SORTA SUMMED: THIS DAY

Both occupants lying in bed fiddling around on their phones—

Bed Side A: Throw pillows can be so expensive! Guess what a throw pillow costs.

Bed Side B: Uh, $25.

Bed Side A: Did you say $45? 

Bed Side B: No, $25. 

Bed Side A: Well if you’d said $45 you’d be closer. It’s ridiculous. I mean, the pillow I’m looking at right now is $71! For an 18x18 pillow! 

Bed Side B: I sure hope you’re shopping for pillows for this bed. We don’t have enough.

(The bed has six throw pillows, Dear Reader. Bed Side B is employing a vital element of compelling communication: sarcasm.)

Bed Side A: I guess if that is the throw pillow of your dreams $71 wouldn’t seem like a crazy price.

Bed Side B: I’d say if someone’s dreaming about throw pillows they’ve got problems. 

Bed Side A: [Silence.] 

I have absolutely dreamed up my ideal throw pillow and then gone hunting for it. 

House decorating stuff is a predominant hobby these days, and since Jim’s hobby is spoiling me, I’ve got carte blanche in making the house look however I want. Gotta say though that I value Jim’s opinion. We both lean toward a similar aesthetic, and he never had an opportunity before to learn that he’s got nice taste. (Especially in second wives.)

My latest Jim-supported acquisition is a hot pink velvet armchair for the guest room. Sometimes I go and open the door just to look at it. Then I sigh.

On a dog note, Sophie and I are the same person. We both have bad knees. We’re pint-sized. We don’t appreciate being woken up. We struggle some with our figures. We love to eat.

Today when I got home at 4:45PM from class I gave the canine children their second feeding. Sophie starts whining around 4:30AM for breakfast and 4:30PM for dinner. She was therefore starving to total and complete death. I was abusing her. Little bit of food for Gus. Little bit for doll. And whoops! I accidentally spilled some of Gus’ portion into their water bowl. Rather than cleaning it out I left it to see what would happen and went to go make my own dinner—a truly majestic melange of green lentils, pomegranate seeds, feta (always feta), Persian cukes, edamame, purple cabbage, and a splash of pomegranate vinegar.

They ate and then Gus joined me in the kitchen. Sophie did what she always does and stayed in the laundry room to lick Gus’s bowl for crumb ghosts. And then never came to the kitchen to beg for cucumbers as she always does. The laundry room—where their bowls are—looked as I’d expected: floor covered with water, Sophie’s face drenched, every last food morsel in the water bowl gone. Baby’d been bobbing for kibble. 

If a garbage can is too heavy for her, she gets Gus to knock it over. The bottom two shelves in the pantry are all kitchen paraphernalia and no food at all. It wasn't always that way. Coming home to raw potatoes with one or two bites taken out strewn across the living room and bags of almonds emptied and ripped to shreds, we learned the hard way and rather slowly actually. Those two have gotten into chocolate cake, loaves of bread, boxes of cereal, anything really. And I know it’s all her. Gus wasn’t like this before we moved in. He was a good boy. She’s the instigator and she corrupted him to use as her pawn. 

My ultrasonic jewelry cleaner scares the hell out of that little dog. If we turn it on downstairs, she’ll be under the bed upstairs for the next five hours. If we turn it on upstairs, she hide under the deck out back. So I’m considering just keeping it running all the time in the pantry and see if that takes care of her human-food binging. It’d be nice if that worked on me as well. 

Gus on the other hand has a whole-hearted passion for poo. And he doesn’t discriminate. Small. Large. Wet. Old. Coyote. He loves all of it equally and on our walks he must stop to smell every. single. piece of shit. And all the things that might be shit. Thus by then end of our simple mile-and-a-half morning march I hate his guts. (No advice on how to fix it please. This is one of those times where a girl is just bitching and not interested in a solution. Thanks anyhow.)

And now a brief bit on Bro-Ga. I just got home from teaching it at Midtown Community Yoga. Yoga for bros, for dames—for anyone who wants to do yoga a lot or a little. What's raddest about it is that there's a different teacher every week. So the people that come weekly get a sampling of all sorts. To me that's the genius part. Also, they have beer after. Whatever works, yo. I don't care what gets you in the room—just get there.