I was chatting with an old friend who mentioned life really just didn’t turn out the way they thought it was going to. Look I am past the point of being shocked by this in any capacity. I am just shocked no one tells us not to expect anything to begin with. I don’t mean that in a depressing way, just the most basic acceptance of reality. Be open-minded. Be willing to live and try. Don’t set these strict ideas of how it is supposed to go. Fall in love with yourself, fall in love with the world around you, and then yearn to find more and then you will always be prepared to endure anything that comes your way. And can you imagine the difference in who would land in your circle? The career you would choose, the decisions you would make, and the natural act of forgiveness you would have for others but also for yourself. I think when you are born they should send you home with a little laminated sheet of paper that says something like “Look, there are a few things we are all given…a start date, an end date, some good times, and some bad…the rest is all a free-for-all, and the last two are mostly dependent on how you decide to look at the world and yourself.” I mean sure, total fucking chaos would ensue as a result of some parents not drilling their kids to grow up to run the world for us…but are they really doing it right anyway, Betty? I don’t know. I just tend to get stuck in between the human experience which feels more like a punishment and the spiritual experience which feels rewarding and like home, peace, and joy. I am writing like the walls of way too many people’s homes read, “Live, laugh, love”, “Pantry”, “Home is where the heart is”…you feel me. But I mean it. Seriously. Both the sentiment and that I don’t need to label where my Coffee maker is. I may need a “Warning: Lizard water is possible” sign though. I think I gave myself some little laminated sheet of paper when I was born, and we all can see how wonderful that approach worked for me…So fuck the idea? Nah! Maybe not a full-on fuck, just a little, just take the tip and apply where you can. I have watched documentaries about cults and I’m like holy hell, they had me sold 7 minutes in. It always sounds nice to begin with of course. “Too good to be true”… that’s the only sign I already have in my house, and it is over my framed prize-winning ugly Christmas sweater. I know we all need some accountability in life and some guidance, rules, and goals. I think a lot of that goes out the window when it fails us, or when we believe that is what happened. Then we start building ourselves back up with a fuck it attitude and doing what feels right and good this time around. Usually not in the relationship department though. Anyway. Like Lolawolf would say, “way too fucking serious.” Love me some Lola. So does my dog, Eli, the old and solid Clint Eastwood of dogs. He knows when her songs come on we are about to jam together. We have a walk-in shower and most of the time my dogs will walk on in and just check on me. I squeal like it’s something new every time I see them and I think perhaps that is what keeps them returning. The squeal. I also let the water run either down my leg or my arm and then I respectfully line up my foot or hand to their mouth so the water runs into their mouth. Yup. I love them that much. You thirsty? The soap in my eye can wait, let me instead form a human luge while my eyes set ablaze to prove my love for you every 5 minutes. Also, sometimes they are trying to rush me to get into bed for snuggle time. Like ok, I will drink your “bath” water one last time to tell you I love you, but damnit if you don’t hurry up and get out and hold me…and I am like, “What? Finish that sentence…” all done with my eyes closed, hair in my mouth, steam suffocating me while my blood pressure reaches an all-time high from the hot water that without fail leaves my back bright red. If only I had some antiqued “clever” wooden sign that read “Shower is here, water is hot, dear”.

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Chip the abandoned dog who found his way into my heart got my finger today. He is seriously like this little wiggly caterpillar on some invisible trampoline when I get the dogs lined up for snacks. The other two sit and stare up at me waiting, and then there is Chip in the middle with his weird little eyes and invisible trampoline just flying up into my face. He reached out tonight and tried to steal the food out of my hand. I cannot put into words how gluttony upsets/repulses me, but I am sure one day I will. Instead, his tiny little teeth (with two of almost all of his teeth because they just started falling out so he is doubled up on toofuses right now) scraped my pointer finger and my foot reached out much like when they greet me in the shower and sent him and his invisible trampoline sliding back into the oven. I swear he looked at me like, ok, well that was a bit dramatic, now can you please floss your flesh out of my double k9 teeth, mom. Nope. I cannot but I wish my dental skills were just as sharp as they were back when I kicked Avery’s toofus out, this motherfucker has quite the grill on him. The longer he is around, two things happen. One, I fall more in love with him, and two, I see and experience why someone dropped his ass off. No question he is spoiled rotten, manipulative, goofy, funny, smart, and has me wrapped around his finger. He often finds himself wrapped around my foot as I am still adjusting to the behavior requirement on my end to be the owner of a little dog. I do not have a light step, I have been walking in these faded-colored spotted-three sizes too big for me- grownup slippers which is not helping either, and he loves to just be right there with these “gotcha” eyes.

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I cooked dinner tonight. The perfect rainy winter night dinner. French Onion Beef Stew. I had two yellow onions to slice and of course, my eyes began to water and I ran to the sink to wash my hands and place my eyes in the sink only next to the running cold water. I don’t know, it works for me and someone taught it to me back in college when I worked at a coffee and sandwich shop. I hated cutting the onions back then, I always made such a stink about it. Now, I quite enjoy it. I like a little pain, a little reminder I am a walking breathing being. Anyway, so I have my head in the sink and I start thinking back about cooking and how I learned and the first time I told a man I could cook when I actually could not. I was twenty and I had never so much as made mac and cheese on my own. I did not grow up in a house where cooking was a big deal, nor were sit-down meals, and as a result, I never learned how to cook growin up. But I was not going to tell this man I could not, because I had faith that one day I would be successful (bc I would), it just was not that day…and that was the day he decided it would be nice to have a home-cooked meal. I thought a shepherd’s pie would be cool, bound to be easy as hell because it is just mush, I could hide anything I wanted in it, and provide Tabasco to cover any taste that was not pleasing. You could have chugged straight vinegar and nothing would have masked the layer of grease that lined your cheeks and tongue as a result of me forgetting to drain the meat…this was the least of the problems, but it is the most memorable one. When he came into the kitchen I had a wad of paper towels I was shoving down into the middle of the casserole dish, only after I took a knife down the center to allow the grease to all meet up in the middle and laugh at me. Remember, you can hide anything you want inside of a shepherd’s pie, paper towels included. I shoved them down and just pushed everything on top of them. I took them out before serving him, I am not a savage. He on the other hand turned out to be. I paid for his flight to go to training in Denver, Co to help his entrepreneurial side, and he returned without his snowboard stating he had to go back to get it. I thought it odd but so was the cooking I claimed I could do. So I cut the man some slack. This was right around Thanksgiving and I remember I picked him up in a zebra shawl (oh yeah), white pants, a black sweater, and a very large zebra print Dooney and Bourke shoulder bag. I have always dressed like I was old(er), I wore riding jackets, pantsuits, penny loafers, sweater vests, and pens on lanyards starting when I was about 5. I demanded these items much to my mother’s dismay…I also demanded a station wagon and we all know I got that one too…shout out to my girl, Bossy. There are times I dress(ed) my age or younger, but I always feel uncomfortable. My girlfriend used to tease me that I always looked like I was going to a PTA meeting instead of out dancing. I wanted the guys who liked the PTA-looking girl doing some dance that could be a seizure…those are my men, and I am still that woman. So I am at the airport in a hideous outfit and this motherfucker comes home without his snowboard…not until Valentine’s Day, after I successfully cooked spaghetti for him did I learn that he did in fact leave it, but only at a strippers house who was “more business-oriented than [I] ever would be”. He was right about that, so I will give that memorable line to him, little future teller man. I threw up spaghetti that night I was so sickened, emotions make me physically ill, I called my dad and I cried, while I did the future telling man took two reams of paper (I shit you not) and spent the whole night writing a variety of things on them and covering the entire floor of our place with them and slid some under the bedroom door to me. They ranged from “I am so sorry, Stinky”, “I have killed my soul”, “I cannot stand myself”, and “no one cooks like you…” Ok, that one was a lie, but the rest are not, and there were more. My favorite was some combination of 6 numbers, I had no clue what it meant. He later explained it was our anniversary and I laughed because I was that asshole who had no clue when it was. He had some playlist going on repeat with these lines that burned into my head (like that faded purple paisley shirt did) as I heard him crying in the way I had anticipated he would the morning after eating my shepherd’s pie. I should have left the fucking paper towels in there. I learned a lot that night. One, people do what they want, and you cannot control that so never have anxiety over the choices they will make, just handle it in a way you can be proud of yourself (thanks Dad for the memorable talk as you were in Colorado on a Valentines ski trip yourself). Two, I love spaghetti way too fucking much to waste in any way and on anyone (it took me a long time to eat it again, but I have made a full recovery, and then some, I fucking finish err one’s bowls when it’s on the menu). Three, there are strippers out there who are more business-oriented than me, and that is ok. Remember, I prepared for fun facts like this when I gave myself the laminated paper at birth.