Painting Chef - Cheaper Than Therapy

Dear Universe…

Hi. So it’s been a few since we talked. How’s it hanging and all that? Your butt looks GREAT in those pants and you are so having the best hair day ever.

Um… quick question… if I’m so settled on not having a baby anytime soon and no longer feel my ovaries melt at the sight of babies, started rolling my eyes again when seated near one at a restaurant and have, in fact, quit even going squee when I see one could you please explain the freak-out that happened in Target this evening?

Because it was just a baby shower gift. Yes. Patrick was MASSIVELY insensitive when I informed him that I wasn’t that good at baby showers (as he is also being forced to attend this “co-ed” shower which, let’s be honest, is just an excuse to have some beer with the baby schwag) and he just said “well… there will be alcohol… just get drunk” not even realizing that I am CURSED! With the punk ass ovaries!

And why did I see fit to bounce a spool of ribbon off his head and insist we just go home already. He was going to take me to get a manicure!! What is this with all reason and common sense leaving the building? Have I gone mad? I could have probably even convinced him to have a little pedicure action. Seriously… he totally ped-egg’d his feet the other night…

Then I just sat and seethed in the car the whole way home. I didn’t even TRY to guilt him into a few pots of petunias or ANYTHING. So tell me universe… have I gone soft or am I still secretly yearning for offspring? And then can you just chill the fuck out and plop down for a pitcher of margaritas or something? Are you a guy? Should I flash a boob? What gives?

Kisses-

P’Chef.

New plants that are oh so pretty and ALIVE because they have just recently fallen into the Perry House of Plant Death:

Six. And I love them all.

Hours spent lounging in or around pool:

At least 15. Possibly as many as 24. I lost a few in there somewhere… I will neither confirm nor deny that alcohol was involved. Or pot.

Books written by Hollywood quasi-starlets read while lounging in or around pool:

2… Specifically So Notorious by Tori Spelling (Surprisingly devoid of 90210 tidbits… so sad.) and Are You There Vodka? Its Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. Miss Handler now tops my girl crush list. It only took 15 years but Marissa Tomei has been knocked out of the top spot.

Other books read that might have some redeeming intellectual value:

At least one. Possibly three… depending on how loose your criteria are.

Bottles of Mike’s Pomegranate Lemonade consumed:

Dear god. I have no idea. Have I mentioned that I don’t drink beer? And that our kitchen is up an entire flight of stairs from the pool? And that I just didn’t want wine? And have you ever tried this sweet sweet nectar? I scoffed at it until I tasted it. Holy McMoley.

Basketball sized ass-adjacent bruises resulting from stepping on an already rotten and broken piece of the deck that we have carefully avoided for 4 months resulting in one leg falling straight through the deck in a move straight out of a comic book if it hadn’t been so fucking painful:

Just the one. You know, plus the swollen knee and the baffling shoulder bruise. Please refer to the aforementioned alcohol intake.

Times you will see photographic evidence of said injury?

HAH! You silly internet. This is an ass-free zone!

(You are welcome.)

Memorial Day weekend recap. Complete with sunburn, hours and hours of sloth and dinner-plate sized, ass-adjacent bruises that may or may not have involved me falling through a deck. Totally. Sober. (Okay. Sober compared to Amy Winehouse.) (Minus the hair.) (And the eye makeup.) (Do you think she applies that with normal makeup?) (And do you think she uses a stencil?)

You are weeping for the future, no?

Also? I am still trying to convince my mother that NO… I am NOT going to take 3 months to make LEMON JELL-O. Crazy lady.

Have I mentioned that the new (is it still new if we’ve lived there for 4 months? I still call it new) house has a pool? Well it does. And Patrick and I opened it this weekend. I even helped a little! I vacuumed the pool. This is amazing for two reasons. First… it was vacuuming and ask anyone who knows me… I don’t do floors. I don’t sweep, mop, vacuum, none of it. And if Patrick didn’t do floors we would have to hire a damn housekeeper. Because… well… you get the picture. And second? Aside for the aforementioned aversion to floors vacuuming a pool takes PATIENCE. Loads and loads of patience. Of which I have none. And bonus reason number three? I’m lazy as hell.

None of this is the point.

I am also PAINFULLY susceptible to consumerism and advertising in general. Patrick thinks that given my marketing degree this is adorable. At least I assume that’s what he is trying to say through his tears, teeth-gnashing and hair pulling as I leap at 3-D sidewalk chalk when I see it on television from my childless couch.

So when I saw these lovelies the other day from NapaStyle, I decided that I simply had to have them. How adorable are these? Are you already seeing visions of your entire summer planned around them? Do you not just want to lick them all over? No? Just me? Fine… moving on…

But because I’m not completely ridiculous, I declared that this would be the “Summer of Limoncello” and that as I floated worthlessly in the pool this summer I would be sipping my homemade limoncello because I was going to become a limoncello goddess. What better way to justify my purchase of these adorable glasses? After all, what good is perfect limoncello if you don’t have the proper limoncello serving vessel? Is a martini as fun in a juice glass? And do you take tequila shots out of a pilsner glass? Well… perhaps some of us do…

So I ordered the whole lot of stuff. Both sizes of glasses and the carafe. And when it showed up today I stopped what I was doing and asked my BFF Google how to make said delicious summer beverage. And watched my carefully laid plans crumble around me. Because according to Limoncello Quest, limoncello? Takes FOREVER to make. And somehow it just doesn’t look like a fall beverage. I do not see myself watching college football and sipping limoncello out of twee lovely little glasses. I see myself guzzling ginger ale and Captain Morgan from a giant plastic stadium cup.

Reason the second for the crumbling plans? Apparently limoncello has LARGE amounts of alcohol and were I to spend an entire day floating in the pool with gossip magazines and free-flowing lemony nectar I would probably find myself in a very drunken state. Far too drunk for my lack of 10 foot tall privacy fence. And the aversion to pants I develop when in said drunken state.

And this is why I am suddenly very sad. But I think I shall make limoncello anyway. Because as any good accidental domestic goddess knows, when like hands you lemons… by god you had better be ready to wash them down with a fruity alcoholic beverage.

Lately life has been kicking my ass. And I HATE that. Not that, by any means, I am a swirling dervish of energy moving Tasmanian Devil style from one point to the next. It’s no secret that my couch is one of my favorite places to be. But I think that the emotional exertion of life the past week or so has just knocked me flat.

It probably started with last weekend and all the build up to the mother’s day dinner. And the power did come back on. Even before people got here. That was the least of it. Just stressing about my family and his family all in one place and WHO is going to say something inappropriate first? How drunk is my uncle going to get? Which embarrassing story is my mother going to lead off with? And it’s all stress that I put solely on myself because everyone behaved beautifully; they always do.

But I think that because I was so consumed with making this perfect evening for mother’s day, I didn’t have a chance to prepare my head and my house for the week ahead. I didn’t have a mental calendar of what was going on in the coming week. I didn’t have dinners planned or a grocery list made. I hadn’t cleaned out the refrigerator or done laundry. (You know… things I used to do on Mondays when I had no responsibility and a job that a half trained chimp or maybe even George Bush could probably figure out.)

The oddest thing was that despite my ill-preparedness, Monday had the balls to show up anyway. And then Tuesday. And instead of catching up, each day has me feeling further and further behind. Like I’m in slow-motion quicksand. Even this evening as I’m sitting here in a perfectly quiet house KNOWING that I should be catching up on laundry or doing… SOMETHING (even just throwing away the vase of peonies sitting in front of me as it is wafting a particularly impressive funk in my general direction but I GREW THEM. They are from my yard and made me feel very garden-y. Not at all like the person who thought she had managed to kill a beautiful peace lily until three different people looked at it and told her/me it was obviously defective and she/I should return it immediately.)

Wait… what was I talking about?

See? It’s that. I know there are people who are trying to keep up with kids and jobs and husbands and parents and dogs and soccer games and clarinet lessons and homework and things that I can’t even think of. But this is my life. And for whatever reason, it’s wearing me slap out. Just a general off-kilter-ness that only dares to explain itself in dreams. Every night something else. A forgotten class. A crumbling marriage. Travel plans gone terribly wrong. I can’t explain it but I am starting to fear that something is just out on the horizon. Just hanging out waiting to swoop in for the kill. I guess I’d better get some fucking rest so I can spike it back out of my universe whenever it does show up.

Oh hell. This doesn’t even make any sense. Maybe I just need a haircut and some snappy blonde highlights.