Chickadee has been home---intermittently, to be sure, as her college pals are mostly elsewhere, and as often as not, that means I'm kissing the back of her head as she leaves for a day or three to be with them---and that means certain things are assured: 1) Her "debris field" (as Otto likes to call it) is a constant reminder that my child may grow and mature but will always be comfortable and, to some extent, toddler-esque in her childhood home, and 2) The time will come when she is lounging on the couch, looks up from her phone, sighs with disappointment, fixes me with a baleful stare, and...
Chickadee has been giving me a hard time lately about the blog. "You never write," she complains. "Why don't you write anymore?" I look at her, and she looks at me, and I shrug. Sometimes I follow it up with the usual excuses---I don't want to violate anyone's privacy; my life is pretty boring; there's other stuff that's more important right now. Those things are true, but another truth lies between us, unspoken: It has been a hard summer, for all of us, but especially between her and me. And the kids are theoretical adults (or close to it; heavy emphasis on "theoretical," too) and whatever...
It's a very good thing I never actually promise to come back to writing here regularly. I think about it---a lot---but in the end, it doesn't seem to happen. Oh well. Hey! This blog is worth EXACTLY what you paid for it! (So there.) Things are rolling along, here, and everything is both going WHOOSH TOO FAST and also OMGGGGGGG SO SLOW. You know how Hermione has a time turner in the Harry Potter books so she can be in multiple places at once? Imagine I had one of those time turners and then I somehow ran it over with my car and tried to use it, anyway. Everything is taking too long but is...
I cannot remember the last time Duncan bit someone. Rather: I couldn't remember, BEFORE THIS WEEKEND. He's so sweet! So calm! That whole "biting people" thing is but a distant memory... ... which came back again while we were watching football this weekend. Otto and I cheered over a play while Duncan snoozed between us on the couch; Duncan leapt awake from the commotion and began barking; I tried to rub his head to calm him down, and he was... uhhh... not calm, it turns out, because I put my hand on him and he promptly snarled and CHOMPed down on my fingers. So. Had to set the "XX DAYS SINCE...
"Hey Mir," you say, because you think it's funny by now, "is your bathroom renovation done?" "Ha!" I reply. "HahahaHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I howl, and eventually you run in the other direction because I am a little deranged at this point, and frankly, scary. I know I've mentioned before that I find Snapchat useful for staying connected to Chickadee, but there was something immensely satisfying about sending her this snap yesterday, childish though it may have been. (Listen, I was told the drywall guy was coming first thing, then when I inquired around 11 as to what was going on, I was told...
Remember when I used to write here regularly? I can't decide if my life is less interesting now or if I just finally realized my life is not nearly as interesting as I once believed. It's probably best not to dwell on it. Today we are trying to Return To Normal Life, only that's working about as well as you might imagine when my entire family returned on Saturday, over-stimulated and under-rested. Otto is a pretty good sport, as you know---plus when he's tired he's not mean, because he is a fully evolved human---but the kids spent most of Saturday in bed and then grumbled around for a while...
It has come to my attention that my perception of "normal" may be... a little off. Weird, right? I---and my family/home---am the picture of boring normalness, surely. (Voices in my head: Yeah, no. Also, don't call me Shirley.) I mean, doesn't everyone reassure others about their competence by announcing that they're a dog door? No? Or own their stupidity by exclaiming "Gorgonzola!"? Also no? Weird. For some reason, this morning, I started thinking about all of the weird little things which happen around here and strike me as perfectly normal even though it's POSSIBLE that they're not. Or...
I remember when preparing the kids for the start of school was practically an Olympic event. You'd get the list of school supplies and head off to your local Big Box store to buy your assigned allotment of glue sticks and whiteboard pens, and if you were supposed to have a magenta with teal striped 2.5" 3-ring binder for a particular subject, well then, you had best find yourself that exact magenta with teal stripes 2.5" 3-ring binder OR ELSE. Plus the clothes shopping. LORD. Uniforms, for the uniform years, or just replacement of what's outgrown (him) and stocking the latest trends (her)...
Forgive me, Internet, for I have sinned. I have leapt to conclusions and impugned the good name of an innocent. In short: I am a monster. Remember when I told you that Licorice has been eating my tomatoes? Tomatoes were ripped in half, still dangling from the vine, and never in all of our years with her has Licorice bothered my garden boxes, but here she was, strolling inside with tomato guts hanging from her muzzle. Of course I took this evidence to be indisputable. Clearly, she had become a rotten, rotten tomato-stealer. FOR SHAME. At first it was just a single tomato, here or there. Then...
