How to Be Alone

Return to Sender

I've been working with a problem contractor at work recently. It's a situation that has preoccupied the last couple of weeks with tense meetings, written reprimands, contract language disputes, etc.

Today was the latest round of our meetings. It followed the usual script where I arrive with a list of what I need, what is and isn't done, and indicate that if these action items aren't addressed in a timely manner that we'll take the exit clause of our contract. I speak in a deeply serious and disappointed tone which I consider my Gillian Anderson X-files personae. No smiling.

At the close of today's meeting I recapped the action items, shut my briefcase, stood up to shuffle a couple of business cards around the table, then pivoted to leave the construction trailer.

"What's this?" I heard somebody ask. He held up my business card, flicked it around to show the backface which sported a brightly colored "Hi, Mommy!!!" written in my eight-year-old's hand. The business card message was complete with hearts and smiley faces.

"Ah, yes." I said. "Well, I guess that one's for me."

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Reading with Naomi: Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
Weekend Soundtrack: Under The Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt)
Thoroughly Enjoying: Eureka (Season 4)
Recent Pang of Feeling Old: When the Lincoln City Council Approved
a 2AM bar close, I thought "Ugh!"
Random Offering: I highly recommend reading THIS article about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Fresh Salsa

My vegetable garden has evolved into a whole new level of meaning...

Network Censors

Naomi, frustrated, comes upstairs from the basement. I'd heard her scolding the cats down there. Sorting laundry is a thankless enough task without the cats mucking the whole thing up. She scolded them with a profane phrase I hadn't heard from her lips before.

Me: You upset?
Naomi: Yes.
Me: The cats?
Naomi: Stupid cats.
Me: Did I hear you call them little 5h!ts while you were downstairs?
Naomi: You call them that sometimes.
Me: I do. [pause] I wonder if both of us couldn't do better on that score?
Naomi: Fine.
Me: Thanks, babe.
Naomi: Sure. [pause] I think it's a bad example you've set here, mom. You know, with that kind of language.

Low Maintenance

About a month ago I bought this new perfume-y body spray. Tea Tree& Lemon scent. I found it in the clearance bin at Walgreens. Tested it in the aisle. Pleasant enough smell. I bought it and, in the store parking lot, plopped it directly into the front pocket of the gym bag I keep in my trunk.

Used it, this noon, to gussy myself up a bit after a stint on the treadmill. For an hour now I've been sniffing the skin at my shirt collar. Holding the inside skin of my wrist to my nose. Searching for the familiar chord the smell strikes. Its like humming those first three notes of a song I can't name. Until, out of the blue, it comes to me and I sort of giggle with relief.

I smell like furniture polish. I really do. All lemony and dust-free. Not exactly the most sophisticated fragrance but, in a pinch, it's not bad.