Monday, June 14 2021

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everybody! Happy Monday. There are pros and cons to going back to work today. Con - I took off Friday and there is still a lot of incident clean-up to get to. Pro - my on-call shift ends at 11 AM, and that makes me so happy I might commemorate the moment by flinging my phone out my bedroom window like a Frisbee. Con - I have a lot of unanswered slack threads to tie off. Pro - the coffee tastes delicious today. God, I love coffee.

Sip. Speaking of love, today is my anniversary. I don't have the date memorized, but June 14th sounds familiar. Plus, I've kept our wedding photo website up, and I had the foresight to put the full date at the top for easy reference.

Marissa and I don't have any special plans today. I'm not waking her up with mimosas or inviting her out to the backyard for a surprise horse ride. The best we've got this morning for a romantic surprise is the four shredded toilet paper rolls that Minnie left all over our bedroom floor this morning while I was in the shower.

Marissa hired a baby sitter for this Thursday night. Maybe we should just retroactively make that our anniversary celebration. Here's to seven years with my lovely bride, who is only getting more lovely each day.

Sip. So happy Monday. Minnie really did leave toilet paper all over the place. It's an absolute mess in our bedroom right now. I suspected she was up to trouble when I heard her tiny feet thumping around the bedroom while I was in the shower. I stacked four shredded up rolls of toilet paper out of her reach, and I also found a giant dirty leaf in the mix. She flew down the stairs, and in the next moment I heard a flurry of beeps and rattles coming out of the play corner. Minnie has somehow figured out how to jump over the gate which partitions off the play corner, but whatever she does to jump inside doesn't work to jump out. It's become commonplace to find her trapped in the play corner. But like a child, she quickly gives up on finding a way out and finds a new toy to distract herself instead.

We had a slow, quiet weekend. The sniffles lingering around our neighborhood finally came for Marissa. Rodney, Miles, and I held it down while she hunkered down all Sunday. Taking care of momma heightened Rodney's sense of responsibility. He followed me around most of the day, helping me with clean-up and chores.

Rodney gets really excited for laundry day. He asks about his clothes throughout the week, with special attention on specific outfit combinations. When I finally dumped out his clean laundry onto the bedroom floor, his confidence soared. First was his favorite pair of Spider-Man boxers - the cornerstone to all his favorite outfits. Through the morning, he indecisively cycled between his Spider-Man suit and his blue Miles Morales t-shirt. He wore his favorite maroon pants out shopping with me. In the evening, he went with his Minecraft pajamas, which played nicely off his Ray Beezies.

Grocery shopping was a highlight for both of us. Making the first turn by the bakery aisle, Rodney told me he had to go to the bathroom. A sign reading out of order plastered over the men's room stopped us in our tracks. But the helpful worker behind the bakery guided us to the other bathroom - all the way on the other side of the store by the pharmacy. Savoring every moment of the mystery, Rodney and I stepped inside.

"It's beautiful," said Rodney.

"Dude, a private bathroom. Pretty sweet," I said.

"Huh? A pirate bathroom? I don't see any pirates."

After collecting our haul, we choose a checkout aisle. Rodney carefully selected a candy bar while I placed each item on the cart. Seeing the six bagged up Fuji apples jogged my memory, and I realized we had forgotten to buy a lemon.

"Want a special job?" I asked. I knelt down on the floor by Rodney. "I need one lemon. Get it really quick."

Rodney nodded and bolted off to the right. "Na na na na," I said, calling him back. "Produce is over there dude."

Rodney made a swoosh noise with his mouth. He pumped his arms, zig-zagging between the flower wall and the pastry stand. He paused in front of the fruit stand, grabbing a single lemon. He sprinted back to me, holding it high above his head. Nailed it.

After dinner, we chilled out on the couch with Momma. I fixed us both a new drink: 1 finger of cognac, two fingers of apple juice, a packet of Emergen-C, and ice. In the shower this morning I decided to call the new cocktail Daddy's Medicine.

We let Rodney stay up past his bedtime to watch some of the Westminster dog show, but he only made it to the terrier group. Marissa and I kept watching until they announced the final winner. A single judge paced authoritatively around the ring, glaring at each contestant.

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered by how un-democratic the Westminster dog show is? There's no voting. There's no objective scoring system. There's only one judge, and she writes her favorites on a piece of paper. The live commentators bragged about her experience with each breed and the specific things she looks for in a champion, but from what I can tell that list just lives in her head. I felt bad for the dogs - some of their owners traveling from half way around the world just to please a single, all-knowing oracle on a vague standard of "excellence".

"Ugh, the pekingese always wins," sighed Marissa. "They just love those dogs."

Case in point. How is it fair that the other dogs get their backs pinched and their testicles cupped only to lose out to a dog that looks like a cartoon from the Scrubbing Bubbles commercials. The judge didn't even touch the pekingese. She just stood from a distance and smiled upon it like a favorite child.

Look, I don't have a dog in this race. I could give two shits about the Westminster Kennel Club. But from my brief annual flyover, the Westminster Kennel Club needs to seriously revamp how this thing is judged. It's 2021. You can't keep papering over your biases with words like instincts and intangibles. If this lady is so experienced in her field, then she should have no problem explaining why she gives the best in show to an ewok from Star Wars every year. Westminster Kennel Club - get it together you chumps!

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great Monday, everyone.