Sun Sun Sun, Here It Comes

Vinny is most decidedly an indoor cat.

When you live on the corner of Walk and Don't Walk, as we do, where two major bus lines run past every 20 minutes, outdoor cat life becomes, if you're a responsible cat parent, a no-no in the lifestyle department. Sorry, Kid. You're stuck here.

As a consequence, Vinny doesn't get much sun.

OK, fine. Vinny gets no sun - we live in a north-facing basement, ya'll - save those two occasions per year when I'm feeling particularly magnanimous and energetic enough to wriggle his squirmy, squiggly body into his cat harness and leash so that I can take him out for a walk. Yes, I'm one of THOSE cat ladies and let me tell you, Vinny ROCKS the harness and leash...once he's in it and resolves himself to it. Then he's master of the universe and confidently struts his stuff about our neighborhood, dragging me behind.

[Note: Now I'm worried that he is vitamin D deficient. Am I a terrible mother for not getting my fur-child out into the sunlight 20 minutes a day to absorb vitamin D?! Do cats even require vitamin D? Should I buy him supplements? This parenting thing is So. Hard!]

Anyway!

So, a few weeks ago, when I was experiencing symptoms of eye strain, Acr0nym gave me a desk lamp to, hopefully, alleviate the dizzy spells.

Up until then, I'd only had one three-way lamp in my room - a floor lamp located on the other side of the room from my desk and computer.

As soon as I plugged in the new lamp on my desk though, I noticed a certain fur fixture planting himself underneath the desk lamp and staring at me...accusingly...

You've seen this Vinny, Private Eye picture before

So, I did what any good mother would do with a depressed child...

I bought him a SAD lamp. And by SAD lamp I mean I went to Target and spent 15 clams on a table lamp and a 4-pack of 60-watt bulbs.

The result?

Vinny stretching out and basking under the SAD lamp

He's barely left its sunny glow.

Turns out, he doesn't care about the actual sun, he just cares about staying toasty warm.

High Five.

Now...if only I didn't feel so guilty about turning the lamp off when I was ready to sleep, perhaps I COULD sleep. *sigh*

High Maintenance

Yesterday morning, New Year's Day, I was rudely awakened - by complete and utter silence - well before I should have had my eyes open.

It may seem strange that I should be awakened by silence but, technically, it wasn't the silence that woke me. It was the winding down of the fan I keep running 24/7 for white noise that brought me swimming up toward consciousness.

It only took me a moment to realize it wasn't just a dying fan motor. We'd lost power.

Which, in my bleary-eyed state, didn't compute given that I could see from my bed the glow of overhead kitchen lights, signifying both power to the kitchen and the awake state of Lex.

I fumbled for eyeglasses, pulled on pajama pants, and stumbled out to the middle of the kitchen.

No comprende.

"Lex?"
"Yeah?"
"Um...could please come help me?

Pointing toward my room, I mumbled, "Um, no power there. Here, there's power. No power in there."

He investigated thoroughly and then nodded, "Right. No power."

I blinked at him blankly.

Luckily, he'd already brewed the coffee and had ingested some so his ability to make deductions and draw conclusions was far beyond mine.

I sat down on the couch in the living room and watched him as he systematically made the rounds, room to room, until he'd confirmed we'd lost power in the entire front half of the house save the bathroom.

I fixed myself a cup of coffee and went back and sat on the couch.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

He said, "Huh. Well, I'll run upstairs and see if Abram's got power."

"Great! Good idea. I'll wait here."

He went through the front door, closed it, and in 10 seconds was back through it in a flash.

"You need to call maintenance. There's a leak and flood in the laundry room. Power's out in there too. It looks bad. I'll go tell Abram."

Blink. Blink. Blink.

No comprende.

I went out to look in the laundry myself. Yep. That seems to be water on the floor. Yep. That's definitely the sound of water spraying from a pipe in the ceiling.

OK! I started to understand the gravity of the situation.

A) There was a burst hot water pipe, B) there was a leak, C) there was no power to the laundry room or the front half of our home, D) it was New Year's Day. *sigh*

So...I called the emergency maintenance number. No answer, of course. Only a stern message warning me not to even think about leaving a message unless this was a true, unavoidable emergency maintenance problem, the resolution of which could not be delayed until business hours. Then I was assured a prompt return call.

Burst hot water pipe, leak, possible related power outage...seemed like a reasonable problem about which to leave a message. Yeah?

So I did.

That was at 9:53.

Lex returned from upstairs. He'd passed along the message about the leak to Abram's obviously half-asleep (and possibly naked) roommate who finally poked one eye and half his nose out the door at Lex's persistent, insistent knocking.

We checked our water pressure. We checked both cold and hot water. Both pressure and temperature were working as they should. The power outage was a relatively minor inconvenience and only for me once Lex got the wireless router moved from an electricity-devoid zone and into a position of power (heh). Our main concern was that leak. And we were pretty worried about it.

By 10:30, there had not been a return call so I called again and left another, longer, more detailed message regarding the problem. I specifically stated, "Please call me to acknowledge receipt of this message asap."

11 a.m., still no return call. Lex went back upstairs to find an awake Abram who was unaware of any problem. He came down, surveyed the chaos, and promptly went to call the property management company's owner on his private number.

Sweet! Handled. I went off to the grocery store.

I returned about an hour or so later. The leak had been stopped. The laundry room was still dark. There appeared to be no one about still working. Problem solved?

Uh...no.

Lex was unaware that anyone had worked on the leak. Still no power. To make matters worse, he informed me, he'd just washed all the dishes in cold water. Seems we'd lost hot water now too.

By then, it was well afternoon, I'd not had a shower, nor had I gotten a chance to do any of the several hours' worth of writing I'd intended for the day. I called Acr0nym. I was instructed to come up to his house - what we're now referring to as The Grotto North.

I packed up a few belongings and my laptop, explained what I was doing to Lex who was cool getting some Naked Lex time before his date later in the night, and went about my merry way - but not before Lex and I stopped back by Abram's to try and get a repair update.

When we told Abram we were still without power and now had no hot water, he got back on the phone. I figured it was all under control and went traipsing out, happy to have gotten a productive start to the day (since I couldn't get on the computer, we picked up the house a bit, got the trash and recycling taken out, swept up the back steps, and done the week's grocery shopping), and glad to have a fabulous second (non)husband I was going to get to spend the rest of the day and night with.

Poor Lex.

I talked with him about 6 p.m. The power had finally been restored but there was still no hot water and he was furiously boiling water in every large pot and kettle we had in order to be able to fill a bath to a somewhat tolerable temperature so he wouldn't smell on this first date.

At least maintenance had been back and seemed to still be trying to figure out why we had no hot water.

I spent the night at Acr0's where we threw an impromptu, scrumptious supper party to greet the New Year in style, laughed late into the night, and then slept soundly.

NY strip steak covered in Acr0's homemade compound bleu cheese and herb butter and then grilled to perfection, broiled asparagus in olive oil and balsamic, french baguette, and homemade sorbet for dessert followed by homemade limoncello.

When I got home this afternoon, Lex was in a Very. Bad. Mood. We had hot water, we had power, the laundry room appeared to be functioning. I thought perhaps he was angry with me for leaving for greener pastures overnight while he had to boil his own bath water, but knew not to jump to conclusions or press for information. I knew, from experience, to wait until he was ready to talk.

It didn't take long.

What it boiled down to is that it took us 2 initial phone calls - which still have yet to be returned - from me, 2 phone calls from Abram, 3 e-mails from Lex to the maintenance e-mail address, and 2 additional phone calls on Lex's part throughout the rest of the evening to get this issue completely resolved.

Then Lex, because he was feeling grateful for the extra effort on a holiday, sent a lovely and gracious e-mail to say thank you for resolving the problems so quickly.

In response? He got a rather snide e-mail from our property management company implying we'd been alarmist by suggesting there was a "MAJOR" leak when it was just a pin hole leak that had been easily fixed and there was "no evidence to suggest a major leak or flooding". There was no mention of the power outage or the loss of hot water. Never mind that it was our onsite manager who made the decision to call the property management company's owner when he understood the scope of the flooding. The whole tone of the e-mail was rather rude and thankless - as though we had cried Wolf...

As though we were terrible people.

When I read the e-mail, I was seething mad.

I raised my right eyebrow and simply stated, "Let me handle this."

I sat right down and wrote the most politely scathing e-mail in my arsenal. Polite because it won't accomplish anything good to threaten or come across angry and I certainly don't do passive-aggressive (at least, consciously). Scathing was appropriate though as we were both inflicted with steam coming out of our ears. It was quite well written, if I do say so myself. I'd post it here but I'm apparently longwinded when I'm being politely scathing and I don't want to get any tl:dr comments - especially since this is longer than it should be.

And then?

Then, I took several deep, cleansing breaths, took a hot shower (thank you for fixing our hot water, Maintenance People), ate a huge salad, drank two cups of Sleepy Time tea, and let it go.

So...that's where I was yesterday. That's why I got even further behind on reading about the comings and goings of my blog community. It's why I was late posting my year-end wrap ups and it's why I have yet to greet the New Year in writing with the joy I've got in my heart.

Joy I continue to have in spite of this pittance of a snag.

I had a great time yesterday and I got a lot accomplished outside of writing! Plus, I got to spend the evening with Acr0nym, Bomb Betsy, Spux, Kelli, and Jive Turkey. Who WOULDN'T want to spend the first day of a new year surrounded by awesome people? Even if it meant you were the unshowered one?


2012, two days in, is still shaping up to be a wonderful year!

A Tale of Two (Non) Husbands

Thanksgiving Day. 3 p.m.

I'd been running about much of the day, peeling potatoes, washing serving dishes, setting up the buffet table, moving furniture. The sounds of my productivity peppered with:

"Lex? Would you do me a favor?"
"Hey, Lex? Could you give me a hand?"
"Lex? Lex! Help please!"

The doorbell interrupted my progress - Acr0nym arriving early to help with what I politely told him would be "logistics".

He came in, dumped his stuff off, and went back to say hello to Lex. Lex got up from his desk, came out and shook hands with Acr0nym. "Good to see you, Man."

Then he looked at me, looked at Acr0nym and raised his hand in a high-five offering.

As Acr0nym took the high five, Lex said, "Tag, Man. You're it."

And then went back into his room and closed the door.

Like That Dream Where You're Standing in Front of the Class in Your Underwear Except I Wasn't in Class and I'd Forgotten My Underwear

The persistent knocking at the front door began as it moved toward midnight.

I came to semi-consciousness as it got louder, more insistent and I thought, "Go away, #himself. I don't need my vodka back right now," and then rolled over and hoped it would stop soon so I could go back to sleep.

It soon became clear the knocking was not going to stop.

In this neighborhood - probably in any neighborhood really - knocks on the door in the middle of the night are not usually indicative of anything good and, frankly, had I been more lucid, I would have gone back to retrieve Lex who was A) awake and B) fully clothed and C) male which is better to greet the knocker with, hopefully, a punch in the nose.

As it was, I wasn't lucid under any stretch of the imagination and just wanted it to stop.

I flew out of bed, more than a little annoyed, and, without stopping to put on my glasses or pants (and I do mean ANY pants), I went out to the front door and opened it only a crack because A) I didn't want the cat to escape and B) I wasn't wearing any pants.

The badge was the only thing I saw at first. COP registered in my brain. But why was there a cop at my door long about midnight when I wasn't wearing any pants?

He asked to talk to Lex.

"What is this regarding?" I asked, suspiciously.

"His car was involved in the accident."

Huh? I didn't stop to ask what accident I just said I'd go get Lex and wasn't being rude but was trying to keep the cat in when I shut the door in the guy's face.

I scooped up Vinny who had crept up behind me, retrieved Lex and then, because curiosity had gotten the best of me, I followed Lex out to the foyer where he was standing with the door wide, talking to the cop and the witness of the accident. Which would have probably been fine except...

I was not wearing any pants, People.

And this thought did not dawn on me until this morning when I woke up and realized I'd been so discombobulated, I don't know what kind of peep show I might have given those two poor men.

Next time? I hope I remember my pants.


PS The end of the story goes a little something like this...

A hit and run driver sideswiped Lex's car, banged it up pretty good and took out the driver's side mirror. There was an eyewitness who A) called the cops and B) stuck around long enough to give a statement. The car is undriveable given that it is now not road safe without a driver's side mirror.

Lex isn't very happy.

Stuff

If you've ever given up or lost everything material you own - voluntarily or involuntarily - you probably know just how insignificant stuff is in the scheme of things.

I was lucky in that, when I gave up everything, it was voluntary and thus, I didn't lose literally everything. I had a bit of wiggle room to pick and choose a few things to keep. But I didn't keep much.

Since then, I haven't accumulated much more than what I arrived at The Grotto with. The furniture is nearly all second hand including the bed (I've never had a bed that was purchased just for me). I bought a couple of book shelves and a desk but not for aesthetics merely for function. None of it is what I would pick if I had unlimited resources and the space. But it gets me by and that's really all I need.

As a consequence, there's a bit of sterility to my room. It's nearly as devoid of character as the unused living room. And few people would find it a welcoming place to be. Although, if you look closely you'll see elements of me in what you find on the bookshelves - children's literature, regional ghost stories and folktales, trinkets picked up on the world travels of Blind Betsy...a rosary from the Vatican City, a wooden figurine from the Czech Republic, a nesting doll from Germany, a set of trouble dolls from Africa, and old books purchased not for their published content but for the long forgotten inscriptions written by strangers and discarded by the objects of their affection.

But you wouldn't see any of that if you didn't look closely.

And I likely don't want you to look too closely.

I'm weird about my space. I'm weird about my various spaces in the world. I, as a rule, don't mix family, business, and friends. Each is kept decidedly separate from the other two¹. Part of that is that I wear different hats for different people and places - no one less genuine than the rest...just different facets for what's required. But it's also uncomfortable for me to have worlds and circles collide. I'm not quite sure why except perhaps I feel like sharing these aspects of me across "genres" is somehow taking something away from what is distinctly mine.

And that's how I feel about my room. It's the only safe space I have. Everything in it - materially, yes, but also the energy, the emotions, the love, the angst, the fear - it all belongs to me. There is no confusion about that. And while I have an open door policy for my room - the cat, after all, insists upon it - there is a distinct barrier for most people who enter. A subconscious KEEP OUT or, at the very least, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK feel to it.

It's been a problem (for lovers) but one I'm not sure I'm willing to fix. Because lovers? Come and go. To have anyone this far under my skin isn't worth it. As I'm figuring out.

1. I actually have extended the invitation to my family to tour my place of employment - a pretty interesting place actually - but, like with most things related to what I'm doing, the invitations to know and see were declined.

That's Not a Pickle

So...

If you're just joining us, you may not know that I am a terrible, terrible cat mother because I let Vinny play with things like this:



I don't suppose I ought to have been surprised then when I walked through my kitchen this evening and spied something very oddly green and fuzzy lying on the floor and discovered a stray penis sans frog.




Who knows where the frog's gone off to.

So I picked it up off the floor, carried it into Lex, and said, "Did you lose something?"

WAA HAA HAA...erm...hmmmm.

He was not amused.

It's a wonder this man could love me...even a little bit.

You Have to Spend Money to Save It...or Something

The unthinkable has happened.

As you know, we're tightening our financial belts. But we're also both terrible, TERRIBLE I say, about eating leftovers.

So, in order to coax us gently into eating leftovers to save money by way of a quick and easy preparation, we made a purchase. A purchase I have, until now, been solidly against.

I'd like for you to meet Mikey, our newest kitchen resident and hogger of precious counter space:




Welcome to the 20th century, Jane and Lex.

We were both afraid to use it *laughing*.

The Bottom LIne

I'll just warn you now...I'm not in a particularly good mood.

When I decided back in December to focus my attention on getting out of debt, it was a whim - spur of the moment impulse. Granted, it's a well-intentioned goal to work toward and all that but still, a whim. I had no idea how, a month later, ridding myself of debt would become a critical necessity.

And yet, here we are.

I say "we" because it is "we"...me and Lex.

Give me a moment. The commitment phobe in me needs a chance to *shudder*.

If you've followed my blog long enough, I would hope you've figured out by now that Lex isn't "just" my roommate. For the eleventy-billionth time, we don't have sex. We've never had sex. We don't want to have sex - at least, not with each other. However, we are still partners, emotionally intimate. We've let our friendship define its level (thank you for that, Mr. Chick). He is the closest to a spouse I've ever come...the closest I may ever come. I'm not sure you can get any closer than the two of us are with or without sex.

So, when Lex comes and tells me that financially he's going to be in a crunch, we figure that shit out together. What? Am I going to tell him he's out on the street if he can't make his rent? Not anymore than you would tell your husband or wife who, after having just gotten laid off, "Oh! Sucks to be you. Rent's due. Cough up, Dude."

He's my partner. OK? Is that clear enough? Do you need me to pretend that we do have sex? Would that help wrap your mind around it? Fine. We have sex. We're monogamous too *laughing*. Better?

Well, that conversation happened...is happening every day as we get more information and a better idea of what we're dealing with in the near future. They aren't conversations filled with rainbows and bubbles and puppies and kittens either. They are real. They are hard. Sometimes, like last night, they are hopeful.

Right now though, they are still conversations filled with uncertainty.

We're not panicking. We're not scared. We're not ready to shop at Wal-Mart (blessed be).

But we are trying to be as realistic and as frugal as possible. Especially right now. And we're exploring all our options.

So, when this article gets posted to Facebook and the subsequent comments are filled with bullshit comments about how marrying just to get your significant other insurance is absolutely preposterous pop up? I want to say, "Fuck you, Dude." How wonderful that you must be so young and so full of vim and vigor that you can't possibly imagine yourself  contracting a serious, chronic disease that could instantly put you in hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

Think it can't happen to you? Yeah, well, neither could someone I love very much. And yet, it happened to him. No insurance, no access to insurance, and slammed into the hospital a number of times with a chronic, critical illness that just now - after a three-year saga and basically bankruptcy - have been resolved...we hope.

Having health insurance is a huge benefit. That's a value Blind Betsy instilled in me a very long time ago. If the job doesn't offer health insurance, it ain't worth having. So I've always managed to find jobs with health insurance. Always. There have been a number of times I've been truly, deeply grateful for it.

My sister and her husband married going on um...12? 13? years ago. You know what they call their wedding day? The day Matty got insurance.

Modchen and #himself. Domestic partnered. So she could get insurance. This after what? A decade of coupledom?

Neither couple interested in marriage. But when push came to shove...when the very idea that a loved one would be without something so very important dawned? There was no question. They all did what must be done to protect each other.

It's not come to that with me and Lex...yet. But it might. And you know what? If it comes to that? I'll find my way to the courthouse with no qualms and no regrets. He means that much to me.

He means so much to me that when I receive no less than 3 requests in the last 2 weeks for a Church o' Brunch? I say, "No, I'm sorry. There will be no worship. For now." He's more important than bacon. Keeping the 2 of us together is more important than bottomless mimosas.

When a group of us talks about dinner out and said dinner could top out at $40 a person? I have to say, "I'm sorry. That's not in my budget." Because it's not. Not only am I trying to get out of debt but I need to have as much liquidation as possible...just in case the worst case scenario is real.

Is that preposterous?

Worst case, I can cover my basic necessities and his until he can get back on his feet. Best case, I get out of debt and everything's golden. But until we know for sure what Grotto life is going to look like, I can't afford much and certainly nothing compared to what I've been "affording".

For now...

Church o' brunch may be pot luck at someone's house. Are you volunteering?

Dinner out may mean Barricuda's. That alright?

Social evenings may mean movie and whirly pop night or canasta and PBR. OK?

I'm doing what I can. If you want to see me, hang out with me, SUPPORT ME (and Lex), you'll be like, "Oh! Yeah! Cool! OK!"

And Then That Happened

Lex came home from work tonight - after having worked 24 hours in the last 2 days - and announced that he was being forced to go to part time effective February 1.

Another victim to the crap we call the Economy has fallen.

Boy, I hope all of you asshats who A) financed sub-prime mortgages and B) who bought into sub-prime mortgages are Happy Fucking Campers tonight. Thanks.

*sigh*

So...we tighten our belts. We say goodbye to the Church o' Brunches and the supper parties and the Grotto Open Bar. We'd already been discussing a re-alignment of priorities. Those priorities have just shifted again.  It means Black Box wine (shutup) and store brand whole bean coffee instead of Daz Bog. It means shopping sales and manager's specials and no more specialty deli cheeses. It means I'd better start learning how to make a mean stir fry to make up for the inaccessibility of Lex's favorite Chinese take out.

It means we evaluate our vices...is this the time to quit smoking? Gah! I don't want to think about that right now. Although...so many of my friends are doing it now. We can all be mean, horrible bitches together...right?

We don't have gym memberships and cable or netflix subscriptions to dump.

We do have mad skills we could capitalize on in the form of freelance for pay.

Do we *gasp* get married to get him "affordable" health insurance? That. Freaks. Me. (and him) Out. But I'd do it. For him. WhatthehellamIsaying?!

I don't know.

We don't have all the answers to our questions yet. We don't know by how much his salary will go down but we do know all the benefits - internet reimbursement, mileage reimbursement, etc - will go away. He's got some savings. I can adjust my budget. I'm employed full time, gratefully, still.

And...as much as I hate to say it, this may be a blessing in disguise. He wanted...no NEEDED...a break. When he came and announced a few weeks ago that he was seriously considering joining the Franciscans so that he could join a monastery...because, you know, he's A) totally Agnostic and B) you don't even want to know...I knew it was bad.

And an alignment of priorities, from time to time. is never a bad thing. To step back, stop buying in - even when it's minimal already - and figure out how to make life in America without the hype work for us is a good thing.

I just wish it'd happened after we were both completely debt free.

Whereby I Ruin Lex's Dream of a Kitchen Robot

Gratuitous cock and pussy shots included.

And now for something a little fun because, you know, there hasn't been nearly enough fun 'round these parts for the last couple of weeks.

In order to tell you this story, I shall first take you on a little virtual tour of my kitchen.

In this first picture, you will notice how much actual counter space comes with the Grotto kitchen...




That is to say - none. This is not an exaggeration.

So, when Lex and I moved in, the situation was beyond dire. Luckily, the Grotto kitchen is also really quite large and can accommodate this...



No, not the cat. The cat was sold separately. I'm talking about the portable, rollable butcher block - dismantles in 15 seconds...when not supporting all my baking ingredients upon its shelves.

And then, because she felt sorry for us, Lex's mom bought us this sideboard with additional cabinetry so that we could at least have somewhere to put the toaster oven...



A better picture of my cock...




My cock doesn't actually have anything to do with the story, I just like saying I have a cock...which I do and it's heat resistant up to 475°.

OK!

So now that you have an understanding of my unusual kitchen limitations - and, I'm sure you're also feeling a little sorry for me too (sympathy is appreciated, thanks!) - I can now tell you my story.

Place: The Grotto Kitchen

Time: Yesterday afternoon

I'm in the midst of baking a shit ton of cookies - surprise - for Owen's birthday celebration later in the evening. I'm standing at the butcher block where there is just enough room to set a cooling rack, one cookie sheet, and the bowl of cookie dough while I'm forming the dough into what will become lovely chocolate chip macadamia nut mounds of bliss.

Throughout the cookie making process, I kept calling on Lex to help me move things around, do dishes so I could start the next batch (of lime cookies for him, thankyouverymuch), etc and, finally, because my hands were covered in dough, I asked him to move the cookie sheet I'd just finished filling from the butcher block to the top of the stove so that I could begin filling the sheet underneath it.

And he says...

Lex: It won't be long now - a couple of years - and you'll be able to have a kitchen robot to do these things for you.

Jane: I don't need a robot. I've got you.

Lex: But what if I'm not here? What if I'm kidnapped by the men in black vans?

Jane: Then I'm moving to a house with a kitchen that has counter space.

Lex: But how is that going to help you move a cookie sheet when your hands are all covered in dough? You need a robot to move the sheet for you!

Jane: No I don't. I just need enough counter space to lay out two sheets side by side.

Lex: Debbie fucking Downer.

Cookie Time with Lex

Lex has kitchen issues.

Oh, he can find it just fine. It is, after all, located on the way to the bathroom.

And there's stuff in it that he likes which requires no prep other than tearing off a foil lid and grabbing a spoon. He's good at that. He can also make meat on the George Foreman grill and we even have a meat thermometer so he can check to make sure the internal temperature is hot enough to not kill him via food poisoning. He can mix up a satisfactory cocktail and open up a bottle of wine (he taught me, don'tcha know) and operate the whirly-pop.

Since we moved in together, I've taught him how to make one of his favorite dishes - a Mediterranean style concoction I accidentally threw together one night - so that he has something to impress the ladies if such an event were desired.

But baking is beyond him.

I think it's that he doesn't like all those steps...all those directions...all those things just telling him what to do. He's kind of...obstinate that way. He likes to be the boss of him and doesn't like other people to be Bossy McBoss-Alots when it comes to what he's supposed to be doing.

However, he also has a penchant for a particular kind of treat that I particularly hate to make. I know, right? Me! Hates making a treat.

Nonetheless, it's true.

The treat he most particularly likes is a no bake chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter cookie. These are, I believe, his most favorite treat of all time.

And I hate to make them *le sigh* (that's French for *sigh*. You totally didn't know I was bilingual, did you?).

I don't know why I don't like to make them. They're just...ugh. Super sugary sweet and they are also VERY messy. Which bugs me. Plus, they require an extraordinary amount of counter space - something I lack entirely. But whatever.

However, he's been asking me nicely for quite some time to make them. Instead, I struck a bargain with him and told him I'd "help" him make them. In that I mean I would hand him the ingredients, tell him how much of which, and then he was on his own to form the dough into cookie bits.

This afternoon then, we did just that. And he did great! He did exactly as I instructed him and I even held the pot for him so that he wouldn't have to manage the pot and the spoon and the wax paper sliding about.

His first cookie, he spooned out the batter onto the wax paper and then cleaned up the edges so that the cookie was perfectly round like so:




The perfectionist did not last long however. His spoonfuls soon became sloppy ladle-sized blobs of chocolate-y goo like this:





To his credit, he took a 3-dozen yield recipe down to 1-1/2 dozen. Less mess, less counter space, and less wax paper, to be sure. He also, unintentionally, created a chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter Rorschach test...which was kinda awesome.

Especially when he, The One of Agnostic Beliefs, began assigning Biblical imagery such as Noah's Ark to the blobs.

Thus, the no bake chocolate, oatmeal, peanut butter cookies are now known as the Biblical Rorschach Cookies evermore.

Have I mentioned how much I love Lex?

I totally do.

10 Pet Peevery Lane + the Apartment Above the Garage

As we've previously established over the course of the last year, I'm pretty social.

Rarely does a weekend go by that doesn't find me out and about in some capacity. I'm quite busy and important.

But let's look at that sentence.

I believe the operative phrase here is out and about.

I rarely invite people into my personal living bubble.

There are many reasons for this - the obvious one to those who've had the pleasure of entering the Grotto is because my entertaining space leaves much to be desired.

However, perhaps the biggest reason why I don't entertain frequently is that I like my personal living bubble just as it is...unoccupied save for the Lex and the cat.

They're quiet. And they don't bug me.

When I'm at home, I'm decompressing, re-charging my introvert battery if you will. And I don't like being disturbed...

Especially without warning.

So the unannounced drop by-er, needless to say, is a most unwelcome interruption.

Most of the people in my life know this. Mainly because I typically make a point to let everyone know that if they're "in the neighborhood", a phone call with at least 15 minutes' warning is warranted before they are allowed to pop by.

I started having to maintain this boundary years ago - back in high school - when that was just the "thing" people did. You know, that whole I'm-just-driving-around-cuz-I-am-teen-angsty-and-don't-want-to-be-at-home-with-the-'rents-so-I'm-going-to-come-hang-out-and-bug-you technique?

Yeah that.

Go away.

And while certainly as I've aged and my friends have aged and we have actual lives to lead it's gotten much more manageable and less likely to occur, there are still a few who do not heed my boundary and insist on just dropping in whenever they pass my block.

I've stopped answering the door.

And the phone.

Bonus Apartment Above the Garage:

This morning as I was driving home from the grocery, a ginormous poopnoodle¹ cut me off and nearly caused an accident when he made a left turn from the far right lane.

I honked at him, thinking perhaps he hadn't seen me.

He flipped me the bird as though I was the one who'd done something wrong.

And I'm all, you know, hey Poopnoodle! Save that bird for someone who actually deserves it, K?

Because, if anything, you owe me a great big apology wave and possibly cake.


1: Poopnoodle is from Dan Savage's column this week. No, you really don't want to know what it is. But isn't it an awesome derogatory term for someone?

Possibly Time for a New Bed

This afternoon when I got home from work, I had a number of tasks on my things to do list particularly as I'm getting ready to leave for a family reunion in a couple of days.

However, Vinny had other ideas in mind for me.

Having walked in my bedroom to change into my workout clothes after starting the coffee pot and dumping off my lunch things in the kitchen sink, I noticed a rather large wet spot smack dab in the center of my bed.

As I leaned in closer to take a better look to make sure I was really seeing what I thought I saw, Vinny jumped up and began to feverishly try to bury the wet spot.

Uh oh.

Pee.

As in cat pee.

As in quite possibly the most noxious substance known to human kind.

In the middle of my bed.

Now, just so we're clear, Vinny is, in fact, a male kitty. But he has never ever been a sprayer. Nor has he deliberately gone to the pot anywhere other than the litter box since he first figured out where and what the box was - about 3 days after we got him.

So this was extraordinary behavior for him.

He hadn't seemed upset lately and he certainly has gotten just as much attention as he always does so I couldn't believe this was deliberate.

He wasn't acting sick or particularly distraught either.

So what the hell happened to make him wet the bed?

I stripped the bed down and ventured into the laundry room with wet comforter in tow and ran into my upstairs neighbor, Ms. Noire, who is nicely acquainted with Vinny. Whose own girl kitty, we suspect, either has a crush on Vin or is already seeing him on the sly.

I filled her in on the circumstances of the soiled bedclothes and then we parted ways.

Not 5 minutes later, there was a knock on the door. It was Ms. Noire who, in a moment of clarity, had come back down to fill me in on the events of this morning outside our building.


^{photo compliments of Ms. Noire herself}

Obviously the accident itself created quite a ka-boom, crash, screech, ka-bang! Additionally though, a horn got stuck and was going off continuously for quite some time.

Knowing this information then, I hypothesize that Vinny, sound asleep on his chiropractic pillow, was startled awake by these horribly frightening noises and was scared so badly he wet the bed.

I suspect it sounded as though the cars were going to come right through my bedroom window.

Poor little peanut.

And he was trying so hard to bury the evidence of his accident too.

But I couldn't give him a hard time, little guy. Given that just last week I had had my own er...nighttime issues culminating in a middle of the night laundry fest to wash my sheets and blankets.

The good news is that no one wants to get into the laundry room at 1:30 in the morning so I was able to leave my things in the washer for a couple of hours until it was time for me to get up for real.

I do think though that perhaps it's time to save up for a new bed...and rubber sheets.

Remember When All You Needed Was a Light Bulb to Bake a Cake?

While this may not seem important to anyone but me, I would appreciate it greatly if someone would please to invent an oven that contains all its heat and does not heat up a kitchen and/or a little Grotto.

Because really?

I love to bake and most everyone loves the fruits of my labor but sheesh! It's hot in here.

And regardless of what anyone will tell you, a basement without air conditioning does get hot when it's 90° outside.

So if any of you brainy mechanically inclined rocket scientists out there care to set aside designing the next best rocket and design me an oven that will not give me heat stroke during the summer months, I'll give you cookies and cakes for life.

Or at least until the end of mine.

Just Like An India Rubber Ball

I bounce back.

It's called resilience or psychological resilience.

And I've got loads of it.

So, while I've continued to be cranky, depressed, stressed out, and just generally apathetic for much longer than normal?

I'm over it.

That may have something to do with much needed Lex time Friday night, late night pancakes last night, and not getting out of my pajamas all day today.

Watch out World.

I'm ready for you.