Crazy person

I walked around the house so very smug with myself last night, that I have to mention it today. I actually thought with pleasure, "Wow. I can't believe this is my life."

late dinner

The circumstances that led me to that sentiment are incredibly silly. I had made a late dinner (spanakopita with spinach from Shaw's and phyllo from god knows where, but everything else was local, including the accompanying super spicy arugula). Groom was in bed after spending the evening prepping for a fishing trip and I was putting things away, wiping down the counters, listening to the dishwasher. I poured myself a glass of wine and headed toward the living room. But, what made me get so smug is this: When I opened the cabinet, there was a clean wine glass in there. When I looked for a bottle of wine, I found one. And, when I tried to decide where to sit with my wine, I had plenty of really nice spots to choose from (sentence ending with a preposition, I don't care).

But, with anything good, there's always a cost. I woke up this morning to a nasty headache (no, it isn't a result of drinking too much wine) and intense cramps in my calves from not stretching last night after 30 minutes on the elliptical. And, okay, this is gross, so you can skip the next few words...I'll wait for you to adjust your eyes to the next paragraph...I have a blocked salivary gland or something and now there's a lump in the side of my face. A lump in the side of my face.

As I rolled over in bed this morning, I actually thought with disgust, "Wow. I can't believe this is my life."

See. Saw. Chee. Chaw. And we are back to the middle.

But, this morning, I remembered why I was so happy last night. Except for a two-year period when I lived in domestic bliss with a roommate who nested so thoroughly, she stitched me directly into the comfortable walls of our apartment, I was the kind of feral person who never really had a place to live. I mean, I had apartments and roommates and such, but I had a very difficult time moving into a place. I've had apartments all over Portland, but I never really lived anywhere. It is a fact I paid rent on an apartment for a solid year and I never once--not once--set foot in the place. I lived, for the most part, out of a van or I would sleep on people's couches.

So, on the off chance I was home, there was nothing, ever, in my cabinets, fridge, and cupboards.

I remember, in my late 20s, I accepted a job on Maine's midcoast. Groom (at the time "Boyfriend") was working almost four hours away and I had no roommate. I was forced to set up house on my own. I failed miserably. I moved there in January and I had no shovel so, first major storm, I was outside with a dustpan sort of hustling snow out of the way.

I never mowed the lawn. I lived there for three years...four years?...and I never mowed the lawn. After about a year, Boyfriend, who was visiting for the weekend, stopped a guy with a mower in the back of his truck and asked him if he would please come to my house.

And, again, here come's something gross, so if you don't want to know, I'll wait for a moment for your eyes to adjust to the next paragraph.... I didn't take my trash to the dump. Not once in four years.

I was like a crazy person. I even had a cat.

While I was living there, I did try to make some friends. At one point, I found myself sipping wine with a woman who was about my age--wine from her fridge in glasses she pulled from her cabinet--and she asked whether I was hungry. I supposed I was.

All she did was saute some zucchini, but I watched with fascination. She used utensils from her drawers and supplies from her pantry. My drawers held a tape measure, a rusty pair of scissors, two or three plastic sporks, some salt/pepper packets, and random bits of string. I missed the domesticity class entirely.

I bring this all up because I reached into the fridge to pull out some Piggy wheatberry bread for toast this morning and then grabbed the butter dish to add a little butter. I put everything on a plate I had taken from the cabinet before helping myself to a cloth napkin from the shelf. I thought, these are simple things, but I really appreciate all these simple things. I have food in my kitchen and I have things in my cabinets and the lawn is mowed. It only took me 40 years (and a stable fella) to figure this shit out, but it's nice to have a home.

For what it's worth, I never did become friends with zucchini lady. When you get down to it, I was never going to get all that close with a woman who sipped wine in her living room and whipped up a zucchini as a snack as opposed to heading into a local bar to drink PBR and munch on zucchini the cook fried up as a pub special.