Playing Catch Up

so i went a whole week without talking to my mom and she refused to accept my apology because my non-communication indicates to her that i have a life of my own. my immediate reaction: yeah right. but given the immense pile of laundry that is taking over my spare room, the fact that i haven't managed to squeeze in a haircut (despite complaining about it for weeks), and my utter dread of checking my email every day in fear that a task might appear ... maybe she's right.

last week i dogsat and am 100% sure i am too selfish/irresponsible for a pet. i am a morning person, but dragging myself out of bed and trudging out the door into the cold in my pjs and slippers before i've had a chance to brush my teeth is not how i want to start the day. and then only to be drug along by a large, hyperactive animal until the moment of truth: picking up a steaming pile of poo. there is nothing more demeaning than dealing with the poo of a creature who can outrun you. i still love raven, even though i spent much of the week chasing after her squealing like a sissy in my suit and high heels every time she caught sight of a child, squirrel, ball, etc.

while i was at kennedy's, a dead rat appeared in the drainage ditch behind her condo. at first, i was only fascinated by it's immense size -- at least 6 inches long not counting the tail -- but it soon changed to disgust when the thing somehow crawled it's dead self into the middle of the driveway. usually i'm not affected by dead things, but this guy's fur was blowing in the wind and he looked like he could've flipped over any minute and run up my pant leg. plus, how the heck did he get into the driveway!?

after more careful inspection, it became clear that the dead rat was actually a dead-something-else, like a guinea pig with a big fat tail. aaron offered to remove it, but i rejected his offer to hit it with a golf club into the neighbors yard in favor of allowing kennedy to enjoy it when she returned home. and enjoy it she did ... armed with rubber gloves, germ masks, safety goggles, a cardboard box and two big long disposable sticks, kennedy and i successfully manuevered the dead rat into monday morning's garbage pail with an appropriate amount of jumping around and girly squealing.

turns out that it was a dead gerbil and we should've kept it for the guinness book of world records. karrie had a gerbil when we were kids that we thought was HUMONGOUS but paled in comparison to this colossus. the kids next door came by the next day and kennedy told them that their little friend had passed on and that we buried it in her yard. then she miraculously located a hill in her side yard that she took them to so they could say good-bye. hopefully there are no attempts to exhume the body for a more formal burial in the family pet cemetery since ol' ratley is actually sleeping soundly in the landfill after being speared with a stick by two crazed attorneys. whoops.

also while i was dogsitting, i woke up groggy from cold medicine on friday morning to realize what i had known the night before -- that i was out of clean underwear. i'm a pretty laidback person, but putting on a previously-worn pair of underwear (notice that they don't have to be dirty -- only previously worn) is something i will not tolerate. nor will i wash it in the sink and pretend that in anyway makes it clean again. even i draw the line somewhere. like at sharing a toothbrush. my mom will find this humorous since i absolutely refused to change my underwear when i was a kid. or brush my teeth at all.

anyway, i was up late the previous night at a restorative justice circle for one of my clients -- a story in itself for another time -- and probably wouldn't have gotten myself out of bed at all if i hadn't gotten an early morning phone call and happened to be sleeping on top of my phone while it was vibrating. so needless to say, i wasn't in the best frame of mind. i ran through my options: 1. go to work without underwear on. no problem with a skirt, but not the same while wearing white pants. 2. drive past the office and up to my house to get some clean underwear. sounds reasonable, but i knew i'd get stuck there doing one of the millions of things i left behind when i moved into kennedy's for the week and i was already late for work. 3. buy a pair of underwear at target on my way into town. bingo.

i arrive in andy's office in my white pants with my new underwear tucked into my purse. kelley! he says. i'm so glad you're here ! i've got a good one -- mudflaps, interstate commerce, the whole deal, going right to the supreme court. ok, i said, but can i go to the bathroom really quickly and put on this new underwear i bought on the way to work since i realized i was out this morning? when i return andy is giggling, apparently curious as to why it did not cross my mind to do a load of laundry at kennedy's house. and you know, it never even crossed my mind a single time. here's a good example of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

now for an entirely different story: when i returned kim's car to her in california in december, there was a little bit of twinkie smeared on the outside of it. (they just don't make twinkies like they used to...) i meant to have it washed before i left, but prioritized the oil change and didn't quite make it. huy got a good laugh and kim didn't seem to mind, but it was still unfortunate since i love love love the drive-thru carwash. probably similarly to how a 5-year-old kid loves the drive-thru carwash. lucky for me, between the snow in prescott and the dust in the valley, my car needs the occasional bath here in arizona to keep it at peak shininess. and in the event that i'm too busy to acknowledge those aspects, there's always the loogey i spit out the window that landed on the side of my car and froze/congealed into a big chunk. sounds gross until you consider what i found smeared across the back seat. i blamed that one on raven though. :)

thankfully, i am feeling better. one more round though, and neti pot, here i come! prescott, and northern arizona in general, is full of (silly) naturopathic hippies. a guy in my spin class recommended i start using a neti pot -- a yoga purification technique of "nasal irrigation." basically you use this little teapot to pour saline solution in one nostril so it can drain out the other. for your enjoyment, here's an action shot. gross. however, it still sounds more pleasant to me (and probably those around me) than giving up dairy and sugar as linsay always suggested.

last night at greg's birthday party i commented that i thought i was getting more and more boring every day. dan asked me to think of something i saw that day that really struck me as amazing. although i can't disclose my immediate reaction, i know that finding something amazing in arizona is as easy as driving to work through miles of open space under the biggest sky i've ever seen. i've been here almost 6 months and it still strikes me every morning.

and re-reading this ... i still think i'm the funniest person i know :) but am less convinced that i have a life of my own :/