The Sum of These Days Is My Life

Me: Wendy, I'm kind of freaking out. Ever since I got back from DC, I've been getting really OCD. I can't stop washing my dishes.

Wendy: [laughs] I think you're fine. Wait. Clean ones?

Me: No, but now that you've planted that idea, probably. It's just that at first I needed to wash the dishes every day, and then a few times a day, and now I have to wash every single dish as soon as I'm done using it. Is that normal?

Wendy: [looking around house, which is still fairly dirty despite my "OCD"] Uh, I think you'll be fine. I thought you were going to say something horrible was happening with you. I don't really think your cleaning is excessive yet.

Me: When I was washing my dishes from dinner, I was sort of afraid I was going crazy. And then I thought, maybe this is what adults are like. Maybe this is what adults are SUPPOSED to be like. And somehow that made me way sadder than the idea that I was crazy.

A Lot of Work

Holy crap, I forgot how much work it is to throw a party.

I have a refrigerator stuffed with hot dogs, buns, beer, limes, watermelon, water, soda, along with a freezer filled with vodka, rum, ice, and popsicles. I'm only halfway done cleaning my house and I'm sweating like a mofo.

At least I have a new dress to wear. That kind of makes it all worth it.

I am currently making pasta salad: tri-color rotini, broccoli, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, Italian dressing, and feta cheese. Never let it be said I don't love my vegetarian friends; I nearly cut my finger off making this salad last year.

Breakfast of Champions

In the past, I wasn't much of a breakfast person. I've been a coffee-in-the-morning person for many years, but aside from that, I didn't think much else was needed to jumpstart my day.

However, I attended a seminar for work last year regarding nutrition and one of the things the presenter said stuck with me: "If you're not eating breakfast, essentially you're saying you don't need your brain for the first four hours of your day." I don't know about you, but I kinda like my brain to be working when I'm in the office. (Mostly because if it isn't, I'm unable to think of creative excuses to foist my work on other people.)

After that, I started eating breakfast fairly regularly and it's become the one meal I have at home almost every day. I brew some coffee and usually pair it with at least toast. (I know, toast is not breakfast...unless it's 10 o'clock and you have a meeting at 10:30 and you haven't showered yet.) I try to mix and match those two basics with yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, fruit, and/or - on very rare occasions - eggs or pancakes. I actually am not a fan of cooking in the morning, so I try to stick with things I can microwave, put in the toaster oven, or just pour milk over.

This ritual hasn't by any means made me a morning person (writes the girl who woke up at almost 11 o'clock today) but it has made my mornings more productive and focused and kept me from eating like a starving street dog at lunch. (Well, sometimes.) So yay, breakfast! It may not be the most important meal of the day (I mean, come on, it's the only one that doesn't have dessert), but it's pretty high up there.

Exhausted But Happy

So I am finally home...home being a relative term.

When I am in Indiana, I am home.

When I am with my family, I am home.

When I am in Los Angeles (or Pasadena), I am home.

You know the drill - it's where the heart is and all that jazz.

At any rate, here I am, back in my California home. Literally at home today as well, since I am working at my kitchen table once again. I was hoping to be in my office today after a long absence, but the Enterprise rental car branch I am using SUCKS BALLS and I wasn't able to rent something this morning. I'm working with my usual branch now and should be able to get into a car by this afternoon.

I am so tired - I could sleep for days, I think - but I had the best time. I'll write more about it later, but as a quick summary: I drove over 1,000 miles while I was there, shuttling back and forth between the homes of my siblings and my parents. I saw a Cubs game and my nephew's senior drama, stayed up late gossiping and giggling with my sisters, took care of my brother after he had outpatient surgery, and took about a billion pictures. My arm throbbed every single night (I couldn't take my meds during the day because I had to drive) but it was totally, absolutely, 100% worth it.

I miss them all like mad already.

A Certain Fondness

The Ex drove up on Sunday to see me. After we enjoyed a late breakfast at Andy's, he chauffeured me around town to look for a grill. We went to three stores before heading back to Target (the first store we visited, of course) to buy a Thermos Patio Chef Grill. 410 square inches of cooking surface and 26,500 BTUs, on sale for $80 this week - woohoo! It came with a free cover, but unfortunately, without a propane tank, so we had to drive back to OSH to buy one. D'oh!

We returned to my place and spent the next two hours building the damn thing. Who knew a grill had so many pieces? I was so glad he helped me, because I don't know if I'd have been able to assemble it alone. (I probably would have called Michael and begged for his manly assistance.)

At any rate, after all we've gone through over the past year, spending a day like this together was just...nice. My sister often says she has no idea how or why the guys I date tend to stick around for years after our breakups. (She found it hilarious that I had Easter dinner with the Ex and my besty, who's also an ex.) I wonder myself sometimes, but mostly, I just feel lucky.

Won't You Leave, My Neighbor?

Dear Neighbor:

Since I moved in almost a year and a half ago, you haven't exactly endeared me to you.

First, you parked in my spot repeatedly, usually when it was cold and rainy. I liked being forced to run to your door in the rain to ask you to move your giant Suburban, which you did slowly and reluctantly.

Once I finally broke you of that bad habit, you took the opportunity to show me your better nature. You backed your giant Suburban into the front end of my poor little Bumpy in the wee hours of the morning, right after she'd gotten back from the repair shop. You didn't even have the common decency to leave a note; I had to figure out what happened myself like Nancy Drew, matching the paint and dent on your rear bumper to the giant dent on the front of my fender.

I really liked how you pretended you didn't know what I was talking about when I confronted you, claiming that you thought you "nudged" the trash bins, not my car. (Despite the fact that they are located on opposite sides of the driveway.) Even better, you were - and probably remain - uninsured, so I had to pay the $1000 deductible out of pocket. I'm sure you thought it was no big deal for me since I make decent money, but that $1000 would sure come in handy for bills these days. I've gotten a bit of money back through AAA, since they sent a collection agency after you, but I doubt I'll see more than the couple of hundred bucks I've gotten back in the fourteen months since the accident.

Since I mentioned trash bins, remember when I used to leave mine out with yours and our other neighbors? It was so kind of you to dump all of your trash into my bin, and often into my recycling bin as well for good measure. You let me lug your filth to the curb each week. Your bin either didn't get put out for collection at all, or if it did, it stayed on the curb in front of my house for three or four days straight. Sometimes people who wanted to park on our street would put your bin up on my parkway, which made my house look wonderfully ghetto. I keep my bins on my back patio now and you seem a little grouchy that you have to take out your own heavy garbage these days. You're still not much better about bringing them in after trash day, though.

I would think your surly teenage boys could help out, but I guess not. After all, they're not really great with trash either. They often drop their litter (McDonald's wrappers, Metro passes, homework, and the like) on my lawn. Once, they left a skateboard helmet on my lawn for a few days, and I threw it in the trash. Man, that felt good.

The little fat one enjoys hanging out by my parking space and kicking his soccer ball against the wall of the garage next door. I used to be nice and ask for him to please play elsewhere, but the last couple of times, I shifted into bitch mode and just yelled at him to move the hell away from my car. I think he finally got the hint because he hasn't caused me any problems since then.

Your teenage daughter, who picks up the boys to visit their mother (your ex-wife), likes to park in the driveway and honk repeatedly and scream obscenities until the boys come out. Her behavior certainly sets an excellent example for her toddler!

Your girlfriend and her mother like to hang laundry from the fence in front of your unit, which is very classy. I also note that while you can't seem to figure out that the blue bin is for recycling only, you have a small mountain of recyclables outside your front door. The beer cans are an especially nice touch.

I was so thrilled when you converted your garage - which is attached to mine, if you recall - into an extra bedroom. I'm sure having seven people in a one-bedroom apartment (weren't there only three of you when I moved in?) can get a little cramped. It was a brilliant move to run an extension cord through your window so the boys could have a lamp and a heater in there! I'm sure that's not a fire hazard or anything.

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that I wrote a letter to go with my rent check this month. I told our landlord that I was fed up and that if she didn't do something, I'd report you and her to the city. She gave me a call back yesterday afternoon, and I got the best news I'd heard in ages.

You're being EVICTED. How exciting for you! I wish you all the best in your new place and I truly hope your new neighbors give you the same warm welcome you gave me.

Best,
City Elf

I Speak Fluent Plant

So, if you read this blog, chances are you know me in real life. And if you know me in real life, chances are you know I'm just coming out of a deep and somewhat debilitating blue period, during which I did very little aside from go to work in the morning (okay, morning is a relative term) and curl up in bed with my laptop every night.

I didn't notice how much my sadness changed me during that time until the fog started lifting. And what opened my eyes wasn't just the fact that my house was thoroughly thrashed (I don't clean during the best of times, so you can only imagine the state of my house right now) but the little plant that sits outside my front door, who had suddenly become very sickly.

I don't want you to think I forgot about her or stopped watering her while I was sad. On the contrary, I took care of her exactly as I normally do, or so I thought. I set her out to get sunshine on warm days and watered her a few times a week. Nonetheless, she had gone from a vibrant green plant to a very listless one, covered with yellowing leaves. Nothing I did seemed to help. I tried watering a little less, removing the dead leaves, cleaning off the top layer of her soil...all to no avail. It wasn't the weather, as she was outside during the coldest nights this winter and always stayed healthy and strong.

Now, I've had my little plant for almost a year. If you know about my genetic "black thumb", you know that it's completely unheard of for me to have a plant past a few weeks if I'm lucky. (I've killed orchids in mere days.) I bought her prior to my Memorial Day weekend potluck last year. Of the five plants I purchased, she was the only one that made it past a month. I have her on my front porch so I don't forget to water her, and I usually pause for a moment on my way out the door to say good morning to her and comment on how pretty she looks.

USUALLY.

I figured out over the weekend that I hadn't spoken to my little plant in weeks. Sure, I'd been taking care of her physical needs, but I hadn't remembered to give her the love that I'd been showing for the past eight months we've been together. Once I realized what was going on, I immediately started dropping sweet nothings on her every day. Not only did she immediately perk up, she even gave forth a little white bloom this week, completely unexpectedly! I know it sounds crazy, but I really think my talking to her has made all the difference.

Here are the things I love about my little plant (she's a Vinca, by the way):

1. She's still alive despite my poor plant parenting skills.

2. She blooms multiple times each year with pretty white flowers.

3. She makes my house look prettier just by being there.

4. She never wakes me up screaming in the middle of the night because her food bowl is empty.

5. She loves me, too - she almost died without my affection!

Like A Happy Little Frog

You know what one of my favorite feelings is?

When you hop into the shower, and you don't even realize that you're cold until the hot water hits your skin.

I stood rubbing my arms and purring under the steaming goodness for at least five minutes* before I even started soaping up tonight, and then before I got out, I turned in circles like a vertical rotisserie chicken, luxuriating in the heat until I almost fell down from dizziness.

Mmmmm....hot water.

* Environmentalists, don't fret. Like the governor, I buy carbon credits to offset this behavior.

My Boys

"OMG, what was that? Did you hear that?"

Things I love most about Spike:

* He is afraid of everything. Sounds. Movement. Changes in temperature. He's literally a scaredy-cat. It's cute, though.

* He's got super-long fur, which makes it look like he's wearing big fuzzy chaps.

* When I pick him up to hold him, he presses the bridge of his nose against the bridge of mine and closes his eyes.

* He has an unholy regard for my discarded clothing; he likes to nap on anything I leave on the floor while giving it loving stampies.

* He drools whenever he has a chance to be close enough to me to nuzzle his face into my hair.

* He has the biggest paws and the hairiest toes I've ever seen on a cat.


"Come closer. Good, now pet me."

Things I love most about Cash:

* He is in ecstasy whenever you touch him. He'll do anything to be cuddled. He stops eating if there's the possibility of being loved.

* He curls his tail into a question mark whenever anyone pets him.

* He's really clumsy, probably because he doesn't have front or back claws to help him balance. He falls off things all the time.

* If he thinks I'm mad, or if he's trying to get my attention, he'll roll around on the floor to flirt with me.

* He's utterly fearless. I have to get up and chase him if he's doing something naughty, because if I just raise my voice or hand as a threat, he's completely unafraid that I might follow through.

* He has tiny white patches of fur on his front paws that make it look like he has rhinoceros toenails.

The Lazy Way

This is my refrigerator-bound to-do list, which is why half of it goes chronically undone. If I had it in my purse instead, perhaps I'd have cat litter (and not just cat food) and kitchen scrubbies (not just paper towels).



Also, yes, I am crazy about refrigerator magnets.