Remember that whole “fresh start” and “maybe the grass will be greener” blog last April?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. So funny I almost forgot to laugh.
Last June began with two nearly simultaneous events, one that should have brought as much elation as the other did devastation, and I pretty much spent the rest of 2022 not really recovering from being emotionally drawn and quartered.
Let my extra super belated holiday greetings sum it up.
June first, after dinnertime and a pretty routine happy, healthy day, Elvira suddenly was not okay. And she never would be again. Her memorial post is still a work in progress, but for a long time, it was the only blog I could think about writing yet just couldn’t think about to write.
June fifth, we signed the final paperwork and officially became part of the Cascade River community with an amazing little quasi off-grid cabin retreat. I have lots to share about that, too, but see above re: blogger’s block.
Getting back here has been tough. And sad. And prolonged. And, no surprise, my grief still surfaces with some regularity–more so again as the year mark approaches. But there’s been healing, too. A major step in that direction came in fall when I started fostering dogs in need of kennel breaks, an extension of the weekly in-shelter volunteer shift I started back in May. (Yep, more to write about with that topic as well.) For months, El was the only dog I wanted, and I wanted her back desperately. But eventually, my heart and sense of home yearned for a new furry roommate. I figured fostering could help lead that way, opening our house to our next potential family members and, even if it wasn’t the best forever fit, giving some pups a cushy little vacay from shelter life. And it sucked when we weren’t the right fit, but I also know that it still did them–and me–immense, immeasurable good.
We aren’t exactly patrons of ole St. Valentine around these parts, but this year, I did get Jonn a single, beautiful rose.
Love that journey for me.
Her shelter-given name, Rose, was kinda sweet but just seemed too demure for her personality. She was registering it at least a little, though, and I was reluctant to totally abandon Rosy Posy as a pet name. Count on Jonn: in a flash of brilliance, he suggested the only moniker worth considering. She absolutely IS Alexis Rose. Our Alexis Rose.
She’s a little bit perfect, even when she’s not.
Generally speaking, this is, like, a very cute look for me.
I saw three eagles today while I was out picking up El’s poo in the yard. (I’m noticing an odd trend that my best home wildlife sightings seem to come in some connection with dog logs.) A bald eagle flew overhead, whistling persistently and drawing my attention upward, and I remembered learning from the naturalist aboard the whale-watching tour on our honeymoon that TV shows and movies typically dub over eagles with hawk caws because eagles are actually quite soft-spoken for their size and strength. Anyway, as it approached a cluster of tall cedars, another massive wingspan launched across the sky toward it. I was SO giddy that I might be about to witness some midair eagle-on-eagle business time (winkwinknudgenudge), but then a third eagle promptly joined the second. I can’t be positive that they were also baldies because the sun obscured any color differences, but the three swirled around one another. Defensive? Friendly? Aggressive? Sexy? I dunno. The original then flew back over the yard alone, still whistling, casting a substantial shadow over me from above.
It was totally awesome. But here’s the thing: I almost didn’t write about it because I have other blog posts I meant to write months ago and feel like I owe. And that’s dumb. Frankly, this first quarter has been dumb, starting with the dumb shingles and then continuing into some adult stuff that’s not mine to share and is not dumb at all but co-opted a lot of my emotional capacity and focus.
So, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to use the rest of this post to slam together those dumb drafts I didn’t finish and tie a sloppy, dumb bow on them so that we can (hopefully) move into April and spring with a fresh start on the blog and maybe on the whole year, too. Something a little less dumb.
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Merry Christmas!
Those holidays feel like approximately furever ago.
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
Stay golden grahams, Ponyboy.
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Holly jolly credo-ing!
New Year’s Eve, we bid adieu to Mo’ Dough (a pretty damn successful year of homemade breads and pastas [both]; sourdough English muffins, bagels, cinnamon rolls, and pizza crust [Jonn]; pumpkin spice doughnuts [moi] even if not so successfully blogged).
Our bellies remain correspondingly a bit mo’ doughier, too.
Ever brilliant, Jonn proposed a NYE dinner to honor the passing credo while welcoming the new. And so, he made yet mo’ dough, in the form of sandwich rolls. And within those rolls, delicious chunks of lobster meat. In actuality, it was Maine lobster, but for the sake of word play, let’s just pretend it was rock lobster instead.
Drumroll, please, because this is the year of Mo’ ROCK’N’ROLL!
[And here’s where I left this particular draft hanging, so now I’m just going to list all the brainstorms we had leading up to the 2022 credo.]
Make/Bake/Eat:
spicy tuna sushi rolls
eggrolls
rock candy
jelly rolls
pizza rolls
fruit roll-ups
poprocks
rolos
tootsie rolls
Watch:
The Rock
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
Sam Rockwell
Rock Hudson
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rockford Files
30 Rock
Other:
Rick-roll people
teach Elvira to rollover the other way (she is not an ambiturner)
drive a Rolls Royce
visit famous rocks like Stonehenge, Mt. Rushmore, or the Rocky Mountains
rock around the clock and/or Christmas tree
And, of course, rocking out to rock’n’roll music!
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Which catches us back up to present day. My credo contributions have been a bit lackluster. I did…something? I think? Jonn has been a real rock star, including baking Filipino cheese rolls, making rock candy, and purchasing the basic equipment for experimenting with sushi rolls at home. I also just got the ingredients for him to attempt chicken Kiev (a roll-up, natch).
I wanna rock and roll all night and part of everyday. I usually have errands. I can rock’n’roll from, like, 1 to 3.
Christmas came with some wonderful, thoughtful, credo-forward gifts, too: concert tickets! Real life concerts! In actual venues again! Legit rock as well as roll! THINGS ON THE CALENDAR TO LOOK FORWARD TO! ROCK SHOWS!
Then concerns about COVID variant and infection rates in January led to Brian Fallon cancelling a couple-week stretch of his tour, including our February 1st show–understandable but bummer-able nonetheless. In August, we were supposed to see my favorite band. The Foo Fighters.
Honestly, I’m kinda devastated about Taylor Hawkins’ death. (Real talk, I think I’m already a little low such that what should be a more passing sadness isn’t passing so quickly.) I didn’t know much about him as a person, but his performances in their videos and other band projects radiated a kind of goofy joy. Jonn was reading Dave Grohl’s memoir just a few weeks earlier, and I was totally charmed to learn that Taylor used to drum for Alanis Morrissette, who once inquired of him what he was going to do when Dave inevitably asked him to join the Foo Fighters.
I don’t remember if I’ve told you about my “vision boards.” Short version: I use my fun print underpants to represent my daily goals.
[“Hey, heard of transitions?” you ask. Patience, my friend. This seeming tangent will actually come back around. Albeit dumbly.]
If you’re a member of my immediate family, you’ve been mooned by my vision board, probably more than once. Sometimes, it’s straightforward (basically, all the food ones). Today, I’m wearing my brunch pants because I’m making waffles and bacon for brinner tonight. I’ve got pizza pants, sushi pants, noodle pants, doughnut pants, chicken “nugs and kisses” pants, cookies and milk pants. Sometimes, it’s a little more figurative or interpretive. My dog pants can be hoping for a successful walk, good news from the vet, or planning for an afternoon snuggle. I wore my taco pants to the last Sounders soccer game because a local Mexican restaurant offers next-day free tacos for each goal scored; ipso facto, taco pants are also goal pants. (I faced a real dilemma the day after when getting dressed to redeem our tacos because I no longer had clean taco pants for that daily vision board!) Sometimes, I get dressed already knowing my vision will be realized; sometimes, it’s a hope for what will come.
March 25th ended with a brutal reminder that with great vision comes great responsibility. See, this print came out playfully when The Walking Dead show was in its heyday. I hadn’t slept well at all Thursday night, so Friday morning, I chose them to mirror feeling like a zombie. Also, mo’ rock.
Sure didn’t want to be your monkey wrench.
The print is the “Rocking Dead.” The day I wore Kurt, Elvis, Jimi, Bob, Tupac, and Biggie, Taylor joined their ranks. I know it’s a coincidence. Still wrenched my gut, though.
I’m grateful I got to see the Foo Fighters rock their faces off in 2015 when Dave was performing from his massive light-up, robotic throne post-breaking his leg. I’m a little heartbroken that that particular Foo-nomenon will never exist again.
It’s dumb, but I haven’t brought myself to crossing the concert off the calendar yet. The whole tour is cancelled, of course. Understandably. But still extremely bummer-ably.
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It’s a bold strategy–a dumb one even–to choose April Fool’s day for a fresh start, but with a little dumb luck, maybe the grass will actually be a little greener on the other side. So, here we go…
What Wood Elvira Do? Let the chips fall where they may!
Sugar and spice and everything nice: that’s what whittle girls are made of.
Missy Moo was keeping Jonn company as he carved a wooden spoon. They’re quite a pare.
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I never got around to posting about Easter, but it was truly eggstravagant!
SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING:This post exceeds the recommended daily value of cholesterol and carbohydrates. Consume at your own risk.
We celebrated with an all egg meal theme for the day, and it was eggceptional, starting with eggs benny (featuring a homemade hollandaise), followed by some Korean egg bread, and wrapping up with my most successful batch of carbonara yet.
I think Mae West put it best: “I generally ovoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.”
And to ensure our credo didn’t get left out, Jonn whipped up mo’dough in the form of sourdough cinnamon rolls. There’s an egg in the dough, too, so still totally on theme. Oh, and they were AMAZING. Like, quite possibly the best I’ve ever, EVER had.
There were leftover rolls, hollandaise, egg bread, and carbonara, so we did not consume every egg cracked, but we used an eggstraordinary EIGHTEEN EGGS. Oeuf–that’s a lotta eggs!
Typically, February 14th is just any other day in our household, and my perpetual Valentine’s Day gift to Jonn is to ignore the holiday. During the pandemic, though, it’s been a significant coping strategy for me to have something (anything) a little different or special on the calendar to look forward to. So, this year, I decided to embrace the love. I have pretty fond memories of classroom Valentine exchanges in elementary school, picking which Valentine design to give to each classmate and decorating the box for my desk to collect their cards for me. I think we got a mini party–punch and treats while we walked desk to desk delivering our little envelopes. So, I decided to capture a little of that magic and made Valentine cards starring Missy Moo to mail out to my favorite people. My sticker collection still included LOTS of leftover heart stickers from those days, so the envelopes got decked out, too. I even specially got Love forever stamps for thematic postage. (I love a theme. Like, it can get a little out of hand.) I put out treats for our USPS/FedEx/Prime/UPS drivers to thank them for helping us deliver love all year ’round. Throughout the week, I’ve been donning my red apparel. I’ve jammed out to some of my favorite love ballads (here’s looking at you, Bryan Adams and Richard Marx). And I baked and decorated a double batch of heart-shaped brown sugar cookies to spread a little love to the neighbors (one guess which half were for public consumption).
The heart wants what it wants. And it wants some milk.
Bonus: homemade cookies fulfill some Mo’ Dough credo credits! (Celebrating Valentine’s has been my thing, but Jonn has been on credo FIRE this week with another loaf of sourdough bread, pasta dough for fresh noodles, and a sourdough crust breakfast pizza. What I’m saying is that, all things considered, it’s been a pretty good week.)
A lot of recipients of the physical postal version probably didn’t get theirs quite on time either, but may our annual Christmissive still bring you some warm fuzzies as we start the new year!
Don we now our snug apparel, fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!
Elvira’s coat is quite short and extremely thin on her underbelly, so I bundle her up before winter-weather bedtimes for genuine practical purposes…but it’s also possible that I find canine nightwear to be the cat’s pajamas!
If you give peanut butter to a pajama-wearing dog, does that make her a PB&J?
Whether pooches in peejers, a pony, or a PS5, I hope Santa Claws left the perfect gift under your tree.
Dipped in melty butter made Christmas dinner a real pinch to grow an inch!
Adios Poochacho 