Painting Chef - Cheaper Than Therapy

There are some things that, regardless of how innocently they begin, always go downhill. A friendly drinking game, nights out with the girls, drinks after work, college, and for me… online shoe shopping.

I started out with very good intentions. I have a dress that is odd colors and I have shoes that are… alright but not perfect. And despite my avoidance of perfection in things housekeeping, getting to work on time and sticking to a healthy eating plan, I am a shoe-wardrobe perfectionist.

Enter the dress…

But don’t let it fool you… it is NOT. WHITE.

So this morning as I once again tried to wear this dress to work only to be confronted, once again, by my glaring lack of matching footwear choices, I put it back on the hanger (and by hanger I mean bedroom chair, of course) and started over again. But the morning’s events caused me to sit down at my desk with a MISSION! I would find shoes to match this dress by god.

The first pair I found was simply perfect and had cooler heads prevailed, I would now be waiting for them to walk to my doorstep.

Unfortunately for those perfectly simple and appropriate shoes, they were sitting right next to these on the page. Which I adored. They looked less comfortable! Harder to walk in! They MUST be better! Naturally they didn’t come in my size.

And right about that moment all hell broke loose. Because I fell in love. And somehow my trigger finger found these. And they are headed to my house right now. They are stabby and uncomfortable looking, I surely won’t be able to wear them for more than a few hours. And in no shape, form or fashion do they match the dress for which I was buying shoes.

I feel like this is the sort of thing George Bush would label as “Mission Accomplished.”

“So what are you going to do this afternoon?”

“Oh. I don’t really know. Probably vacuum the house and dust the kitchen. You know, just hit the visible spots since mom and dad are coming through tomorrow to drop off the puppy. They won’t be venturing upstairs until the weekend when they come back through so I’ll wait until maybe Saturday to do that. Plus Par!s H!lton is on Larry K!ng (fucking spammers who made me do that shit) tonight talking about jail. Oh, and I think I’m going to wash my hair.”

“Well that doesn’t sound too bad.”

“No. It really isn’t. And the kitchen is still pretty clean since I went all crazy scrubbing lady on it last weekend. I just need to contend with the ever growing pile of junk mail.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m not there to go weed through it for you.”

“…”

“Susannah?”

“Wait. I’m sorry. You mean to tell me that when you open every envelope and then leave them all in a pile on the counter you are ‘weeding things out’? Weeding them out of what? The envelopes?”

“What? I don’t do that.”

“Patrick. Please. I am the one who fills up an entire trash can with junk mail like every other week. Not you.”

“Well. I’m sorry I ignore you.”

“What do you mean? I never said you ignored me. Have you MET me? I cannot be ignored. I make FAR too much noise for that.”

“Okay. Whatever. I’m just sorry. What’s wrong with you?”

“Me? What’s wrong with you? Are they feeding you crazy juice over there at your super nerd class? Are you getting too big for your britches? All excited about being wife-less and so now you think you’re funny? Maybe you should go find someone to smack you around for a few hours.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong but did you just suggest hiring a hooker to beat me up as a solution to my apparent craziness?”

“I don’t know. Things went downhill very fast all of the sudden.”

“Yeah. I need to go shower off this conversation and get back to class. Get some therapy, okay?”

“Only if I can hire someone to clean the house while I’m in therapy.”

“Oh please. You aren’t THAT crazy yet.”

Things that are dangerous about being left to my own devices…

1. The very large bottle of red wine in the kitchen.
2. On Demand movies on the television.
3. My inability to operate an alarm clock.

I have a new appreciation for Patrick’s morning routine. You see, Patrick and I are very different breeds of people. He leaves the house for work, usually before 6:15. At 6:15 in the morning I’m more often that not still floating on a dream cloud of endless shoes and Adrian Grenier. Sometimes I switch things up with purses and George Clooney or really fabulous skirts and Tobias Menzies but as a rule there are beautiful clothes or accessories pretty Hollywood boys.

But by the time this magical point of Patrick leaving the house has arrived, there are several things that have already been taken care of. These include feeding Belle, Luna and Lilly, giving Belle a mini-romp outside and engaging in a full five minutes of tummy rubbing. (Belle’s tummy, not Patrick’s, Patrick is more of a night time tummy rub lover… was that too much information?)

All of this, I will remind you, accomplished while I am SLEEPING. But as we’ve discussed, Patrick is out of town and so these things now become my responsibilities. I will give the beasts credit, they are fully aware of my grumbling and throwing things tendencies in the morning and they leave me alone as long as they can but eventually they must wake me up. Well, either that or they’ll pee on me and eat my hands. We haven’t hit that point yet. I’ll let you know when I’m in danger of losing a finger. Or a toe. That will probably be an indication that I’m in over my head.

Patrick so rarely travels for work. But travel he will… starting this evening. He will be gone all week which will leave me to fend for myself without anyone to do the manual labor or heavy lifting, things I generally define as cleaning out the litter box and taking out the trash. Also? Sweeping.

The husband-out-of-town situation also usually instantly regresses me to college because I have nobody to impress with my domestic prowess. This translates into wine with a side of macaroni and cheese for dinner. And maybe some toast. Usually eaten in my pajamas. Pajamas that I was wearing by 6:00 in the evening because, again, did I mention no need to be domestically impressive and gifted?

I will be curled up in bed with a book (which I will undoubtedly abandon for Entourage, Big Love or The Deadliest Catch) by 8:00 in the evening but won’t go to sleep until midnight because I will be scared of the weird noise and also that the alarm clock won’t go off. One evening I may have a pedicure. You are jealous of the excitement, I know this.

Most likely there will be one occasion of over-indulging with the drinky-drink and perhaps some drunk dialing to my husband. Drunk dialing your husband is always hysterical. For them. Because they know what the next three hours after they talk to you are going to hold and they know they get to miss the whole thing. This makes them happy. Bastards.

At the moment I’m laid out on the bed surrounded by two of the three animals. A number that will increase on Thursday when my parents drop off their puppy for a few days. Their nine week old puppy. Who apparently loves a human chew toy more than Lilly. As I type that I look over at my left arm where she focused her attention for a full 20 minutes earlier and I’m wondering what in the HELL I am going to do with four animals, two of which are still counting their ages in WEEKS, without Patrick for the first 24 hours.

Send help please. In the form of wine. And chocolate. And maybe the Dog Whisperer?

I’m sort of a “hold on a just a minute” kind of girl. I am not, nor have I EVER been, the kind of person who can just jump from one thing to another without a bit of preparation. There is nowhere this is more evident in my daily life than when I am either going to sleep or getting up in the morning.

In the evenings I require a bit of a “wind down” even if all I’m winding down from is curling up with Patrick on the couch or maybe whipping his ass mercilessly in a game of skill or chance. In my past life, this winding down consisted of a little pot and reruns of “The Real World” but I now find myself maybe too old for either of those so I’ve had to replace them. (Although just a side note… have you seen this? The Real World Las Vegas: Reunited? Is anyone else troubled that those kids all look EXACTLY the same? Nobody has aged.)

Before the cathartic duo of pot and Puck I used to read myself to sleep every night. But because of my odd reading position, this doesn’t lend itself to the marital bed as Patrick has no desire to shoehorn himself into one corner of our king sized bed while I stretch out on my stomach diagonally across the bed propped up on all our pillows (yes… I know… your back is hurting just thinking about it… I’m 5’11” and sit perfectly straight and 6 inches from the steering wheel when I drive too… wanna make something of it?)

However it is the mornings where this whole “preparing to transition” thing can get me in trouble. The phrase “rise and shine” only reminds me of my hatred of vacation bible school and reaffirms my promise to my fruitless womb to never subject any future offspring to that horror. The closest I ever came to “rise and shine” was during the aforementioned marijuana years when we would “wake and bake”.

Take this fine morning for example…

After forcing myself to turn off “Ready to Wear” a few minutes past 11 last night I proceeded to cough and hack and teeter on the edge of overdosing on cough syrup for another hour before finally falling asleep. So I’m sure you can imagine that when the alarm went off this morning at 6:45 there were no pleasant words crossing my lips. (I function much better on a full 12 hours of sleep but that leaves no time for Brandon Walsh. Or cake.)

A full three snoozes and two dreams that I was already up out of bed and getting ready for work (I should have been suspicious when Diane Sawyer was reporting the news dressed as The Cat in the Hat) I finally hauled myself out of bed, got ready, left the house, and managed to cover my lateness by offering to bring breakfast… (which is a great trick, you should totally try it).

The point is (point? when do I EVER have a point…) I don’t understand these “morning people”. Are you a morning person? What is WRONG with you? Why are you like that?