Every couple of years, Otto's family throws a big family reunion---emphasis on BIG. I come from a family where there is almost no branch you can travel along the family tree and find more than two offspring at any given node. I grew up with one sibling and exactly four cousins (two to each of my parents' only siblings), and saw them rarely. Otto is one of four, born into a clan of Irish Catholics, so I don't think you need further explanation. Anyway, Otto has been going to these reunions for years, usually taking one or the other kid along, but I had never been to one before for various...
Apparently the wedding took a little longer to recover from than I'd planned. Ooops! So, uh, hi! Still alive! Mostly! And only a few things have happened since I was last here. I'm HILARIOUS. Surely I will forget some stuff, but I will do my darndest to cover the highlights as best I can. Maybe later my husband will come home and say "But what about [insert that super important thing I totally neglected to mention]??" and I'll say "Oh, yeah!" and actually come back sooner than six months from now. Who knows! Stranger things have happened. If you'd rather not waste your time, the Spark Notes...
Look at me, writing again before a hundred days have passed! I don't know what has come over me! I think it might be that someone reminded me that I used to write endlessly about the dumb stuff I used to do. And I was all "HA! Used to?? I still do a lot of dumb stuff!" And now---after decades of earnestly training myself to pay LESS attention to the stupid things I do---I find myself reviewing the past day or week and thinking, "Wow, I am really just not getting any smarter. How unfortunate for those around me." So here I am, ready to tell you a story because I believe if you can't be a good...
Hello! I am pleased to report that I am still here, and still cranky. Maybe I am not pleased to be cranky, I guess, but there you have it. A couple of nights ago, Otto and I had iteration number seven thousand or so of the conversation where he says he misses my writing, and I say that nothing interesting and/or suitable to tell the world about has happened because my life is actually super boring, and he says that's not true, and I tell him he's not the boss of me. (Being married to me is a treat, I am sure.) I thought about it and realized I actually have plenty of things to complain...
I did not mean to leave things on such a down note, last time, but you know how it goes. Life has a way of barreling forward whether you're ready for it or not. So now it's---*checking calendar*---nearly December, and there is so very much news to share! That's a lie. I mean, very little of it is actual news, but I will share it anyway, because ye olde blog here is now old enough to vote, so why stop now? As Otto says, I always have many words, and it's simply for his safety that I spew some of them somewhere other than directly at him. (True story: last night when he arrived home from work...
As I am wont to do, I started noodling over the inevitable blog post several weeks ago. Where to start, how to do it? I couldn’t quite hit the ignition, and so it simmered in the back of my brain along with the rest of… everything… like how I should probably go get an oil change in my car and Chickadee asked me to look for something in her room and how I ordered groceries and asked for one of the pork shoulders that was on sale, “average weight: 4 lbs,” and I thought “Hmm, that’s a lot, but it’s so cheap, and I can freeze leftovers” and then they picked me one that was almost 9 pounds and...
In addition to just being largely absent here, I have been sort of talking around the elephant in the room. Really, elephant isn't big enough. Or scary enough, either. The dragon in the room? Let's go with that. I have been talking around a fire-breathing dragon in the room while hoping it wouldn't, you know, set anyone on fire. First of all: Everyone is fine. More or less. Do not fret! Second of all: I'm still going to talk about this mostly in generalities, because the specifics aren't mine to share. Perhaps you will wonder about the details. That's your prerogative. Third of all: It has...
Look at me---it hasn't even been a whole month, and here I am again. Writing! Like some sort of... writer! Who does things with words on a regular basis! That's weird. Anyhoodle, here we are, having survived the holidays and *gestures vaguely* everything else, so that's good, right? I would love to tell you a fun story about how Goose has settled in to being officially ours by being even more ridiculous than usual, but basically she's just peak ridiculous all the time, so there's not much to tell there. I do hope to have a fun tale when the weather warms up, though, as her current favorite...
I did not mean to leave you with the depressingness of Duncan's demise for quite so long. I apologize. We had a rough week there and then gradually settled into being able to reference and talk about him fondly and without tears. It helped that Licorice has taken to having periodic accidents in the house (SHE IS JUST TRYING TO HELP) and Monkey loves to proclaim that it's "The ghost of Duncan!" peeing on the floor. So. Who knows? Maybe it is Ghost Leaky Duncan. I feel like haunting us with puddles would be on brand for him, honestly. And then... the second half of the summer seemed to rev up...
