The News Round Up - Soup, Cake, Drugs, Financing

1. Late Saturday afternoon my friend Rachel called just as I was in the throes of preparing the last big pot of soup (Portuguese Kale Soup) of the year, as it is now if not actually Spring, it is at least Spring-like and getting warmer and who needs big bubbling pots of hearty soup when it's warm out? Anyhoo... I heard the phone ring and hollered out to MDH from the kitchen that if it's for me tell whoever it is that I'm elbow deep in kale and that I will call them later... but then he hollered back that it was Rachel so I hollered back - tell her to bring Dave (her boyfriend) and come over and have soup with us - and so she did.

Then I called Ladette to see if she wanted to come by too and damned if she didn't just happen to be hanging out with her husband at a pub only a few blocks away. They came too.

Hence an impromptu dinner party - my dream come true.

Seriously, I dream of this but the stars are so rarely aligned in such a way as to accommodate impromptu dinner parties. House is clean? Check. Even the bathrooms? Mostly, check. Am I clean? Check. Got snacks? Check. Beer's cold? Check. Plenty of food? Check. Holy shit - c'mon over!

As if the evening wasn't already great enough Rachel caused me to squeal and carry on like a contestant on the Price Is Right, when she walked through the door with a Chantilly Torte cake from Arnie's for dessert. It's only my favorite cake EVER! Thanks Rach.

2. I start my new old job next Monday. When they told me that I'd have to take a drug test sometime this week my initial reaction was a quiet moment of slight panic until I remembered that I have nothing to fear. I have a guilty conscious but haven't been stoned in well over 10 years - unless you count Pamprin and I don't. If anything having to take the drug test is inconvenient because it causes me to leave the house and drive across town.

It's been awhile since I've had to take a drug test so I was very pleased to learn that they just take a hair sample now, which is so much more civilized than sitting in a room full of strangers avoiding eye contact with each other because we all know that each one of us is there waiting our turn to go piss in a cup. Eye contact avoidance aside, I will admit to looking around and trying to figure out who among us in the waiting room had the most to be worried about and it was never me.

3. MDH and I got a new bed a few weeks ago and it has been a glorious, transformative, life changing thing. It's a gigantic, king-sized, leather and teak* monstrosity of a bed. It's hard as a goddamn rock (extra firm) and so enormously huge that I have no idea what the hell MDH is getting up to waaaay over there on his side of it and I don't give a shit because I'm too busy sleeping like an angel through the night and waking up with no aches and pains.

His bowling ball doesn't knock over my wine glass anymore.

We love the new bed so much, and our bedroom has transformed into such a beautiful haven that we have agreed that whoever wakes up last makes the bed - and we have made the bed every day since. Not only that, but the room has remained clean and pristine. I actually dust in there now and put away all my clothes and shit where it belongs. Previously we were neither one of us bedmakers and we** had crap strewn everywhere to the point where not only was the room not a haven, I didn't even like walking by it. It was like a messy dorm room. We*** feel like grown ups now.

Each night before we turn out the lights we gaze lovingly at each other from across the vast expanse of it, sweep a leg around until our big toes are touching and declare aloud our love for each other and the new bed. I think it might be the best money we've ever spent.

*I don't actually know what kind of wood it is, but it is dark and teak-like.

**Me

***We

Just So There's No Further Confusion

If I am married to you and you hear me holler to you from another room, "Honey, will you come help me?", you can go ahead and assume there is a silent "now"* at the end of that sentence. In bold with an underline. In fact for future reference if you don't hear the phrase "when you get a chance" in front of that sentence please imagine the worst.

In other words, put down the bong and pause the the History Channel special on Hitler's Secret Pants that you have already seen eleventy billion times (it's why we have a DVR, pause is a great feature). Get your ass off the sofa and come help me this very instant.

Assume that I am bleeding to death or that the cat is on fire and get your ass over here. Pronto.

I know you heard me. So don't try to pretend like you didn't.

Anyhoo... I can only hope that you are not disappointed when you arrive to find that I am not actually bleeding to death or that the cat's not on fire and will do me a solid by helping me with whatever thing it is I needed helping with and not ask me too many questions. I will say thank you, probably give you a little kiss if you don't give me any sass and I am way more likely to reward you in another more delightful manner, at some future time to be determined at my discretion, if you were to ask me if I perhaps needed your help with anything else before you take off back to the den. I promise, at some future time to be determined at my discretion, there will be extra credit for a good attitude and can-do spirit.

If you have failed to respond quickly enough to the hollered sentence "Honey will you come help me?" and it is followed 30 to 45 seconds later by a much louder HONEY?? in the all caps oral equivalent of shouting, then you may assume to exchange the word HONEY?? with HEY ASSHOLE!

For further clarification if I ask you do to something prefaced with the phrase "When you have the chance" you may translate that to "Sometime within the next 30 minutes" and "Sometime this week" means "Tomorrow".

*I cannot explain, but for whatever reason avoiding use of the word "now" makes me feel like less of a harpie. I'm not saying it's rational.