How Marriage Works

This conversation took place today between my work spouse and me whilst on our way to lunch.

Me: "You always take the long way. Every single time."
Him: "Can there be one person today who doesn't yell at me?"
Me: "Seriously though. This is the long way!"
Him: "Am I allowed to punch you in the face?"
Me: "No, that is domestic violence."
Him: "This seems very one-sided."
Me: "That's how marriage works."

Operation Pug Transfer

Last week the Wife fostered a pug for a hot five minutes. Yesterday I went with her to deliver the sweet old girl to the next stop on her journey to her forever home. (Note: If you give up your dog for the sole reason that it is old and no longer "fun", know that there is a special place in hell for you.)

However, this isn't a story about rescue. Or maybe it is. I may need to be rescued from myself. You decide. Just don't judge.

We drove halfway to Eugene to meet this other dog lady. We skipped breakfast. Which is always a bad idea when the Wife and I are together because that's when we make bad decisions. Monumentally bad. Twenty minutes in, we realized our mistake. An hour in we were starving. And that's when the dangerous cravings started.

"You know what we haven't had in a while? Red Lobster."
"Well, we are halfway there at this point."
"Wanna?"
"Why not? We're spontaneous!"

We are idiots. A quick two-hour trip turned into an all-day event. The first half was fun. We laughed about old boyfriends and bad sex ("Your face is weird, but I sit on that sometimes.") and planned on ordering everything on the menu because we were famished. The trip home? Not so fun. I was sweating butter and wanted nothing more than my pajamas and my couch. On top of it all, we had the first big storm of the season. Buckets and buckets of rain. Monsoon-type winds. Windshield wipers that need to be replaced. It was not awesome. "We could be napping." "What? There aren't any restaurants closer to home?" "We really shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised."

Oh well, I guess it's a lesson learned. Until next time.

The Most Monumentally Fucked-Up-Beyond-Any-Semblance-of-Recognition Week

It started Sunday with my teenager acting like a teenager. That is probably all I need to say about that other than my entire day was ruined and I questioned why anyone signs up for this parenting gig anyway.

Then there was That Episode of Breaking Bad. If you've seen it, you know exactly what I'm talking about and how difficult it was to function at all either mentally or emotionally on Monday. Knowing that other people were just as shell-shocked as I was got me through the day without overdosing on my anti-depressants.

Next came Tuesday. The day I will forever relate to the Red Wedding episode from this last season of Game of Thrones. Only the blood was shed in the office and it wasn't literal blood but might as well have been. That is what this lay-off felt like. The people that I most admire, respect, and trust all gone in one foul swoop. Until the next day when there was one more. All we've been able to do in the office is huddle together in small groups wiping tears and asking why, why, why? I was able to hold it together in the office until last night when I came home and sobbed for half an hour.

Words like "financial" and "strategy" and "consolidation" were thrown around. Meaningless words to a group of people who have been together for 15, 20, 25 years. At 7 years I am the kid sister of the group. This is a deep loss and it will take time to recover. What comes out of this at the end will forever be changed. Yes, this is a job, but when you work as hard and for as many hours and you come to know the person next to you on a more-than-personal level because you attend their weddings and their funerals and their birthdays and bridal showers and watch their kids grow up, these people become family.

I've spent the last three days processing my feelings. Anger, sadness, insecurity, wariness, a deep loss of trust. It hurts. We're all hurt and feeling bruised and exhausted and drained. And, because I have some bizarre, misplaced sense of needing to be a caretaker, I've made the step to organize a goodbye party so that we can have some form of closure. It's not my job. I haven't been there the longest, I don't know all of the stories and the history. And yet it's the one thing I can do because of the deep gratitude I feel towards these people. I can't change any of it, but I can do this. I can offer a time to say we love you, we honor you, we will miss you.

So, that's enough. Right? Surely that should be enough. If only.

In a moment of weakness I agreed to go to the United Way breakfast this morning. My condition was that it couldn't make me cry. I was promised it wouldn't. I was lied to. The United Way is very good at pulling on your heart strings in order to pull the wallet out of your pocket and they did it again. Because I didn't cry enough last night, I guess.

It's Thursday, we're near the weekend, I might be able to breathe again. I would be very wrong.

Because what did I see when I pulled into the garage at the end of the day? A fucking near-tarantula-sized spider on the wall next to the door into my house. I couldn't even walk into the house. It just sat there, daring me to go past it. If you've spent any amount of time here, you know how I feel about things with eight legs. Thank everything in the heavens above that the Raid was in the garage. Only when I sprayed it, it fell behind a box and now I don't know if it's dead or if it's going to seek revenge on me in the middle of the night in some pesticide-induced craze.

All of this can't be attributed to the full moon, can it? Whatever is going on, the Universe needs to get its shit together. That spider was the last damn straw.

The Case Against the Pinky Toe

Pinky toes are completely unnecessary. Completely. I kinda hate them. Let me tell ya why.

First of all, and maybe most importantly, they don't fit well in the cuter shoes. They stick out at the side of sandals, they get smooshed into the sides of closed-toes, they get blisters almost as often as heels. Why for? Shoes aren't really made for pinky toes. Except maybe for those weird five-finger shoes that are an abomination to fashion.

Come on, shoes don't look cute with giant spaces on the sides. The Chinese were kind of right. Sorta. Feet should look a little dainty.  On women, not dudes of course. Now, I'm not advocating that we resort to breaking and binding the entire foot, that's just crazy, messed-up shit. But we can lose one toe per foot. We can.

I have mentioned this idea to friends before. Their response? "Oh no, we can't live without that tiny digit. It helps us balance!" Wtf?? Balance? What are we? Apes? Let me tell you, that toe does nothing. Least of all keep me from losing my balance.

I broke my toe once. The pinky, of course. I nearly broke it a second time recently. Same toe. Same useless pinky. I couldn't walk on that side of my foot. And guess what? I never fell over. Not once. Not once while I walking along, or getting out of the shower, or in the car, or any other place that I could have stumbled or lost my balance, did I suddenly need to use that stupid toe to keep me from toppling over. In fact, the opposite was true. Putting weight on it hurt, so I had to lean that foot inward. Instead of using the lame toe like some ape digit.

So there it is. We don't need this little toe. It doesn't work. It doesn't fit. It's too delicate and easily broken. It doesn't serve a purpose. It is a bane to our existence.

Do you hear that, Evolution? Can you make that a priority now? I'm okay with mine falling off tomorrow.

Ouch. No, Really. Does This Look Normal To You? New Friend?

Labor Day weekend. You're supposed to do something awesome to close out summer, right? So I hear. So the wife and I went up to the lake to enjoy the last rays of the summer sun. It was nice. It was warm. And then I thought I'd venture out into the water. Not so brilliant. It was murky and clung to my flip-flops. Ew. It's much better to be back on shore.

We brought sandwiches with us. They weren't awesome. The lettuce was wilted. We discarded it. The birds noticed it. One, in particular, flew down next to the hand holding my sandwich. EEEK!! Birds!!!! Temporary Hitchcock moment! Whew.... Okay. He only wants a piece of my wrap.

Hmmm....How badly do you want my tortilla? Ten inches away? Yes. Six inches away? Yes. With a "peep-peep" thank you. At one point, my new friend fluttered his wings right in front of me. EEEK!!! Okay, breathe. Regroup.

I tore off a small piece of pesto-covered tortilla and put it on my leg. Out of curiosity. And, curiously, my new friend landed right on my foot. My toe. And then my leg. He hopped right over to his little pesto-covered morsel, grabbed it up into his beak, and flew off. He actually did this over and over. Alighting on my toes, my foot, my calf, my thigh. Whatever got him close to the food I offered him. He had a friend who was less brave, we tossed our carbs to him at a distance.

After we'd had enough, and our new friends had seemingly had enough, we hauled our supplies back to the car. Supplies. As in a small cooler with now-empty beer bottles, a towel, sunscreen, a book. Not enough to trip me up. Not really. But I still managed to get stabbed by a stick along the way.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the chair I was sitting on ripped while I was sitting in it. It wasn't a steep drop, but it was jarring enough. Landing straight on the ground. On my tailbone.

Yes, you would think I was bruised enough from this excursion. You'd be wrong.

The wife and I arrived back at my house. I took a quick shower, gathered food and drink supplies for the evening. I forgot my glasses. I'm old, I need them. So I jumped out of the car and hurried up to the door, catching my pinky toe on the lawnmower. OUCH!! WTF???

It's okay, just a stubbed toe. Only, looking at it, it looked a little crooked and set apart from the others. Not a good sign.

I've actually broken this toe before. I was told than that once you break a toe, it's that much easier to break it a second time. Shit. It throbbed. I drove anyway. My toe throbbed. I wanted to puke, but I ignored that feeling.

I downed some ibuprofen, I swallowed some vodka. I watched some cheesy tv. Something about sharks and ghosts and tornadoes. Incredibly lame, but cheesy enough to take the focus off of the pulsing in my swollen digit.

Tomorrow doesn't bode well. The temperatures are dropping and I hoped this would be the week that I wear the cute shoes I won't be able to wear in another month. My swollen pinky toe is already protesting and asking for freedom and breathing room.

Because it hurts like hell, I may need to accommodate. How much does one need a pinky toe anyway?....