holding hands while we fall asleep

One of the major perks of working in the education field is that even though I'm not a teacher, I still have a teacher's schedule. Well, I don't get summers off, but I do get spring break and snow days. Whenever I consider switching to a different job, the schedule is one of the things I always come back to. People in the real world don't get a spring break. People in the real world don't get snow days, either. To me, a life without these luxuries is utterly unimaginable; although, truth is, pretty much the only thing spring breaks and snow days are good for is squandering. I tend to accomplish precisely nothing during my time off. Unless you consider watching Ellen an accomplishment. Which, in The House Without Cable, it pretty much is.

However. This year? This year I totally accomplished some shit, which I shall now enumerate so that all may be impressed with my industriousness.

• Commenced the Bathroom Renovation Project. Believe me when I tell you that just beginning a project qualifies as a major accomplishment in our household. We never actually start projects; we just dream them up and talk about them ad infinitum before chickening out on the actual commencement. Because commencement requires making decisions. And decision-making is the thing Rob and I suck at the most. We suck at other stuff, too, like visiting our grandparents often enough and fixing in a timely manner stuff that breaks. But nothing reveals our ineptitude quite as glaringly as trying to make a very important decision. Such as whether or not to have a child. Or, you know, what color to paint the bathroom.

  There is also the fear of Getting In Over Our Heads. We have not yet recovered from the confidence-shattering and general ass-whooping dealt to us by the pantry. Since that "little" home improvement project, we cannot even change the sheets without worrying that we're biting off more than we can chew.

• Completed the Bathroom Renovation Project, mostly. I know, right?! Not only did I commence, but I completed! Mostly. The new vanity that we special-ordered has not yet arrived - totally beyond our control, unless you consider properly planning the timing of these things as being within our control. Which it might be, but managing such details and deciding on a paint color are just not tasks we are capable of achieving concurrently.

  But I did, by myself, complete the rest of the renovation, so there. And although it was minor (just the walls), it was the major accomplishment of my weeklong break, and so I feel the process deserves additional enumeration. And um, this time with actual numbers.

  1. Stripped the godawful motherfucking wallpaper (using fabric softener spritzing method).
  2. Consequently inhaled copious amounts of fabric softener spritz which resulted in the ever-present taste of Downy in my mouth and a lingering laundry aroma in my nose. Also, my lungs are now softer than ever and remarkably static-free.
  3. Painted walls meticulously, per perfectionistic tendencies.
  4. Had full-fledged pouting session when Rob failed to appreciate or even acknowledge meticulous manner in which walls were perfectionistically painted.
  5. Fell into heap of heaving sobs when removal of painters tape marred walls perfectionistically painted in meticulous manner.
  6. Made emergency! trip to Lowe's to buy smaller paint brushes to fix the damage.
  7. Did top-notch job touching up walls and painting trim, an effort which Rob effusively praised when he arrived home because what is he, stupid?
  8. Decided painting is my one true calling and that I should quit my job to paint full-time. Then remembered the whole spring break thing and came to my senses, which looking back on it might have been slightly altered by paint fumes.




• Took Bridget to the vet. It was just for a rabies shot, so no big deal. Except that I hate taking Bridget to these appointments because the entire 20-minute car trip (each way), she wails like someone is slicing off her tail, inch by inch. And she looks at me with these doleful eyes and, my god, the GUILT. Even though what I'm doing is for her own good! If a freaking feline can inflict this much maternal guilt, I cannot imagine how I'd cope with a child. Yet another reason we're not having kids. (You know, maybe. We haven't decided yet.) Highlight of vet appointment was meeting the smallest dog I have ever seen. Named...Pudge.




• Hired roof painter. Painting the roof (ourselves) is yet another project we've been meaning to commence for over a year now. After painting the bathroom, I concluded that our roof intentions are delusional given that the roof presents special challenges such as rust removal, angled planes, and POTENTIAL FATALITY. So I called in a dude, who gave me an estimate and then attempted to save my soul from eternal damnation. He starts Monday.




• Almost lost Maylee forever, sorta. So I had opened the bathroom window, which happens to have no screen, for ventilation. Then the painters tape catastrophe struck and I had to make my emergency! trip to Lowe's. I came home to discover Maylee was missing. I searched the house, but she was nowhere to be found. Then I realized that in my hurry to leave, I'd left the window open. Open just enough for a small cat to squeeze through. Bridget and Simon refused to tell me anything, although there was clearly concern in their eyes. I searched our yard, but there was no Maylee. Given her experience with the out-of-doors (none) and her amount of smarts (none, give or take zero), I concluded that Maylee was surely dead in a ditch somewhere. And I am very ashamed to admit that I did not cry over this fact in the same manner that I wept over the tape mars on my meticulously-painted wall, although I maintain that this is because I was still in denial. That or I'm a terrible mother (who might later have appeased her guilt by making a ridiculous cat cube purchase). At any rate, I desperately searched the house yet again, only to find Maylee hiding in the back of our closet like the dumbass bitch that she is. I scolded her thoroughly - you know, by cooing, "Maylee! Mommy was so worried about you, Maylee-Waylee! You are such a naughty kitty and Mommy loves you SO MUCH," all the while squeezing and kissing and rocking her with much gusto. (Rest assured that physical affection is the worst possible punishment. She fucking hates that.)




• Got a hot stone massage. Because, my god, spring break is exhausting! And STRESSFUL.

Yesterday I bought a pair of cat cubes at Target. I was convinced to buy them after reading tons of customer reviews online saying how great they are, how cats just LOVE to sleep and play in them, how even weeks later cats are going crazy over them, how for only $10 these cubes are truly the best purchase you'll ever make for your favorite feline.

Now, I am not new to cat caregiving. I know how cats turn their noses up at any and all items that come from a store. Why, a cat wonders, would I play with a fuzzy, befeathered, jingling mouse on a string when I could stalk the leaf that came in on the bottom of your shoe? Or swat a stray wine cork under the refrigerator? Why would I chew on a catnip-stuffed toy when I could serve a true purpose by pouncing on dustbunnies?

And you would think we'd appreciate how low maintenance our cats are in this (only) regard. You'd think we'd take advantage of the fact that a crumpled wad of crinkly tissue paper is perhaps the most raucous and rollicking good time a cat will ever encounter. And yet, we cannot help ourselves. We must bring home toys for kitty. Lots and lots of toys. Toys for her Christmas stocking and toys for her birthday and toys for her Easter basket (shut up) and toys just because. Just because we're brainwashed.

I do it. I buy my cats toys which they play with for approximately 5 seconds until Rob opens a magazine on the table and suddenly the feline priority becomes sitting on Newsweek, placing one's ass right smack in the middle of the page. WHAT COULD BE MORE FUN?! Once I made the ultimate mistake and bought a cat bed. Mostly because it matched my living room décor but also because it looked soft and cozy. If I were a cat I would sit there, I thought. I was wrong. Apparently, if I were a cat, I would take a piss there. Because that's what one of them did. Peed in the fucking cat bed.

Still, I bought these cubes. Because dozens of cat-owning Target shoppers cannot be wrong. Because what about knee-high bright blue nylon cubes doesn't match my living room décor? And because clearly I am a sucker. You see it coming, don't you?

So yeah. I presented the cubes to the cats, using my high-pitched super-excited voice. "Oh boy, kitties, look what Mommy has! CUBES!! Cubes for the kitties! Aren't you so excited? Don't they look SOOO fun?!" They sniffed the cubes. Simon sat in one for awhile. And then we heard their collective bored sigh.

Later, I found Maylee (and later still, Bridget) contently curled up right next to the cubes...in a cardboard shoebox.

this video

falling into a deep theological discussion with the guy who came by to give an estimate on painting our roof

I dropped some things by Goodwill today and happened to see these shoes. For $2.50. Two dollars and fifty cents! And they look new! And they're my size!

So I started to buy them, but then I had a crisis of conscience, because is it wrong to buy something from Goodwill? I mean, the whole point is that it's a place for people less fortunate to shop. But then I decided that, frankly, poor people would not properly appreciate that these are Steve Maddens - - would not, perhaps, have even heard of them - and so, really, it was fortunate that I came along when I did. So I snagged them from the shelf, rescuing them to the register.

And can I just say? Nothing evokes goodwill like paying for a pair of Steve Maddens with a $5 bill and getting change back.