I remember from that show and recount regularly. I will start singing, “Albania, Albania, you border on the Adriatic,” courtesy of Coach Ernie Pantuso, for no reason at all. I remember many one-liners Norm delivered after he walked into the bar and was asked about his day, but “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Sammy, and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear” is my favorite. Then there’s one of the best exchanges between Carla and Cliff, when Cliff tells Carla how you wouldn’t find any girlfriend of his leading him around by the nose and Carla replies, “No. But you might catch her sunning herself on a rock.” I also regularly yell out lines from Friends, such as “Joey doesn’t share food” (when someone asks for a bite of my meal) and “Pivot!” (when hubby and I are moving anything at all). I quote Michael Scott from The Office, too: “I’m not superstitious. But I am a little stitious.” And just this weekend we were talking about Curb Your Enthusiasm and I popped off with a lisping “Lo siento.” So wrong, but so funny.
One of my favorite comedy shows to rewatch is Parks and Recreation, which was originally brought to me by my then 9 year old son, Luke. There are too many great lines in Parks and Rec to recount, but I do often run around singing Andy Dwyer’s song about falling into the pit. Then there’s “Right to jail” from when the ministers of parks from Boraqua, Venezuela, visit. Or this gem, from when Chris gets the flu and is staring in the mirror at himself and says, “Stop pooping.” I’ve repeated Donna and Tom’s rallying cry of “Treat yo’self” ad nauseam, as well. But one of my favorite episodes of Parks and Rec is the one with the end of the world, where we hear a member of the Reasonabilist cult tell Chris, “Well, this morning at dawn, you will take a new form. That of a fleshless, chattering skeleton when Zorp the Surveyor arrives and burns your flesh off with his volcano mouth.” I walked around for weeks after watching that episode talking about Zorp and his volcano mouth. That line still makes me laugh for absolutely no reason. Hail Zorp!
I have favorite lines from so many shows, now that I really think about it. Like when Sheldon, on The Big Bang Theory, says, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested!” Or on Scrubs when J.D. keeps moving their taxidermy dog around to scare people and he chastises it by saying, “Rowdy, NO!” And I have watched the first three seasons of Arrested Development enough that “There’s always money in the banana stand” is a mainstay in my vocabulary, along with “I don’t understand the question and I won’t respond to it” and “I’ve made a huge mistake.” Oh, and when GOB responds to his brother calling his work a magic trick and he corrects him by saying, “Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money…[sees children]…or candy.” That was genius
As I’m sitting here reflecting on the plethora of television knowledge I pulled up for this post, I’m becoming aware that perhaps I’ve watched a little too much television in my life. Certainly, I can’t be the only one, right? There must be dozens like me. Dozens! And while I suspect my excessive sitcom viewing may have significantly reduced my ability to carry on an intelligible conversation at a serious dinner party, it might just pay off some night at DJ Trivia. At least, that is what I tell myself to make myself feel better.
Tonight calls for a haiku about our relentless (and adorable) little corgi who has been living up to his namesake today by pulling double duty in our bathrooms.
.
One corgi puppy
on an epic quest to maim
all the t.p. rolls
Damn puppers is at it again.Good thing he is cute.
I may have to pull a 2020 move and start stockpiling toilet paper because it appears we may be in for a shortage.
On Wednesday nights, our neighborhood coffee shop/bar/gathering space hosts DJ Trivia. We have gone a couple times with some of our awesome neighbors. This week, none of our neighbors were available to join the festivities. We thought about skipping out too but, with Joe home from college and Luke without homework before spring break, we decided we had enough of a team with just the four of us. The boys were so not thrilled that we were dragging them along that Luke decided the only appropriate team name was Two Willing Participants since they didn’t want to be there.
We got through the first round with all the possible points, but it’s the easy round. We clinched the bonus question because of my gift with lyrics. Who knew that my brain would pull Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me out of its cobwebby recesses? I haven’t willingly listened to that song since, well, ever. Anyhoo, we struggled the second round and ended with 20 out of 40 points and didn’t even dare take a stab at the bonus question. We were sitting in 6th place out of 7 teams, and our confidence was flagging. Somehow, though, we rallied in the third round, scoring 60 out of 80. Luke knew the bonus question about the alloy of copper and tin (it’s bronze), and we were right back in it. Suddenly, we were sitting in third, which meant we were in prize territory.
The final round is fill-in-the-blank questions rather than multiple choice. We got the first two fairly easily, but missed the next two. We were somehow still in third place as we waded into the final bonus round, called the Do Or Die Dare round. We strategized how to play it and decided it was go big or go home. If we got the question right, we would double our entire score and could finish in a higher place, or at least hold on to third and win a prize. And then, as if the gods were on our side, the title of the bonus round question hit the screen. The title was Fun With Flags. We all looked at Joe. This was our Slumdog Millionaire moment. Joe has long been a fan of geography and flags. He’s a regular vexillologist. In his senior year, he had to give a 45-minute presentation on a topic of his choice. The title of the presentation he shared with his classmates? Fun With Flags. I shit you not.
Yeah…I know that flag
Steve pushed himself back from the table with a “this is it” flourish of glee. A flag appeared on the trivia screens. Joe looked at it for a nanosecond, leaned forward, and said quietly with the utmost confidence, “Uzbekistan.” I grabbed the paper and wrote it down. We handed it to the DJ judge in five seconds flat while the rest of the tables sat hemming and hawing and conjecturing. It appeared no one wanted to risk all their points with an answer. Finally, a representative from the Vandalay Industries team stood up and walked to submit their answer. We all knew Joe had provided the right answer. Not because any of us had a clue about the flag of Uzbekistan but because Joe. The DJ did all the tabulating and then announced that only two answers had been submitted for the Do or Die Dare and only one of those was right. The correct answer was Uzbekistan.
Yeah, baby!
The DJ read off the name of the third place winner. We smiled. Second place went to the team that often wins each week, Hot Fuzz. The room was dead silent. Someone had pulled off an upset. The DJ put our team name on the screen, and we high-fived all around while Hot Fuzz looked over at us like we’d just kicked their puppy. Two Willing Participants won largely due to the efforts of its two unwilling team participants, and the coveted $25 brewery gift card and bragging rights for the week were ours. It was positively glorious.
A member of Team Hot Fuzz, still flabbergasted by their unexpected loss, shouted over to Joe to inquire how he knew the answer to the flag question so quickly. To which Joe replied, “I have the flags of the world memorized. It’s a good party trick.” This twenty year old kid just ruined their evening, and I couldn’t have been any prouder. It made all the hours I’ve spent quizzing Joe on flags and listening to him prattle on about the poorly designed ones totally worth it.
Joe with his personal Uzbekistan flag at home after our win
I guess there are a few lessons to be learned from our trivia evening. First, never, ever assume something you are asked to do (like attend a trivia night with your parents) will be a waste of time because you never know what you might learn about yourself or others. Second, if you encourage your child’s obsessions, they might pay off. Third, if you’re going to trivia night, take Joe and Luke with you. Their arcane knowledge about flags or every letter of the Greek alphabet or the names of Roman emperors might be just what you need to humble Hot Fuzz. And finally, if your kid wants to collect flags, let him.
I went shopping for shoes for my son and myself today. He bought a pair of running shoes and a pair of flip flops. I bought nothing because I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for (cute, comfy espadrille sandals), but Joe spied these glittery, rhinestone, ruby red shoes and pointed them out to me. I have no reason to purchase these shoes, but I did have to try them on because, well, Dorothy shoes.
When I got home, I started wondering if I should have bought them. I mean, I have literally no place to wear shoes such as these given that my usual attire is as pictured, denim and Converse. On the other hand, shouldn’t every woman have a pair of shoes like these? Does it matter if all I do in them is wash dishes? How fabulous would I be rolling the trash can to the curb on Monday morning?
Our seven month old corgi puppy has been getting more and more free time out and about in our house. We started with thirty minutes to an hour of supervised run around time. As time has gone on, we’ve worked to stop watching him so closely. Often, after an initial trek around the house to check out his usual haunts, he settles down with some toys and plays nicely by himself. So we have slowly allowed him more freedom.
Tonight we let him out after dinner and a visit to the yard. He did his usual rounds and then ran off towards Luke’s room behind Luke. With Luke watching Loki, I was free and so I went back to practicing my Italian on DuoLingo. Awhile later, I looked up and saw Luke at the kitchen counter. He and I began having a conversation. About five minutes into said conversation, it occurred to me. If Luke was in the kitchen, where the hell was Loki? Crap! We had a left our puppy unattended for at least five minutes. Do you have any idea how much damage a freaking corgi puppy named after the Norse trickster god can cause in five minutes? You should see what he can do in thirty seconds. Let me enlighten you. His usual run once he gets free is first to pull down all the dishtowels that hang in the kitchen. Then he runs straight for the hall bathroom where he unrolls some toilet paper and drags it through the house. Then he will tear over to the entry bench where he will grab any glove or hat someone has left behind and run away with it. After that it’s off to his toy bin from which he will pull every single toy out onto the floor. In. Thirty. Seconds.
We tore down the hall to Luke’s room and from the doorway we began to see the carnage. Some cardboard had been gnawed near the door. The roll of toilet paper that had been on the wall was shredded all over the bathroom floor. He then broke into Luke’s Closet of Shame (which is filled with Legos), and that was where we found him. We’re not sure if he ingested any Legos, but we’re impressed that he realized that plastic Legos were a higher value prize than the cardboard and toilet paper. As soon as Loki understood he’d been caught up to no good, he got a case of the zoomies and sped out of Luke’s room. When we finally managed to recapture him, he was panting heartily. And, if I’m being honest, looking a bit smug.
Puppies are something else. Loki is somewhere between a cranky toddler and a rebellious teenager right now. Sometimes he’s one, sometimes he’s the other. Either way, he earned his trip back to his pen after his free-for-all in Luke’s room. Loki tells other dogs he gets put into puppy jail after he tries new things. But, he’s just being dramatic.
He doesn’t look like a cannibal, but don’t let that fool you
My husband lost his taste to Covid-19 in late October 2020 when our family got coronavirus. Luke got all his taste back right after he felt better. Joe’s taste came back too, although he discovered that coffee was no longer enjoyable for a while. My sense of taste also mostly returned, although I lost my interest in cilantro, peppers, and soda because they tasted either weird or gross. I am still avoiding cilantro and peppers, but I can drink Coke again so that is both a blessing and a curse. But Steve, well, he figures he has about 25% of his pre-Covid smell and taste back. That is it. Still. He hasn’t had much improvement over the past year. This is incredibly frustrating for a guy who really enjoys eating and who asks me at breakfast what is for dinner. As it stands now, Steve can get the subtleties of salt, fat, acid, heat, and sweet in most food, but he cannot taste the flavor of an apple, for example. He enjoys the crunch of an apple and its sweetness, but he can’t taste a Honeycrisp or tell it from a Gala or a pear. So frustrating.
Steve has discovered that full-bodied red wines actually have some flavor for him. So tonight he was researching flavor profiles in wines. This made him think about the movie Somm, which is about people studying to become Master Sommeliers. These people spend their lives smelling everything and tasting wines to describe their flavors. Some articles have suggested that people like Steve need to retrain the brain post Covid. This led Steve to a deeper curiosity about the science behind how people are able to taste, how the brain works in concert with the nose and the tongue to assess flavors. To learn more, he actually Googled this phrase: “How do people taste?” This search did not yield the exact results he was hoping for.
Now, I have to admit that it would not have occurred to me either that there is actual information readily available about what a human being tastes like when consumed, but there is. And, just like that, my husband’s search history will now reveal that he searched the Internet for a flavor profile of a human being. I find this a bit concerning. Can you imagine him trying to explain his way out of it if I suddenly went missing? Furthermore, would he grill me or pan fry me? Would he grab the buffalo, barbecue, or sriracha sauce? I’m not actually afraid he will kill and eat me, but I am wondering what other searches are on his laptop. And, beyond that, I am now curious about how people taste. Who tasted people, typed up the flavor profile results from their experiment in cannibalism, and uploaded them to the Internet? Are we like alligators? Do we taste like chicken too. So, so many questions here.
An article in Smithsonian Magazine published in February of 2014 states, “According to the testimony of people who have actually eaten other people, the taste of human meat does not reflect its beef-like appearance. Both serial killers and Polynesian cannibals have described human as being most akin to pork. But not all cannibals agree with this description.” So, there you have it. We do not taste like chicken as I suspected. We may taste like pork, but not all cannibals agree on this. There’s a sentence I never thought I would type, twice. Still, good to know, I guess, in case you’re ever in a plane crash in the Andes and your buddy tells you it’s okay to go ahead and eat him. At least you will know that buffalo, barbecue, or sriracha are all acceptable condiments to pair with Brian. You might just discover he was a lot tastier than he looked.
As for Steve, I’m not too worried about him. He could try to eat me, but he probably wouldn’t go to the trouble since he wouldn’t be able to taste me anyway. And I’m gonna be in trouble with the Feds now too because my search history also shows an inquiry into the taste of human flesh. If anyone’s looking for a plot for their true crime novel, how about a cannibalistic serial killer eats his victims and then, to escape suspicion, tips off investigators to a couple of dummies who searched Google for “how do people taste” and then wrote a blog post about it?
If I go to jail for cannibalism, it’s Steve’s fault. Stupid Covid.
Last fall, we got ourselves a new family member in the form of a corgi puppy whom we named Loki because we knew he would be full of mischief. We were not mistaken. Despite his diminutive size, he can cause a lot of mayhem and he can do it quickly because, despite their short legs and stocky appearance, corgis can run 25 miles per hour. Our little cutie tears through our house, leaping for and pulling down towels from racks, grabbing toilet paper and dragging it behind him through the house in one large strip, and then evading us by sliding under furniture to hide. It’s simultaneously annoying as hell and hysterical. And he’s so damn cute that, despite his ability to upend our entire house in five minutes, we continue to let him live here.
We’ve struggled with what to do with him in the car. He typically begins any car ride secured in a kennel for safety, but that is zero fun for our little guy and so he whines and barks because he is short, trapped, and unable to see what he’s missing. As you can imagine, our car trips with him are not much fun because we are faced with a choice: keep him safe and have him bark the entire ride or take him out of the kennel so he is quiet but not safe. Car rides are awesome for bigger dogs because they can see out windows and even stick their heads out them. One safety harness and a car ride is a joy for a taller dog. Loki’s field of vision allows him to see the black upholstery in my car and that’s about it.
So, I went on a hunt for a way to secure him while allowing him to enjoy a view that isn’t achieved through using me as his step stool and I found this booster seat on Amazon.
Plenty of room for him to relax if he ever chooses to nap
I had to find one that holds medium-size dogs because most car boosters are made for dogs under 15 pounds. Loki, while short, is a sturdy 22 pounds right now at 7 months. He has your basic bodybuilder physique, broad and strong up top with a smaller bottom half, similar to a bulldog. Despite his weight-to-height ratio, he has a trim, indented waist and an easily discernible rib cage. We call him a chonky boi, but he isn’t. He’s a rock. In fact, we should have named him Dwayne Johnson so we could legitimately call him The Rock Junior.
I installed the car seat this morning. It took a little finagling to feed the seat belt though the bottom section of the cushion, but I finally got it in place. Then I picked up our little brick house and put him in the seat and attached his front-clip harness to the tether in the seat. So far, so good. He seemed a little confused but also curious about it all. He tried to figure out if he could get out of the seat and realized the short leash he was on would not allow it. Still, he stood up for the first couple blocks as we tooled through the neighborhood before finally realizing he could see just fine if he sat and relaxed a bit. Our first outing was a quick, 5-minute cruise to acclimate him to the idea of the seat. He did pretty well. Later I plan to take him on a longer ride to the post office. One step at a time.
When we decided to get a corgi, I have to admit it never occurred to me that he would have short dog problems. I never thought I would have to buy dog stairs so he could get on our bed if he wanted. It never occurred to me he might have issues getting down the back stairs to the yard from our deck either. It never crossed my mind that I would be lying on the living room floor trying to drag his heart-shaped butt out from under our sofas. I never thought I would be toweling off his belly every single time we took a walk because his low clearance means he is constantly soaked underneath from snow or wet grass or muddy fields. I also never realized how fast he would be able to grab something that fell on the floor because he is so close to it. It’s safe to say that a doggy booster seat never entered my consciousness either. All of these things should have been clear to me because, while Loki has short dog problems, I have short girl problems. I regularly climb onto our countertops to reach things on upper shelves in our cupboards. Unaltered pants are always too long on me. And my corgi is the only immediate family member I can look down on. Honestly, about the only place I fit just right is an airplane lavatory. Those tiny closets work perfectly well for me.
Still, we’re figuring these things out together and making necessary adjustments. We should be all set when we get our next fur-dispensing, corgi bundle of joy someday in the not-too-distant future.
At this point, I feel like a prayer to these giants might help
We are getting the electrical panels for our solar installation today. The company rang our doorbell about 3 hours ago and told me it would be off for approximately 40 minutes. I had just popped tomatoes into the oven for roasting for soup for tonight. I just pulled them out of the cooling oven and placed them into our rapidly warming fridge. Guess we will be getting take out for dinner.
It’s a little crazy how much our lives have changed in the past 100 years. In 1925, about half of US homes had electricity. Now our entire lives are dominated by it. So consumed are we by our need for it that we are lost when it goes out. I’ve been wandering aimlessly around my house wondering what I can do. Laundry? Nope. Dinner prep? Nope. Make a smoothie? Nope? Vacuum? Nope. A storm is moving in and the house is dark, and I keep absentmindedly hitting light switches that can offer us no light. My husband told me I could use the shower, but then I reminded him I need to use a hair dryer right after that, so that is off the table too. At this point, I have determined I could read a book, do a puzzle, or take a nap, and I could only do the first two things if I found a flashlight. I am actually writing this blog post on the WordPress app on my phone, but will only be able to continue doing so as long as my phone battery holds out. I can always go for a drive to a locale with a functional power outlet, if I can open the heavy-as-sin garage door manually since the opener won’t work.
People lived for millennia without power to their domiciles, but I wouldn’t survive a day without it. I miss it already and it hasn’t even been half a day yet. I can’t decide if we should dial back our reliance on electricity or double our efforts to find ways to keep us powered all the time, even when the grid fails us. All I know for sure is that I would not want to go back in time. I would miss my ovens that require no firewood, my lamps that require no kerosene, and my refrigerator that requires no ice blocks.
If it’s this difficult for a Gen X-er to go a few hours without electricity, it would probably kill my Gen Z sons. I’m not sure how they would survive if they had to write out their homework by hand. At least I know Luke would curl up with a book. I think Joe would be on his phone until the battery ran out and then he would ask me to drive him around so he could chat with his friends while his phone charged.
Technology is a marvelous thing, until it isn’t. And then it leaves me wondering how on earth we would survive if things really went sideways and we had to abandon our modern conveniences. I mean, I try to picture myself pulling rugs out of my house and beating them with a broom while they hung on a clothesline, but I don’t see it. Let’s just hope the power gets turned back on before it comes to that.
Live Now and Zen 