 Stingy Daisy |
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I just picked the dogs up from the vet, and now I'm enjoying this Sunday afternoon by sitting at the patio table in my backyard. The sun is shining. The breeze is blowing. The birds are singing. Seriously, it's sickening. The bees are buzzing. Very loudly. All through the giant mammoth viburnum shrubs. The King Kongs of shrubs. If they even are technically shrubs. I don't know. All I know is that they started out about two feet tall, and now they're like sixteen feet tall. Daisy just tried to catch a bee in her mouth, which does not seem like the wisest move. The dogs were having a sleepover at the vet's office because my boyfriend and his mom came to stay here last night, and I could not subject her to their mayhem. Plus, I was already quite fed up with them after Daisy somehow removed the lid, knocked the container over, and ate half the contents of the cat food pitcher, and I nearly crippled myself after chasing them down three blocks after they escaped from the yard, finally catching them, and having to walk home with them hunched over at the waist holding onto each of their collars in a death grip. I was ready for a vacation from them, but I'm glad they're home. There's nothing that will spur spring cleaning quite like the news that your boyfriend's mother will be coming to stay. I embarked on a cleaning frenzy the likes of which this domicile has never seen. I cleaned baseboards, wiped the dust off the top of the refrigerator, windexed the glass on the sliding glass door. Which I have never done. In five years. You can actually see out of it now. It's quite amazing. It was so covered in Zuko slobber and paw prints -- I can't believe it took me so long to clean it. But, lo. It did. I tried to light lots of candles so my house would not reek of residual dog breath and eau de litterbox; overall, I think it went well. We went on a nature walk and ate sushi and had coffee and beignets with my parents this morning. Good Lord. If we were smokers, I'd say we would relish lighting up a few cigs just in relief that we all survived. His mother is very nice, and my cats fell in immediate love with her, especially Khaki, who is sulking now that they're gone. This afternoon my mom and I ventured to the outlet mall in the hopes of finding some new clothes for me to wear to work. Mine all feel old and shoddy. We had exactly zero luck. All of the shoes I tried on made my feet feel like they were being impaled with sharp knives, even Naturalizers, for God's sake, and the clothes were hidious. HIDEOUS. It was just demoralizing. Finally I gave in and went to the GAP, where I bought two cute scoop-necked sweaters and a black jacket just because they were on sale and just so I would not feel like the trip was an absolute exercise in futility. My mom was a champ for sticking it out with me. Although she did ask, "Do any of the suits we bought you three years ago still fit? You were such a stick back then." Sigh. All through the shopping hell, I consoled myself by thinking, "Thank Jesus that Grey's Anatomy is on tonight." This is what it has come to. Grey's Anatomy and the promise of English muffin pizzas for dinner. I've gotten through the first three books in The Dark Is Rising and have finally made it again to The Grey King. It's clear to me going back and reading these books again that while they are swell and all, they really do not hold a candle to the Chronicles of Prydain or to His Dark Materials. The thought of going back to Philip Pullman is just exhausting, though. I loved the series, no doubt, but it's not exactly an easy breezy read. The prose and the stories are so much more complicated and complex, not just plotwise, but ideawise. That's some heavy shit in there. And I still remember being so traumatized by not loving The Amber Spyglass that I hesitate to go back and read the first two just knowing I'll end up there again. Who knows. Lately I have been kind of longing to revisit Lyra and Pan, though, that's for sure. I am now inside watching Friends reruns while I type and can I just say how irritating it is when Rachel is planning to move to Paris and Ross is so upset by it and his sole focus seems to be that it's because he won't get to see Rachel every day. There's hardly, if any, a mention of the fact that she'd be going with THEIR CHILD. Wouldn't he be just a tad sad about that? Not being able to see his baby daughter every day? Is it not bizarre that Rachel is just basically like, hi, I am taking our baby across the ocean, suck on that, Geller? It's very weird to me. Not that she should pass up a great job opportunity and all (because clearly Rachel is some kind of fashion industry genius, whatever), but wouldn't Emma be at least a tiny part of the discussion? It just makes the entire plotline ring very false to me. And -- yet again I have overthought a television sitcom. Well, holy shit. After this game, I talked to my mom, who hysterically shrieked that she kissed my brother and his girlfriend's dog all over his face in her excitement. "I've never in my life kissed a dog before!" I was very entertained by that. Now, just forget it. I think every one of my siblings is on his or her way to Indianapolis. My little brother called me this morning to announce, "Oh, Eliza. I'm just sitting here in front of the TV with the newspapers spread out in front of me, basking in the media love." He sounded like he was chemically altered, but I think he was just bleary from staying up all night celebrating and from the endorphins released by this event. He was only a toddler the last time this happened, so he doesn't remember what it was like back then. Even I, oh black sheep of the family when it comes to the sports love, remember. My older brother told me on the phone while he was in Atlanta, "The national championship was awesome, but I never played football. I played basketball, so I know how it feels to be out on that court." He took a breath and continued, "This means so much to me." Sometimes the love my family feels for this school and its teams just blows my mind. I think it's a beautiful thing, though, I really do. Fuckin' A. It got cold the other night, and of course my cheap ass didn't turn on the heater. When I woke up, the cats had taken the warmth matter into their own hands and climbed in the laundry basket. Considering that Khaki pretends to hate Marley most of the time, I could not pass up the chance to capture this Kodak moment. 
It's now later, and I just watched The West Wing for the first time in ages. I have no idea what the backstory is of the thing with Toby and the classified blah blah blah, but I love Toby and I don't love seeing his sad eyes. Are we to believe that Leo McGarry would actually consort with the likes of the character played by Kristin Chenoweth? It was really good, and I'll definitely tune in for the election day episode. I think Daisy was stung by a bee. She's been hobbling around, swallowing weirdly and snorting oddly and just acting really weird and sick. She drank some water and I softened up some dry food for her with some water and basically fed it to her by hand and she's perked up. Her eyes are really watery, too. Maybe she just has hay fever. Maybe she hates me for boarding her last night, though she seemed fine on the walk home. I searched her head to toe for a sting of some kind, but nothing, and she let me root around in her mouth and I didn't see anything. She can be kind of a Sarah Bernhardt, but she doesn't seem to be faking. I hope she's okay.
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