Thursday, May 21 2020

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! How is your Thursday going? I'm having a slow start today. There's something about a stomach full of quiche and Fantasy Factory beer that keeps me from leaping out of bed as quickly as I normally do. This morning's mood is a low grade headache, slow bathrobed shuffling around the kitchen, and drinking coffee like my life depended on it. It's a nice day outside, and as this might be the last nice day before heading into a rainy weekend, I might try to convince Rodney to play quietly in his sandbox so I can take the coffee drinking marathon to the porch.

Sip. Yesterday, Rodney created this little bit where he refers to me as Peter Parker Spider, expecting me to call him "Miles Spider". If you haven't seen Enter the Spider-Verse, well first off, it's a great movie to play in the background in the living room as you go on with your day - so I would get on that. And secondly, there's two characters, Peter Parker and Miles Morales, that evidently remind Rodney of our father & son dynamic when we hang out with each other.

"OK, Peter Parker Spider-Man, I'm gonna brush my toofies now," said Rodney.

"OK, that'd be perfect, Miles Spider. I'm going to shave real quick," I replied, emphasizing our new nick names.

"OH, I need to shave real quick too," said Rodney. He scooted his step stool over to bathroom closet, and with his small arm, fished out Marissa's eyelash curler from the very back. "Here it is," said Rodney taking a spot by the mirror. With much focus, Rodney stared into the bathroom mirror and probed his face with the makeup tool.

"Just a quick trim, Peter Parker Spider," said Rodney.

Rodney had such a mundane look about him, as if "shaving" with an eyelash curler were a regular occurrence. And who knows - he uses the bathroom by himself so often, that maybe he has been "shaving" with the eyelash curler regularly and I just haven't noticed yet. Rodney finished up, leaving the tool on the small bathroom shelf.

"That's good, dude - you can just leave it out for the next time you need it," I said. Rodney gave me a cross look.

"Sorry - That's good Miles Spider," I said, correcting my statement. And with a nod, we left the bathroom.

Rodney kicked off his morning with a cereal bar, a glass of cold milk, and some Blippi videos. Soon after, Marissa joined him on the couch with Miles. I took a seat next to them with a sticky note and pen in my lap.

"Sir, what are you thinking for lunch today," I said to Rodney.

"Oh - sure Peter Parker Spider," said Rodney. "How about... mac 'n cheese."

"Would you like Paw Patrol fruit snacks on the side?" I asked.

"YES," exclaimed Rodney. "Thank you, Peter Parker Spider."

We ate lunch on the deck, and after a walk, a quick nap, and a French cooking class session, I was back in the kitchen ready to prepare dinner.

"So this one is a quiche from scratch," I said to Marissa. "And it's kind of complicated - would you mind watching Rodney?"

"Sure!" she replied. "We can pull weeds outside - Rodney likes doing that."

And the quiche was complicated. Between making the short crust, blanching the pancietta, and mixing the filling together, I feel like I soiled every clean dish in my kitchen. And to further complicate things, I couldn't get our stubborn oven to heat up until about 6:15.

"I had to kind of shortcut the blind baking step," I said to Marissa. "Look - you can literally see the little sliver of raw dough in the bottom of your slice." I used the tip of my fork to point at her slice of quiche. "That's the last five minutes I skipped."

"It tastes good, though," said Marissa offering some consoling words. "And I think it looks beautiful."

"Thank you," I replied. "I would hope it tastes pretty good after an entire stick of butter, five eggs, a whole block of gruyere cheese, and the rest of the heavy whipping cream in our fridge." Marissa shuddered.

After putting Rodney to bed, Marissa and I made our way back out to the porch to enjoy the cool evening air. Marissa grabbed our hose and began to water the grass.

"So we were wrong about the grass seed," she said. "The grass poking up couldn't possibly be the new seed. That stuff takes five days at a minimum, but for us since it's been colder it will probably be a month."

"I suspected that was wishful thinking," I replied. Marissa tugged on the hose to gain more slack. Frustrated, she sighed.

"Our hose is the worst," she said.

"Our hose SUCKS," I added enthusiastically.

Our backyard hose is a hot mess. Covered in mud and gritty sand. A true hodgepodge of rusted, leaking adapters and segments. Even as Marissa released the trigger to talk to me about how terrible our hose was, a steady, noisy stream still fell from the nozzle.

"We gotta just redo the whole thing. New hose. A single continuous slack. Maybe if we want to get really fancy, we buy a big weighted spool so we can wind it up again."

Marissa finished watering the grass, and I tidied up the kitchen. Just before calling it a night, I approach our bread making station holding a small Tupperware container.

"So I'm going to do something kind of alarming," I said warning Marissa. "I'm moving Krang to a smaller container. I'm using up too much flour to feed him."

"Krang is gonna be so pissed," she said.

"I know. What's new, right?" I added two small scoops of Krang to the plastic container and walked the larger container to our garbage can.

"So just to be clear, this is still Krang, genetically speaking. He just has to give up his big fancy house," I explained. "I ordered him a nice little glass jar in the mail. Once that gets here, that will be the last move, I promise buddy."

Thanks for stopping by this morning. Happy Thursday, everyone.