Painting Chef - Cheaper Than Therapy

As you know, a house down the street from me burned down not long ago. I did find out that everyone was alright and that the fire started when their hot water heater exploded. I didn’t know such a thing was possible and briefly considered converting to cold showers until I realized that I would voluntarily be taking cold showers.

I was driving past what remains of the house yesterday and noticed that their daffodils are blooming in the front yard. In the midst of such a horrible event, flowers are blooming, spring is coming and life is moving on. In my Tylenol Cold induced haze, this kind of made sense to me in a perfect and beautiful way.

There are struggles, battles, and trials every single day. We all have them and they make us who we are. Infertility, depression, financial worries, family situations… shit just happens. Randomly and often undeservedly. But it is how we fight through them, what we learn, and how we are changed coming out the other side that lasts and changes us. In the depths of despair we so often expect something impossible. We expect life to pause, strangers to lie down and cry with us while we gather the strength to take the next step.

None of our problems, no amount of heartache is so wretched and so important that they stop the world. While we curl up in fetal positions, shake our fists at whatever powers may be, pull our hair, cry, ask why this is happening and drown our sorrows in chocolate cake and red wine, things just keep on happening. We may think that the world should stop; that life cannot possibly go on around us while we are wondering how we are going to manage to wake up tomorrow. But it doesn’t. The sun continues to rise and set, the clock doesn’t hesitate to tick off seconds, minutes and hours.

We can take time for ourselves; we can hide and allow things to sink in. Create a sanctuary in our worlds and mourn our circumstances, our loss, even if for just a brief moment. But eventually, we must move on. We must go back outside, look up at the sky, and choose to take a breath and then a step and pick up the pieces. Because the next day is going to come, daffodils are still going to bloom even if the earth is scorched.

The daffodil image at the top of this post is a pastel by an artist in Oregon named Laura Walker Scott who I just came across this morning. I fell in love with the picture and she gave me permission to use it in this post. If you get a chance, please check out her work.

Over the past 72 hours I have been breeding a new B-horror movie villain that I am quite certain could have nipped that Killer Tomato nonsense in the bud. The amount of mucus inside my skull could probably cover a small city block and has rendered me hopelessly worthless. I have spent the past weekend in my pajamas on the couch watching Slings & Arrows and reviving my long forgotten crush on Paul Gross from the days of Aspen Extreme.

I have learned two very definite things this weekend.

First? I am a mean, mean lady. I may have neglected to mention that I snagged this sickness that is probably going to kill me from my lovely husband. The man whom I have spent the past week rolling my eyes at because I thought he was being such a damn baby about this cold thing. Because let’s face it, the boys? They aren’t the best patients. But now I feel like crap and so that also makes me feel guilty and hence I am mean.

Also? I truly, TRULY hate the people who have meth labs. In the past, where drugs are concerned, I’ve been sort of a you do yours and I’ll remember when I did mine, we can still hang out and I’ll keep laughing at your jokes and being your DD if you need one because it would suck if you were dead. But now? With this whole crackdown on meth labs? I have to wait at the pharmacy window to get my damn Tylenol Cold. And if I were to get sick while the pharmacy was closed? Too bad. Because I can’t buy more than one or two boxes so stocking up? NOT an option.

I feel that the wrong group is being targeted. Nobody seems to have any problem with the midget crack dealers in uniform I see all over the place. They are ORGANIZED! Outside every business establishment I see. Girl Scout cookies my ass.

Hi. You came back. I’m floored. I was certain all the talk of pooping and the ill conceived phrase “gastrointestinal hippie” would send you running for the hills. But you came back. I have no doubts that at some point in the next five minutes you will regret this decision.

But fear not! I have no talk of poop or any sort of bodily function (well, not intentional… sometimes they just kind of slip out) and although the Daily Dish spoke of not one but TWO decomposing bodies this morning I shall refrain. You are welcome.

Even better than decomposing corpses and bodily functions (but NOT Stephen Colbert)… it’s 90210 and reality television! I know. You are so lucky. What contest in hell did you win? And no, I’m sorry, but elective decapitation is not an alternative prize.

I will be the first to admit a general disdain for reality television. Most of it kind of sucks sweaty donkey balls and the latest offering I’ve just read about makes my eyeballs ache and my teeth itch. I did not watch the first season of Dancing with the Stars. Instead I mocked every commercial I saw calling it a sign of the apocalypse. But then one evening during the second season when Patrick was working late and I’d watched EVERYTHING on On Demand and there was nothing worth watching, not even on the Travel Channel and I had not a lick of artistic inspiration I succumbed. Headfirst. To the cute short boy from that boy band.

Then there was another season. And I did it AGAIN and this time? I took Patrick down with me. I felt my resolve further slipping as I was then sucked in by the bare-chested Dave Navarro and that singing Hobbit and then suddenly I was watching Rockstar Supernova too. DAMN.

And we all know I have those white rappers to contend with…

But now? Something wonderful has happened! When Diane Sawyer spilled the beans to me yesterday on Good Morning America it was like the heavens parted and a host of heavenly creatures (by which I mean the male cast of Grey’s Anatomy) sang down to me. Steve. Sanders. Steve Sanders is going to shake his groove thing in my general direction. Steve Sanders who I loved even with his bleach blonde white boy ‘fro and long jean shorts with a fanny pack back in 1989. That’s an overstatement. I did not love the fanny pack. Steve Sanders who pretended to have his heart broken by the girl now appearing in Olive Garden commercials looking for her kid with the shoes he can’t keep tied and isn’t she worried he will fall down and poke his eye out with a breadstick?

She could probably sue Brenda Walsh for that…

Dear person to whom I can narrow down to one of 2 or 3 individuals…

Can we please discuss the bathroom we share? And by this bathroom, I am referring to the one that shares a wall with my cube. I understand that my firm and not once in my entire life deviated from stance on workplace pooping and my complete and total avoidance of it is a bit excessive. Furthermore, I know that the extreme measures I take to ensure a private moment between me and the throne border on obsessive. Yes. I was the girl who, when living in the dorm, would walk the stairs in a pair of my roommate’s shoes to another floor where I knew NOBODY to conduct my business. And yes again, I run water in the bathroom at my OWN HOME to create a noise buffer. And yes yet one more time… the moment traveling or stress becomes a factor in my life my bowels close up like a snitch without a paycheck. Clearly…I have issues, I won’t argue that.

But this is about YOU! And YOUR comfort and free spirited workplace pooping. I wish I could experience the life of what I equate to a gastrointestinal hippie. How jealous I am that you never once have experienced the painful stomach cramps of a non workplace pooper such as myself or a dash home at lunch just to give yourself sweet relief when the situation became dire. I don’t understand your kind and since I know we must co-exist in this building, I’m working on being alright with that. Yes, even the Fed Ex delivery man is comfortable to pop a squat whenever he feels the need.

However I ask just one thing. Please. For the love of GOD. I beg of you. Light a fucking match. I have no policy against workplace puking on your desk because you made the bathroom smell like something died under the sink. In 1973.

Every year, about this time, something happens to me that makes Patrick roll his eyes and wonder to himself if his life wouldn’t maybe be a little easier if he would just go ahead and push me off the damn roof already.

I? Get the urge to plant things.

In its previous annual incarnations, this urge has had many different levels of massive failure limited success. I have had lovely gardenias (that Patrick put in the ground because apparently the workings of a shovel are too complicated for me to master and BESIDES! Have you ever tried to jump on that shovel in cute 2-inch heels? HAVE YOU INTERNET??), a front flower bed full of sticks nine months out of the year because if you all knew that some plants DIE DOWN in the winter then where were you when I needed you, some lovely impatiens that grew swimmingly underneath the pear tree until some damn rabbit ate them all and a vineyard that has netted exactly 4 bunches of the most vile grapes ever known to man (which again…required that damn shovel). Or woman. For the record, I have also had moderate success growing vegetables in pots on the back deck. Those didn’t take a shovel and I planted them all by myself. And I got dirty. In the dirt.

This year’s undertaking? SEEDS! Because do you know how CHEAP seeds are? Its like one of those buffets where you can try a little of everything and see what works. And, you know, when things die I feel like a little less of a miserable failure so seeds are much easier on my sweet, sweet psyche. Plus if I can’t have a damn human baby I’m going to breed plants like a crack whore.

I will have a flower bed if it kills me.

I planted these all this weekend. So far the cat has only tried to eat them once and I think only spritzed a couple of them with carpet cleaner before realizing what I was doing. Five more years on this pace and I’ll be gardening in no time!