My Name

I didn't even know his name—and I guess that's kind of my point.  He was an outcast like I was, but much further out, circling the other kids in that literal no-man's-land that exists for the kid who has not a single friend.  I hadn't thought of him for more than 30 years until today—when I saw the man he might have become through the window of a Hallmark store.

I remember his round face.  It was sweet and innocent and sat beneath a shelf of sandy-blonde hair.  His cheeks were always ruddy, like the Campbell's Soup kid—the way that a fat boy's cheeks are year-round.  And he was fat, the biggest kid in school by far, the kind of big that's never going to play football or go to dances.  I remember that he wore overalls every day and I also remember thinking this wasn't really by choice but rather necessity.  Back in the early 80's, I don't think there was a "Big & Tall" shop for boys. Levi's made their "husky" line (and I know this because in elementary school, I wore them), but there was nothing out there that would accommodate a boy of his size other than overalls.

He was in my homeroom and sat by himself at one of the large Biology lab tables.  He was quiet—in fact, I'm not sure I ever heard him speak.  And while I don't remember anyone specifically picking on him, I'm sure he caught hell from the other boys.  I imagine him in gym class dreading the showers, dreading the demeaning towel thwumps he must've suffered, the stinging humiliation of it all.  But mostly I just remember his face and the sadness that lived there.

This was 8^th grade-- a brutal time for many children, including me.  It seems some of us existed only to serve as fodder for the popular kids, another reminder of the complex hierarchy that existed long before we walked those halls and undoubtedly echoes there still.  And as much teasing as I endured, as much humiliation as I felt for being unattractive and as much as I ached, literally ached to be accepted, to be "popular," it just had to be worse for him.  I was lonely and mostly alone in school, but I did have friends.  We huddled together at lunch time and between classes at our lockers—watching the popular kids lead better lives, the way we now watch the Hollywood starlets doing it. But Chris—and for some reason as I write this, I think his name was Chris—he was really alone.  I saw it and I pitied him and I wished for him that life would get better, get easier… but I didn't befriend him.

And as I stood in the aisle at the Hallmark store and watched the man who could be him 31 years later, I was wracked with shame.  Shame at how easily I shunned him—him and many others—the same way that the kids higher in the caste system shunned me, unless they needed answers at test time.  Shamed to know that my parents raised me better than that, that they taught me compassion, that as much as I like to think I'm a good person, I never reached across the divide and offered him a kind word.

I remember dreaming of being a cheerleader, or even Homecoming Queen—all those things that are emblazoned on a young girl's heart in Texas.  The wish list I had… but would never see realized.  Because curly-headed chubby girls with bad teeth, well, we may learn to touch the hearts of our readers, but we'll never be the Homecoming Queen. At best, we learn to tame our hair, get our teeth fixed and fight the battle of the bulge.  But the damage of Junior High, the damage that was done before we even had time to know our own worth, it's still there.  It lives below the surface, where it's not readily apparent, but there nonetheless. 

And on those nights when sleep won't come, the nights when The Boy sleeps with his back to me, the hours where my mind tells me over and over that I'm not good enough, I've never been good enough… I wonder.  I wonder who suddenly remembers my face across the chasm of time, and why he never bothered to learn my name.

Boys Are Stupid...And So Was I

It was March 2011 and Yoda (my shrink) was proud of me.

She said that I was approaching my dating life as if I were looking for a new job... sending out resumes, going on interviews, getting rejected and dealing with it, and ultimately learning to reject as well.  I was playing my dating life like a numbers game. 

My coworkers were certainly enjoying it-- we actually whiteboarded my prospects like they were in a sales funnel... and each post-date weekday morning found me giving them the hysterical play-by-play of the previous night's disaster.  Other people in the building that I hardly knew would stop by to see if one of their favorites had moved up in the standings or had been sunsetted.

But after eight months of it, I was playing the game without much joy.

I had been out with architects, TV reporters, pilots, entrepreneurs, dabblers/zombie aficionados, interventionists, executives, plumbers, log home salesmen, general contractors, and people whose careers were so mind-numbingly boring that I can't remember what they did.  Seriously, throw in an Indian and it was like I had dated the freaking Village People. I had wasted countless gallons of hair goop and eyeliner on dates that couldn't end quickly enough to please me.  I had shaved my legs almost raw and purchased copious amounts of new lingerie in the event I felt anyone was worth "greenlighting." I had more scoop-necked clingy sweaters, pencil skirts and stilettos than good sense. 

But I hadn't met "the one."

I had thirty-one phone numbers programmed into my phone with the last name "Match." There was both a Brian and a Bryan, a Greg and a Gregg, a Mike and a Mikael; a Rich and a Rick. I had been out with a man who was beyond morbidly obese (and had both a pronounced limp and facial warts), a man who may have actually weighed less than me, a six-foot-fiver and a five-foot-fourer.  I'd briefly dated a man 12 years my junior and had gone out with several who were at least 10 years my senior. I had made out with and been subsequently drenched by a man who apparently sweats when he's nervous. I'd been out with both a Quinn and a Duke.  I occasionally had more than one date a day.  I met for coffee, for cocktails, for wine-tasting, for sushi, for appetizers, for whitewater rafting and for football watching. I once even met a guy for a first date at a grocery store.

Where was he?

I provided small talk for hours on end, laughed at jokes that weren't funny, feigned interest in stories that were mind-numbing.  I texted and sexted and tried to remain my charming best at all times. I had been stalked. I waxed, I plucked, I shaved.  I colored my hair, did my nails, kept my feet free of dead skin.  I flossed obsessively. I had my teeth whitened and used ridiculously expensive creams on my "dark spots" and wrinkles. I counted calories like my life depended on it and went to bed hungry so often it was almost Dickensian. I constantly re-applied lipstick and powder throughout my work day in the event that a single guy would stumble into the building and notice me.

I was fucking exhausted.

And yet, I was still alone.

With Yoda's help, I had made the very important self-esteem journey between wondering what was wrong with me to wondering what was wrong with everyone else.  One night I found myself on the phone with a friend, ranting and raving about how stupid men were for not noticing what an amazing catch I was. While I wish I had an actual transcript of the conversation because I was clearly having a remarkable moment of high self-esteem that I'd like to roll out for myself from time to time (like when my "fat jeans" are too tight), here's what I remember:

"I'm a green-eyed redhead with a six-figure income and double Ds.  I own my own home.  I am debt-free.  I'm a college-educated award-winning marketer with a great career.  I play the piano.  I'm a classically-trained vocalist, an excellent writer.  I have an IQ of 146. I have a family that loves me and a wide circle of friends who adore me.  I'm quick-witted and highly creative.  I like football, for God's sake. I'm pretty, damn it. I'm well-traveled, well-read and a great conversationalist.  I'm the thinnest I've been in a decade and I'm fucking funny. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MEN?  WHY CAN'T THEY SEE ME?"

And I was so lonely and focused on that sense of being alone that I couldn't see that what had been missing all along was finally here.  I didn't need a man to tell me I was wonderful-- I needed to know I was wonderful.  I finally had an appreciation for who I was, for what I had accomplished in my life and for all I had overcome.  If I could travel back in time, I'd smack myself. 

And that's when I stopped looking...and the greatest cliche of all played itself out right in the middle of my life:  It found me.

Sugar Coat

Although I spend my days toiling in relative marketing anonymity for a large company in a cubicle more suitable for raising veal, like many of you I have delusions of grandeur.  And every now and then, one of these delusions becomes a full-blown business plan-- which to me is really just a long, often drunken, rant about something that someone should do or create or stop doing and for which I then design an elaborate marketing plan that no one will ever implement. 

I'm no Ivy League grad-- but that's what a business plan is, right?

And my latest business plan is for a lingerie line that I've elegantly named "Sugar Tw*t."

Why lingerie? you may find yourself asking.  My answer, as it often is when it comes to why I do, think, or say anything is:  I honestly don't know.  It's possible I just wanted to use the word "twat" in a sentence.

Lingerie has little importance in my life, as is evidenced by the fact that every piece of it that I own is sitting in a moving box in the garage-- and has been sitting there for 4 months.  It's been out there for so long that I now realize I need to wash it all because aside from my lingerie and yearbooks, the number one thing we store in our garage is garbage.  Rotting, ickily fragrant garbage.  Seriously-- it's like an episode of "Hoarders" in there.  We had friends over last weekend and I made them promise me they wouldn't go into the garage because honestly, I'm afraid people will think we're insane.  Hey, also just ignore the pile of horse bones in the driveway.  No crazy to see here!

The problem is, there is no trash service in our rural "neighborhood"-- which means to dispose of garbage, we have to pack it into our cars and drive it to the dump.  And I promise you, this is every bit as glamorous as it sounds.  Calling it a "trash run" doesn't make it fun or less smelly. To further complicate things, the dump is conveniently located 25 minutes away and is only open on Saturdays and Mondays until 2 p.m.  To further further complicate things, we're both lazy, I insist on sleeping in every single Saturday and there's not a chance in hell I'm letting The Boy pack garbage into my brand-spanking new BMW X3. Would Molly Ringwald's "Breakfast Club" character Claire do a trash run?  I think not.

I once tried to point out to him that I'm certain there are people who would come and pick up our trash if we put it out-- to which he replied, "Yes, they're called bears."  For me, this caused an immediate and disturbing mental image of a bear (not of the Prophecy sort) wearing my lingerie.  I didn't share the visual with him as there are many mental associations I'd like for him to make when it comes to me-- and a fat, furry, hirsute thing in ill-fitting lingerie is not one of them.

It is truly frightening what one can find on the internet.

Maybe my real issue with lingerie is in its marketing.  Every time I see a Victoria's Secret ad that attempts to show me "What's Sexy Now," I almost black out because I roll my eyes that far and high in my skull.  Apparently "what's sexy now" is super-thin 17-year olds with such massive overbites that they can't even close their lips over their own teeth.  And I can't help but think, "how is that any different than what has always been sexy and why do women fall for this?"  Or, my issue could be that lingerie is really not designed for girls like me...and because when purchasing it I live in fear that the saleswoman will assume I need a gift box.  Um, no thanks.  It's for me. Now, if you'll excuse me,  I've got a date with a McDonald's chocolate shake. And I suspect we're gonna have to super-size it at this point. So, you know, thanks for that.

Or maybe it's just because it's stupid.  I mean, seriously?  Do I have to wear something to make you want me to wear nothing?  I'd think that my ratty rank top and men's boxers would be reason enough to disrobe me.

So, back to my brilliantly-conceived "Sugar Tw*t" business plan.

What I need for you to understand is that I'm not talking about doing something on a small scale here.  I'm going BIG-- with multiple lines of business, retail boutiques, a strong online presence, a definitive social media strategy, and an adorable logo:

Special thanks to Chad G for the logo!

I'd make some effort to have a "typical" line of lingerie that everywoman could purchase at a reasonable price.  This would just be the "Everyday Tw*t " line.

• There would be the "Tw*t Couture" line, featuring avante garde and ridiculously expensive unwearable pieces.
• The "Hot to Tw*t" line for our equestrian ladies.
• The "Sugar Tw*t Tween" line for the Hunger Games set.
• "Sugar Tw*t Tot" for the stylish toddler on the go.
• "Alot of Tw*t" for the plus-sized among us.
• "Tw*t Pour Homme" featuring silk robes and whatnot for the gentlemen.
• A line of marital aids called "Fifty Shades of Tw*t" for the literary submissives.
• A cookbook titled "Tw*t's For Dinner."
• An XM radio station called "Tw*t Talk." 

You could follow us on Tw*tter or even call our Tw*tline (Tw*ts are standing by!).  I mean really, the possibilities are endless.  Well, maybe not endless...but let's face it, I could run this into the ground for a really, really long time. 

I think this could be UGE, people. The kind of huge that's so big you can't even pronounce the "H." 

UGE.

And if not, I can always go with my back-up fashion line for the corporate woman who isn't fond of the sensible pantsuit.  I call the look "Whoreporate."

I really only need a few investors...and I know I can count on you.  You in?

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Bear

I love springtime in the woods.

Watching the aspen trees wake up and cloak themselves in fuzzy catkins, seeing our plum tree erupt into beautiful lavender & pink blooms, being able to finally show some skin after months and months of putting on winter weight underneath my flannel jammies and bulky sweaters... It's gorgeous. Well, not so much the skin I'm showing, which is more like dried-out fishbelly-white leather rippling with dimples in all the wrong places. But the nature stuff, it's dazzling.

Perhaps the best part is that we start to get thunderstorms in April here at 7,000 feet. 

Last night we had a pretty decent storm. The Boy and I turned off all of the lights, wrapped up in fluffy robes, poured ourselves a springtime cocktail (make yourself a Chilton sometime:  Citron vodka, club soda, squeeze of fresh lemon), and sat on the porch to watch.

Wow.

The moon was still fairly new and it must have been cloudy because it was dark. Daaaaaaaaaark.  Like "Dark Shadows" dark.We live far enough outside of Denver that we don't get any light pollution and with little light coming through the clouds, we couldn't tell where the sky ended and the treeline began... until lighting would crash and expose everything as if a giant flash bulb had gone off. We gasped each time it happened and then laughed at ourselves for gasping.  It was amazing.

And then... I thought of Ka Tah Din.

Behold: Ka Tah Din

That's right, the Prophecy Bear.

You may find yourself asking:  Um, what?

In 1979 for my friend Terena's birthday, her Mom took a couple of us girls to the movies. We saw a horror film named "Prophecy." To the best of my recollection, the monster from the movie was this giant mutant bear-- created by the toxic waste generated by a saw mill. I honestly don't remember much about the movie except that it took place in the woods and there was this horribly ugly mama bear that looked like a burn victim covered in strawberry jelly-- and let me tell you, she was pissed.  And I may not be remembering this correctly, but I believe the final scene of the movie featured a shot of this extraordinarily angry mutant bear standing on her hind legs and shrieking and roaring towards the sky as her tormentors flew away in a helicopter.

There was no helping this bear. She didn't belong here, not unlike the T.rex inside the buidling lobby at the end of "Jurassic Park."  I was terrified of her-- but I also pitied her. If only we humans didn't need so much saw-milled wood, this poor creature could have lived a normal, cuddly bear life.

And last night for some reason, in the dark out here, my mind reached across the span of 33 years and conjured up the image of this ickily frightening bear standing on her hind legs, railing against her fate. And per my recollection of the ending of the movie, she is still out there.

And it spooks the hell out of me.

I told Derek about Prophecy Bear for the first time last weekend as we drove home late from a night on the town.We were on the lonely, winding road that goes up through the canyon, and after such a delightful evening of amazing food (Bistro Vendome) and wonderful theatre ("Wicked," OMG so good), the thought of a giant mutant jelly-covered she-bear seemed laughably preposterous.

But last night, in the booming, flashing dark...Ka Tah Din seemed entirely plausable. And quite possibly nearby.

So there we were, seated on the front porch, holding hands and delighting in nature's light show. There was a giant explosion of light followed by a huge rumble of thunder...and I whispered "I'm thinking of  Prophecy Bear."

We both laughed. Him, at me, because it is clearly ridiculous to be afraid of a fake mutant bear from a horror movie I saw before I even got my boobies. And me, because I was spooked and didn't want to show it.  And because I also know it's stupid.  And yet...

We stayed outside until the storm was over, then went to bed. Derek dozed off quickly after lights-out...but I lie awake for quite a long time, thinking of poor, misunderstood, terrifying Prophecy Bear. And wondering if she still roams the woods, looking for her creators. My house is made of wood, after all-- and doesn't that count me among the guilty?



Rosie-Colored Glasses

I enjoy people watching.

It is probably more grammatically correct to say that I enjoy watching people, but "people watching" just sounds better...and somehow less stalky. 

I think I learned this behavior from my Dad. Sometimes when we'd have Father/Daughter outings, he'd make up stories for me about the people around us on the highway or in a store or in line at the bank.  Once we were cruising down Interstate 45, headed to Galveston for a day of fishing (yes, fishing-- Dad wasn't sure what my interests were), and he noticed a couple driving a camper in the next lane.  He decided their names were Jim & Rosie.  He told me that Jim & Rosie criss-crossed the countryside in their little camper, regaling new friends with their travel tales and delighting their tastebuds with Rosie's famous campfire biscuits.  Jim, the perfect gentleman who adored his wife...and Rosie, the perfect little homemaker, even on the road.

I am not making this up, although he certainly was. 

It's funny, the things we learn from our parents.  It's likely he was just filling the silence or trying to prevent my incessant rambling, but I loved that he made up stories for me while we people watched.  It was vastly preferable to his concerted attempts to embarrass me-- whether that was by pretending to trip on a curb when crossing the street downtown, or by loudly singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" while driving through our neighborhood with the windows down, or by telling perfect strangers that I took dance lessons.  Dad loved to make people laugh and if he could embarrass me by doing so, all the better.

I like to watch people in their quiet moments, when they are unaware they are being observed, like an elusive snow leopard chasing a mountain goat, or a chimpanzee studiously picking his nose.  Or like a human being doing either of those things, and preferably with a tissue.

Once I was in the drive-thru at Starbucks and noticed an older couple seated at a table inside, talking.  I was pulled up parallel to the window, and while I could see the woman's face, the man had his back to me.  She appeared to be in her early 80's...and she was animatedly telling a story.  Her eyes were flashing and she was smiling and gesturing and I could kind of see what she must have looked like when she was young.  The late afternoon sunlight was falling through the window onto her creased face and I thought to myself that she was quite beautiful as she spoke.

And then the man seated across from her reached out and gently caressed her face while she talked.  His wedding ring actually glinted in the shaft of sunlight.

It was lovely. 

It was so private and caring...and in that moment, my head made up an amazing love story for the two of them that involved ill-timed wars, hardships, laughter in the rain, and a wrap-around porch covered in grandkids, rocking chairs and cats.  My mind told me these two people had weathered the good and bad times and still loved each other with such force that he couldn't help but touch her face when she spoke.  The quiet, comfortable stillness between them was gorgeous.

(Nevermind that I was thinking of World War I or II and the timing would be totally off.  Clearly my Mathtardedness doesn't hinder my imagination.  I know this because when I imagined the lifetime of these two people who were sitting in full-color right in front of me, I imagined them in black & white.)

I never did see the man's face.  The line in front of me moved, I pulled up to the window, paid for my skinny vanilla latte, and headed to my then-empty home.  I started crying in the car because I so desperately wanted what those two people had...or rather what I imagined they had.  For all I know they were on their second date and he was making her uncomfortable by touching her and infringing on her bubble. Or perhaps, this was Jim & Rosie thirty-five years later... and the camper was resting comfortably in the parking lot.  Maybe in his twilight years, Jim developed a fondness for scones that Rosie's campfire biscuits simply couldn't satisfy. 

It was late March 2011.  I had received a couple of communications through eHarmony from a man named Derek who lived in a town I'd never heard of somewhere in the mountains.  He had kind eyes, a thoughtfully written profile...and I had been ignoring him for weeks.  Earlier that day I had exasperatedly asked Yoda (my shrink) just exactly where Sedalia was anyway in the hope that it was too far... and I realized that for some time, I had been looking for reasons to stop trying to date.  I was close to giving up on the kind of love I had sought for a lifetime... and quite possibly, it was sitting in my eHarmony inbox with dimples and a love for mountain biking and dogs.

I went home, curled up with my laptop, opened Derek's email, and replied by asking him if we could skip all the e-Harmony hoop-jumping.  "Here's my phone number, I'd love to chat with you."

Then I cried a little bit more, because I was terrified that I'd never be loved like Rosie.

Mildred-Age Crazy

I bought a really big purse today.  Really big.  And I'm not sure if I'm okay with it.

Sure, it's a Coach. A finely crafted leather bag, if ever there was one, and at a moderate price point. And of course it's in basic black...cuz I'm still just traditional and budget-conscious enough to realize that it goes with EVERYTHING. And yes, I can put my iPad in it, which should quiet the constant nagging fear I carry with me that I will leave the best birthday present EVER somewhere.

But it's large.  LARGE.

And it feels like maybe I've crossed over a threshold here.

When I was growing up, my Grandma Mildred carried a very large purse.  It was white, and as I recall it had many compartments, the way an old lady's purse does.  She kept her head scarves in there, for when her hair was freshly set. And a plastic rain bonnet for when it was raining. And empty Wonder Bread bags that she used in lieu of baggies (she had lived thru the Depression and was quite thrifty). I don't know what else she carried, but whenever I watched "Let's Make a Deal" with my Mom and Monty Hall would bargain with the ladies in the audience for totally bizarre items they might have in their purses, I always thought that Mildred would make a killing in that scenario. After all, this was the woman who cut bacon in half because it "made more."

So I found myself in the Coach store today, in dire need of retail therapy after an exceptionally emotional and grueling week at work (survived big layoffs and a re-org-- more on that at some point, I'm still digesting).  My current purse, while quite stylish in its own right, was beginning to seem too small for the things I find I now need to carry in addition to my wallet and a small make-up bag: Prescription glasses (in a large case) for meetings in which a projector is used or for driving at night; prescription sunglasses (in an even larger case) for daytime driving; asthma inhaler; random wads of Kleenex; iPhone; work badge (for admittance to building); Tums (for very recent onset of stress-induced acid attacks); various prescription meds...aaaaaand the extremely unglamorous list continues. I found that each time I needed to retrieve something from this purse, I had to take EVERYTHING out of it.  And on work mornings, when I'm speed-walking from the parking garage to the building in 5 inch stilettos while on a conference call juggling a Venti Starbucks, a briefcase and the purse that ate...hmmm, let's say Kokomo, Indiana...I can't play Tiny Purse Jenga. At least with my current number of arms.

In no time, I found a nice large black leather hobo bag that seemed to fit the bill.  I threw it over my shoulder picturing all the skinny Hollywood starlets and their giant handbags featured in the "Stars: They're Just Like Us!!" section of Us Magazine and stole a glance in the mirror to see how it looked. And you know who I saw?  Grandma Mildred. With a pretty decent dye job and stiletto heels...but Grandma Mildred nonetheless.

And you know what?  That pisses me off.  Like, A LOT.

I'll be 46 in three months.  This means I am sliding towards 50, which doesn't even seem possible.  Fifty?  That's a bad surprise party waiting to happen.  That's a Buick LeSabre. That's a character that Molly Shannon used to do on SNL, for Christ's sake.  But that for sure as hell IS NOT ME. I was supposed to be someone-- I was supposed to be a wunderkind, a child prodigy.  I was at least supposed to be a skinny starlet with a gigantic bag.

Long story short, I bought it.  I brought it home, placed it on the kitchen table and eyed it suspiciously all evening as it quite literally loomed largely in my peripheral vision.  And then finally I unwrapped it and started transferring the contents of my now super-chic and somehow young small purse into the giant old lady satchel I just had to procure.  I got everything crammed in and found myself thinking: Oh my God, I'm not sure this is big enough.

So tomorrow, I'm going out to buy a box of calcium supplements.  Quite frankly, I'm surprised they weren't "Free With Purchase of Large Old Lady Bag."  (Marketing genius?)  Not only will I be able to carry them in my new purse-- but they will help to prep my old lady bones for lugging around the next size in my journey toward Mildred-Age.

Plus, I think if I cut it in half, it'll make more.

The Brady Bunch Experiment

Moving is hard. 

Especially the way I do it, which ought to be captured via time-lapse photography.  Kind of like glacial movement, lichen-growing, or the compounded interest I'm earning on my many, many investments.

For those of you playing at home, I began splitting time between my house and The Boy's last April.  It started with me and Jackson (my high-strung and highly vocal dog) heading out to the woods on Friday nights and returning to our place in the 'burbs Sunday evenings.  It was a great arrangement, except for my two cats Kip and Cali, who had to spend their weekends seething and staring into space, respectively, in relative silence.  Occasionally, I'd spend a Friday night at my house in the event I had Saturday in-town stuff to attend to-- but on the whole, I started thinking of D's place as my weekend home in the mountains. 

Sometime in late April, I was granted a drawer.

Shortly thereafter, I took the drawer ownership as an opportunity to go buy duplicates of all hair and make-up necessities, including (but not limited to) creams, powders, gels, mousses, products, brushes, combs, mirrors, balms, appliances and various accoutrements.  The whole toiletry packing and unpacking thing had grown quite tiresome and I lived in fear that I would awaken Monday morning to find that I had left something crucial (mousse, eyeliner) at D's.  And if you know me at all, you know I'd call in sick before showing up at the office with air-dried hair or unlined eyes.  The horror.  Several hundred dollars later, I was all set.

I loved being at D's house...but it had never really accommodated a girly-girl prior to my arrival.  As he once remarked, none of his drinking glasses had ever even been contaminated by the ever-present and dishwasher-resistant scourge of lipstick prior to my occupation.  So clearly we all had to make sacrifices.  I became nomadic and now responsible for laundry and cleaning at two houses, and he became adept at pre-washing glasses and removing wine stains from the furniture and carpet.

Before too long, Friday through Sunday just wasn't enough as we left the early stages of infatuation and moved right into the "I can't breathe without you" phase.  So now Jackson and I were heading out to the woods on Thursday evening and I wasn't returning to my house until Monday morning, and that was just to drop Jax off before heading to work.  It was wonderful, except for my cats, who now engaged in an all-out war for my affection Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night.  There was cat drama of the highest accord... plotting, grooming, stalking, chasing, biscuit-making, hissing, pfft-pffting, and enough subterfuge to make me feel like Pinky (or was it The Brain?)... and I felt horribly guilty.  I was also fairly certain that Jax was taunting them with woodsy adventure tales featuring large amounts of shellfish and bragging that I loved him more, as was clearly evidenced by my active and weekly cat-snubbing.

This continued for some time, with D and I getting more comfortable together and talking more and more about cohabitation...and my house in Lakewood serving as nothing more than an incredibly expensive cat storage device.

Finally, we decided it was time to conduct what we thought of as "The Brady Bunch Experiment."  This entailed packing up the cats and taking them out to the woods to introduce them to Gus and Boo, Derek's yellow and black labrador retrievers, respectively.  I kind of thought Jax could serve as an intermediary, since he already knew everyone and had such a calming demeanor (and that, my friends, is what you call "sarcasm"-- because that is one hyper dog) .  You know, he'd say something like "Gus, this is Kip.  He enjoys plastic bags and sunbeams.  Kip, Gus enjoys drooling and waking up at 6:30 a.m." 

So the weekend before Thanksgiving, we all headed into the mountains.  Two very angry cats that had been unceremoniously stalked, trapped and stuffed into traveling crates, then transported for 45 very loud and mewling minutes out to Derek's house...and two labs who had no idea they were getting new and very miffed siblings. And Jax, who just wanted to eat pork products.

Cali (my girl cat) was definitely the Jan Brady of the bunch:  Quiet, lacking self-confidence, prone to wearing afro wigs to parties in a relentless search for her own identity.  Kip was decidely the Peter Brady, quick with a joke, a fan of pork chops and apple sauce, and always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.  Gus, aka "Mr. Perfect," served as Greg Brady-- captain of the football team, good with the ladies, and deserving of his own bedroom (largely due to a flatulence issue, if you ask me). Boo was definitely Bobby Brady, bringing a little goofiness mixed with a large dose of bon ami, and a fresh freckled face.  And Jax? With his golden locks, prissy demeanor and obsession with all things sausage-- well, he was definitely Marsha Brady.

Clearly we were missing a Cindy...and that was okay.  Cindy was so fucking annoying and who needs a new Shirley Temple anyway?  That's my role.  And no doubt between 2 houses, 2 adults, 3 dogs and 2 cats, we needed an Alice.  But this was not to be.  Although Jackson did make a strong and deeply-felt case for the necessity of Sam the Butcher.

And strangely...it worked.  Kip immediately became a dog and ran with the pack around the living room.  Cali hid for approximately two weeks, as was her nature, and then surprised all by joining us on the couch to watch movies one evening. Gus and Boo were very curious about her and so respectful of her shyness, they immediately seemed like the big brothers she never had (although she's the eldest by 10 years).  And Jackson mostly ran around, barking and peeing on things, just like Marsha Brady.

Our little family was complete. 

And happy.

And shedding copious amounts of hair-- and that was just me.

So we knew it would work.  And one night two months later, after none of us had made the trek back to the 'burbs to what had now become just a very expensive furniture and emotionally-charged momento storage unit, we decided it was time to put my house on the market and move from the "I can't breathe without you" stage fully into the "Holy crap, there's no place to put all my things" stage.

That happens tomorrow, after weeks of packing.  I'm excited.  And nervous.  And exhausted.  And quite frankly, covered in pet hair. 

But now we're finally the Johnson-Ogg Bunch... and we found a name for our tractor:  Cindy.