Speaking of naughty dachshunds, I am pretty sure that my kid figured out how to curb the nasty habit a certain wiener dog proudly boasts of dropping a deuce in the dining room every morning. Turns out that pooping outside is HARD. The grass is either cold or wet or cold and wet, frozen, snowed over, overgrown or green, and therefore very difficult to poop in. That's what they make dining room floors for, apparently. Anyway, when we were cleaning the other day, we came across a little pile of fake poop that somebody brought home from Boo Radley's and left on my pillow. Precious. Nat had the genius idea to set the faux-poo in Dagny's sacred pooping grounds (i.e the dining room) to mess with the pea-brained dachshund. So far the dog has been totally miffed that someone else used her zone and actually went outside IN THE RAIN to poop. Ok, granted it was on the covered back porch but still, not the dining room. WINNING!!
Another lofty accomplishment today happened after school. After rehearsal. After softball practice. After a quick jaunt to Taco Tuesday when I came home to cook more tacos for Aspen. And then it hit me. The smell: B.O. The real deal. Full on, grown up, sweaty armpits, coming from my youngest offspring. It is the end of an era, folks. No more baby Aspen. She was marched directly to the shower, handed a fresh stick of deodorant with firm instructions, and thus launched into her pubescent career. To the middle school softball team at practice today: sorry mom was so slow on the uptake.
One problem that we didn't successfully solve this week was the red sharpie marks all over the kitchen walls from a remodel project that was rudely interrupted by a divorce and that are a constant reminder of best-laid plans and how they don't work out. Nat and her buddy Belli helped me paint the hallway and kitchen in an attempt to scourge the marks of failed intentions from the walls, but alas the demon red kept seeping through. The walls look better, so there's that, but I finally resorted to just hanging random things on the wall over the tell-tale henscratchings. Sometimes Band-Aids are just the way to go, folks.
Oh yeah! And the yellow iris "volunteer" that decided randomly to grow in my half barrel planter that is really just a few pieces of rotten wood leaned agains my also rotten wood porch step. I am hands down the most unsuccessful gardener that ever was, partly because I am gone all fire season, letting plants die, and partly because I just don't bother to try. But it warms my heart to see the happy yellow flower smiling defiantly in the face of utter adversity: hail storms, digging wiener dogs, giant flopping hounds, and of course, me. It stands tall and bright, promising beauty and hope in a world of falling apart, rotten wood and holes dug by a neurotic dog. I am sure it's symbolic on some level but I haven't had enough wine yet to interpret it.
All of this overcoming and finally, at 9:38 PM, I settled down on my couch and decided to catch up on season 6 of Game of Thrones. The whole reason I subscribe to HBO Now - and all of the episodes so far this season that I have been saving to binge watch. Obviously I don't need sleep to teach school. Or direct a play. Or write stories. I have faith that it will fulfill a deep seated need to find resolution since the cataclysmic end of Season 5 when I swore I was done with all of it. So here I am, hoping beyond hope that Jon Snow isn't really fully dead, yet. Maybe a Band-Aid for him, too?
Anyway, I have a lot going on right now with all of the wine and Targaryens to catch up with, so I will just leave you basking in the warm happiness of all of my successes of late. You're welcome.
