Thank you to whomever nominated and voted for this diary and the entries in this quarter’s Diarist awards. I can’t tell you how honored I was to be nominated and selected to be a finalist and to be a vehicle for Chauffi‘s guest entry. And now being voted in thrice was something I never imagined, especially since I was up against, in my opinion, far better diarists than I. You have no idea how much easier it makes it to get another thin envelope from a graduate program saying no thanks when I can think “Yeah but… look at how cool this is!”. So thank you. It made me smile a bunch of times and I just keep smiling.
Good God, it happened again.
This morning, I was sleeping the first long uninterrupted morning of sleep in 14 days. Esteban had set the alarm for 5 am, needing to Michuru to the airport for his trip to Japan. I had bolted awake and then said something to the effect of ‘Hey asshole, that’s your alarm.’ Because when I am asleep, my inner sailor comes out to play and I am not the refined belle of femininity that I play on the internet. Apparently, I drop the F-bomb in my sleep quite often as well. But I managed to fall back asleep, to be awoken again at 6 am, when he stumbled back into bed, commenting about how it was likely above freezing outside and he thought it was going to be nice out. Welcome to my life. Most people are treated to dreams with the content of Cinemax or at very least BBC. I get the Weather Channel.
I managed to drop back off, but then the phone started ringing. I still haven’t checked the caller id to find out who I cursed to an eternity of walking around hell with a tail of bloody entrails coming from their anus, but it was probably someone like my Grandmother and then I’ll have The Guilt. Anyway, I didn’t get up to answer the phone, but now it was strike three against peaceful slumber, so I was wide awake. Nothing can be helped. I can’t sleep on planes either, unless I take a mofo red-eye, and then end up sleeping in little five minute bursts, jolting awake every time I drift into unconsciousness because I am so terrified that I will let loose with The Big Snore and the stewardesses will huddle in the galley and refer to me as the ‘congested water buffalo in 34C’.
So instead I laid there, staring up at the sunlight streaming in through the window above my head and listening to the sounds of Melt outside. I peeked down and saw Tilly stretching out on the floor. That in itself is quite odd. The cat will not stretch out on the floor if there is something soft or something high to sleep upon. For instance, she has her own love seat in the bedroom. Well, she shares it with my teddy bears (one beige anorexic twenty-six year old teddy named Uki, a similar but newer bear named Monte, and my Gatsby bear who is ready for the links with bear-sized golf clubs), but she also has an antique beaver fur coat that she sleeps upon (my mother bought it at an auction because it was a plus-sized fur coat and she figured I would want it. It makes me squeamish and it’s really really old, so I let the cat sleep on it, which makes her happy because cats like dead things).
Wow, not just one but TWO parentheticals in one paragraph. Amazing.
I tilted my head, perplexed. She was gazing lovingly at a little ball of something. A little ball of something with a tail. The cat was stretched long above a little pile of mouse like a line and dot creating an exclamation point. An exclamation point that perfectly punctuated my shrieks.
Esteban bolted up out of bed. All I could say was ‘There! There! There! There! It’s there! Therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!’ But Esteban could not see it. He didn’t know what I was panicking about. ‘What? What? Where? What???? Where?’ ‘The tail. See the TAIL!?!?’
Esteban groaned, hopped out of bed for some paper towels and brought the dead mouse outside, all the while praising the cat for her good deed. Then we went out for pancakes because hey, there’s nothing like a little morning trauma to underline the need for pancakes in the world. But throughout our breakfast, all I could think was ‘mousemousemousemouse’. The only thing that managed to distract me was watching a plaid flannelled farmer at an adjacent table pour syrup on his pancakes, then actually LICK the syrup dispenser to tidy up the droplet of artificial maple flavoring. I had a brief moment when I considered standing up, pointing my finger of shame at him and shouting ‘Oh no you did NOT just lick that syrup pitcher! Oh no you di’int!’ But the mouse was throwing off my normal societal self-righteousness and I could only stare into my pancakes as though they were oracles of inner peace and melted butter.
When we finished breakfast, my original plan was to go grocery shopping and then return home to do laundry and various homey things, but I really couldn’t stand the idea of the Mouse House right then, so in honor of the incredible 50 degree afternoon, I perked my eyebrows at Esteban and suggested a jaunt up the Door for some cheese and excellent chopped cherry jam. I had purchased quite a few jars of the excellent jam last fall, with the hope of it lasting throughout the winter, but then I gave away my last two jars because I had a supply of excellent homemade RoadiePig jam, but apparently winters are long and jam is a wonderful thing, so now I am without quality jam. Esteban is against my jam snobbery. He feels that I should be happy with lesser jams, such as Smuckers. Bah! I exclaim. Smuckers is nothing but a Jam Sham.
Luckily, Esteban cannot resist the perky eyebrows. They are the staging area for my withering glare and have been known to engage the impenetrable pout. Very powerful stuff. So he caved and instead of a clean house, we drove 110 miles round trip to Northport to Be’s Ho-Made for some exquisite jam. And I now have $45 of it sitting on our counter. Because as God as my witness, I will not be without chopped cherry jam again.
No. I’m serious. It’s really good jam. I suspect that I could be talked into doing some very interesting things with the promise of good jam.
In other news, I tried on the small jeans this morning, the ones I purchased six years ago, a week after returning from England where I walked everywhere and lived on fruit and water.
I can close them now.
If I sit, I can taste my own liver, but seriously, I can get them buttoned and zipped. I did a little song and dance to The Jeans. I held them up and I think that the heavens themselves opened up and washed me in their gentle light. Of course, the Jam Plan is diametrically opposed to Operation Hottie. Which do I love more’ the jam or the jeans? This is proof, right here, that O.Henry is using our lives as fodder for his short stories. Only mine will be featured in a dramatization for a Richard Simmon’s infomercial.
Maybe Be is short for Beelzebub.
