Hahaha, see link below, it’s my husband and Adrian Belew singing “A Hard Day’s Night” in Woodstock last evening. I’m home in Philadelphia with the dog this week, ordering insane meals from Grubhub and having my groceries delivered from Giant and Whole Foods. I just ordered fresh flowers, a grass fed steak for the dog, and some serious vegan ice cream for me. Hey, it’s hot outside and I’m old and retired.😎
I am not naming names, this is not an official Top Chef spoiler, but it is kinda so here’s your warning if you’re planning to watch it later.
I can’t fucking believe a series in which I invested three months of my life and really had a spectacular finale now has to deal with a disgraced winner who might end up disqualified and losing the title of Top Chef…if there’s even such a thing in reality television world.
Gah! That will teach me.
I’m going back to listening to music 24/7.
But I was so shook up by it all yesterday that last night I had not one but two ridiculous nightmares right in a row and I’m sitting here now still shaking.
As I may have mentioned, I’m flying to Seattle on Tuesday morning to spend ten days with Julie.
In nightmare #1, I arrived at the airport without any luggage. I also left Gary without any instructions, like things he can do to keep busy while I’m gone and a refresher course in how to FaceTime with the iPad I got him for Christmas.
I was frantic but I was escorted onto the plane anyway by two security guards even though I told them repeatedly I couldn’t go without a suitcase.
I woke up at that point, went to the bathroom congratulating myself for just being nuts and not in Seattle without a change of clothes, went back to bed, and promptly had nightmare #2.
In the second half of this double feature, Gary and I sold our house. We were sitting in a room somewhere with money in…yep, a suitcase…and we had $500,000 which we kept trying unsuccessfully to count.
It suddenly dawned on me that we were now homeless and the way we spent money, we’d burn through this pile of dough in a couple years.
I couldn’t believe we did anything that stupid.
Luckily I woke up before I had a stroke.
So no clue why that happened, my subconscious clearly has issues, but I am beyond ecstatic to be going to Seattle Tuesday morning and joyously forging ahead with my plans.
But JFC, one of the reasons I wasn’t freaked out about getting older was that I thought I would finally be comfortable in my own skin and have zero fucks to give about anything.
Yeah, right.
I would dive in here and tell you what it’s really like getting older but I’ve been told it’s been done many times before.
Anyway…
Today feels like an eating day so it’s French fries for dinner tonight with maybe a Jersey tomato and mayonnaise sandwich on milk bread.
I know how to live.
Actually, as I sit here, I know we have all kinds of fresh berries in the house. Gary won’t be up for a few hours. I’m gonna go bake a breakfast dump cake.
Ever make one? Three ingredients, totally unhealthy except for the berries, and shockingly delicious if you don’t care about calories or ingesting chemicals.
Haha, works for me.
Happy Saturday!
Man, two years ago today, this was us:
We were on the way to Virginia Beach for Eric and Natalie’s wedding.
Time fries, huh.
Anyway, I got nothing today. We were supposed to go to Lowe’s, I hate going to places like that so much I made myself sick and now I’m too nauseous to go anywhere.
Anyway, while I suck on a saltine, enjoy this lovely clip of Julie and Eric as very young teenagers performing Inca Roads by Frank Zappa.
So on Thursday morning, we drove six hours to Roanoke, VA on the first leg of our journey to Nashville to see Eric and Natalie and tonight, go to their first live show since the pandemic.
Except today we are back in Philadelphia, having driven all the way back home Friday morning at 4:00 a.m. when Jake got deathly ill.
Without going into it, he’s okay now but he’s almost 12 years old, has had an insidious ear infection all year, and maybe we didn’t use the best judgment taking him on this trip.
Of course I’m devastated about not going to Nashville but I have nothing but time now, I will fly down there shortly.
Anyway, that’s my sad story for today.
Other than that, retirement is going great. I’ve gotten into a solid schedule of daily writing starting at 5:00a.m., which is why you’re seeing less of me here.
I’m playing around with a new idea that has me excited, a love letter to someone who is shocked to receive it, causing a series of crazy, unexpected life changing events.
That’s not the official synopsis but I am still working stuff out.
We’ll see.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I sent out a few chapters of a book I wrote on getting older called What the Hell Happened and I got very favorable agent reaction - “really funny and well written, but….
not breaking any new ground.”
Woo, that stung.
As you can imagine, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
Obsessively.
And I got invitations from two agents to send future work.
So, onward! I’m fired up now.
Will I try another agent, though, or go at it myself?
Don’t know.
I do know one thing. I would never publish without hiring a professional editor.
I have never read a book by a self published or small press author where I can’t tell if they’ve used a real editor.
It’s beyond embarrassing when they don’t.
Just don’t do it.
Yeah, so we’re in a groove now at Casa Slick. I write for around 3-4 hours until Gary wakes up, and while he drinks coffee upstairs for an hour, preparing for his rigorous 😂😂😂 day, I watch my food tv shows.
Omg, Top Chef. I’m not giving any spoilers but not only is this my all time favorite season, this week was my all time favorite show.
I cried.
Woo, speaking of crying, I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Between Jake and the state of our country.
Listen, I’m (mostly) done discussing politics here, but if you go back and read my posts between November 3-January 6, I was hysterical with fear over what I perceived could happen on said January 6.
Yeah, I was right.
So just a warning, I am ten times more positive we are getting #2 in August.
I really hope I’m wrong.
Oy vey do I.
Let’s see, what else.
Oh yeah, I do miss working. I think ideally in September I will look for something I can do a few hours 1-2 days a week downtown to get out of the house so I don’t get too loony.
Nah.
Hahaha, seriously, I might.
It will depend on Gary.
If at any point he makes me watch Matlock with him, I’m outta here and working a day or two.
All kidding aside, I wasn’t going to get into this, but I am noticing more and more how the pandemic has changed us and how Gary and I have gotten even weirder and less social.
I have to force myself to be around people and for the most part, other than the kids and a handful of friends, I still can’t do it.
I can’t stop my brain from overthinking everything and now it appears Gary has joined the club.
We talked the entire ride home from Roanoke.
Usually we listen to music and halfway home on long trips, he starts yelling at me to talk to him to keep him awake.
Under pressure to keep us alive, I suddenly run out of interesting things to say.
“Boy, that cheese was good last night.”
Nope, this time, when not talking about Jake, we discussed everything from Gary protesting outside of Fox News all summer to painting our upstairs bathroom bright, aqua turquoise with an old school diner black and white checked ceramic tile floor. And new retro style fixtures, etc.
We are so doing the bathroom.
I think we’re either going out today or tomorrow to buy stuff to start the process.
And now to bore you further:
We’re having blueberry pancakes for dinner tonight.
I’m beyond excited.
Okay, that’s enough of my silly life.
Have a great Saturday!
Welp, here’s another dream realized - donuts in Ocean City with the dog on a Tuesday. Because that’s what we do now.
So in the insanity of weeks of ten hour work days leading up to my retirement last month, and, two misses with new glasses and contacts until my eye doctor and I got it right and I can finally see out of my blurry left eye, I was waiting until I could enjoyably read my friend Ellen’s new book, The Rooftop Party.
Two years ago tonight, and one week before marrying my son, my beautiful daughter-in-law Natalie Prass did this ❤️
