Since Nick has been gone, here are the things that have gone wrong:
- Jolie got sick; you knew that. She’s clearly getting better, but slowly, and I’ve been good and shaken up by the experience. I was worried enough to take her in for a follow-up visit to the vet, even though I wasn’t sure that that was what he had actually said to do (it was), and even though I don’t, as policy, do follow-up visits. She was doing well, he said, and I thought that she would be ready to run by now, but when I offered today she licked my face obsessively and went back to sleeping on my chest. In Jolie-speak, that means “Never stop offering to take me running, but if you should happen to forget that you were going to go today, that would be nice, too.” My Nike+ goals are underwhelmed by my ability to understand my dog’s subtext, though, and I do feel guilty about that.
- Nick’s scooter got broken into, and his helmet stolen out of it. I don’t even have the words for how I feel about that–which is a lie, but of course I won’t post them (hi, Grandma!).
- Jalouse has developed a taste for cheap wood; I caught her gnawing devotedly on my nightstand. And then I discovered that the bedroom floor was littered with splinter-filled spit-up; good times were had by all. Thank goodness she doesn’t go for the good stuff; I harbor a deep and abiding affection for our coffee table.
- The towel rack came out of the wall in the bathroom. The top half did, at least, and gouged a pretty track out of the paint on its way down.
- I tripped, stubbed my toe, and splintered the nail, leaving me with a bloodied mess.
- I scoured the Internet to find homemade anti-dog-chewing remedies for the aforementioned nightstand. Eventually I felt ready to mix up one of my own–approximate, certainly, but well researched. Naturally, they love it. I only sprayed it on two pieces of furniture, thank goodness, because ever since then both dogs have taken to lying down and licking those pieces as if they were getting drunk off of the stuff. Although I know perfectly well that I dislike the ingredients, I finally got curious, sprayed a bit on my hand, and tasted it. It’s delicious.
“Come home early,” I told Nick. “I think we’re cursed, here.”
“Only buy groceries you can eat raw until I get back,” he said after a pause. “I don’t think that lighting up a gas stove is a good idea, under the circumstances.”
On the plus side, June is lovely for produce, and I’ve had some time now to experiment. Breakfast this morning was dark chocolate and fresh local apricots, which I didn’t know forever even came in fresh–like figs, which I never really believed came outside of Newtons until last year. They (the apricots) taste like the dried kind, but less so, and still, oddly, a bit…dry, somehow, in spite of not being. The flesh pulls straight off the pit like they were strangers. Not bad for breakfast, though, and the guy at the produce stand who’s always been scared of helping me on account of not being able to understand my accent has gotten braver, so I get to feel like I’m doing my part for international relations.
Speaking of which, I’ve finally gotten to see a “vous” become “tu” in its own natural habitat: a first for me. The vaguely harried mother of two on the fourth floor has mentioned getting together now and then (“vous“), and I have always agreed–enthusiastically, but unspecifically, on account of how I’m never sure that I’m entirely following. I don’t want to impose just because I heard the “Tuesday” but not the “next,” if you follow.
Anyway, today she said “today,” and I was sure, although I nearly turned and fled when her son opened the door with no apparent clue as to why I might be there. As soon as I stepped inside, though? “Tu.”
Apparently, that’s how it happens.