Once again, I came, I saw, I blogged, and then I disappeared. If only this was a marketable skill, I would have so much more money than I actually do. (Other things I wish were marketable skills: insomnia, snacking, still getting zits in middle age, being a hermit, and swearing.) (Honestly, I am SO GOOD at all of those things! It's unfair that my superpowers go unrecognized, is all I'm saying.) There was Holiday Hubbub and Dog Hubbub and Other Hubbub I would very much like to know where the word "hubbub" came from, just on general principle and also because after I type it a few times it...
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...
My father texted me yesterday, and I need you to understand that my father only types on a regular keyboard with two fingers, so texting---even worse---is for him a laborious and unfathomably slow process. I knew it must be something very urgent. He texted to say I need to blog to "protect his sanity." I was tempted to let him know I'll miss him if I'm all that's standing between him and the brink, but instead I told him I'd try as soon as I had some time. Because, you know, time is weird right now. Also I was on a Zoom meeting when he texted, so technically I did NOT have the time right...
We're rather like a nature preserve, over here, if you like your nature preserve with a motley assortment of dying plants and high-strung creatures, that is. I thought before telling you the new news, I should probably cover some old news. Good old news, even! 1) We have not had a recurrence of any car mice. Thank God. 2) Nor have we had a recurrence of any possums in the pool. (In fact, there hasn't been anything of note in the pool for a while, or maybe Otto is just no longer telling me, which would also be fine.) 3) Despite the fact that we are rapidly coming up on a year from Duncan's...
So much has happened since I was last here! Hahahahaaaaaaaa. Just a little bit of shelter-in-place humor for you. I'M HILARIOUS. Actually, a few things have happened. First of all, our moron governor decided that certain businesses could open back up again. This is measured and sensible, yes? Of course! But then you find out that these essential businesses of which he speaks are... salons, nail places, and bowling alleys. And even if you don't live in Georgia, you've heard about this, because we're now The State That Spawned a Hundred Memes, starting with a few dozen riffs on how it's time...
I think I mentioned that Chickadee moved back home with allllll her stuff, and the idea is that she's taking this semester she should've still been in school to kind of decompress and tend to her health (HAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA because 20-somethings are notorious for taking good care of themselves, amirite?) and figure out what's next, and then around May or maybe before (she said, trying not to sound too eager), she'll move back out to another apartment, taking all of this stuff with her. We'd cleaned out the attic, some, but let's just say that organization is not my darling daughter's strong...
It's a weird thing, having everyone back at home again. And not just because I will periodically look around and yell "Who ARE all you people? Don't you have adult lives to pursue elsewhere??" There's some driveway Jenga to be done with everyone's cars here. There are more dishes (OMG SO MANY DISHES) lying around. It's both louder (at times) and quieter (at times; turns out that young adults like to nap an awful lot) than I expected. The dogs are delighted. Otto is... resigned, I'd say. And once again I've taken out the step basket that lives on the stairs so that I can toss things into it...
First: Thank you all for the kind responses to my last post. It warms my cold, dead heart to know there are so many folks out there who were, in a way, walking along with me for so many years while we ushered my oldest through All The Scary Things all the way to (theoretical) adulthood. It's lovely to have a virtual army on call. (One especially generous longtime reader---and I am not suggesting anyone should feel they should do the same, or that it wasn't a huge surprise---actually contacted me about getting an incredible gift to Chickie. While the gift itself is awesome and much...
Would you believe that my first entry here on ye olde blog was written when my oldest was six years old, tiny and sassy and chirpy and endlessly chatty, and on Saturday that little bird of a girl graduated from college, tall and lovely and grown and measured and oh, lord (this is no time for humility, right?), loaded down with cords and medals and other symbols of how she rocked the last three and a half years like the utter boss she is? Would you believe that for years I prayed every day, multiple times a day, that she would just make it through one more day, please, God, I don't know if I...
