Wednesday, March 9 2022

Dear Journal,

Ahhhhh. Good morning, everyone. That wasn't a contented sigh. That was a painful one, coming from deep within my tired body. The work, exercise, moving stuff - it's all catching up with me this morning. Sitting in this comfortable chair staring ahead with glazed eyes at the computer screen, I feel like everything hurts.

A fighter jet just flew over our house. The distant engine tearing through the sky just snapped me out of this zombie stooper. I remember the cup of coffee on the table.

Coffee, I need you now more than I ever have before. My legs give out, and I need your dark black wings to lift me out of this valley.

Sip. Ahhh, that's the good stuff. The real world is coming back into view. How is your week going? How was yesterday?

Yesterday was March 8th. The night before, on the 7th, Marissa reminded me that it was Ollie's birthday - his golden birthday.

Our dog Oliver has been in our family for so long, we felt a real responsibility to give him a special day in the midst of all the busyness. Luckily he's a dog of simple taste. Marissa took him along to pick Rodney up from school. They made a detour at the local dog treat shop. After dinner, we boxed his sisters in behind a baby gate and set him up in our best dinner table chair for a special treat.

"Go." said Marissa. Ollie, always so conscientious, hesitated. She waited until she said it again before he took his first lick.

As I watched Ollie lap at his giant milkbone slathered in chunky peanut butter, I took a quiet moment to myself to remember bringing him home. It was just me and Marissa in the car. Ollie, a puppy, was passed out in her lap with his warm pink belly taking all the cool air from the air conditioner. He stayed like that the entire drive home. Ollie has always been an easy dog to care for, and that made him a sturdy cornerstone on which to build our family.

Ollie got a special toy too. Marissa bought him a giant leggy green frog. It had squeakers in each of the feet. Luckily it was big enough to share with his sisters.

Sore? Tired? Running on fumes? It could be worse. You could be this green frog, and if you saw what our pack of wild corgis did to this frog, you would understand.

Yesterday was busy. The day melted away in code, slack, and zoom calls. Somewhere in the midst of it, Marissa told me that our microwave broke. I opened a new browser tab on my computer and punched the words microwave not heating. Marissa and I scowled as the search results appeared on the page. Words like multimeter and magnetron scared off our hopes of a DIY fix. I gather you need to be some kind of genius to repair a microwave, or at least an electrician.

"I'll call John," sighed Marissa. A moment later in the other room, I heard Marissa leave a chipper voicemail.

Rodney will be thrilled to have John the electrician over again. I know for a fact that Rodney plans on asking him about keeping an electric fish as a pet. What exactly is an electric fish? I have no idea, but maybe John will know. He's the electrician after all.

I placed a delivery order for poke, then Rodney and I sat at the edge of my bed and played video games. Minnie peeked her head in through the cracked bedroom door. She sauntered over to us, jumped on the bed, and wiggled between me and Rodney as if she wanted to watch.

We watched the Blackhawks game while we ate dinner. After pushing chicken teriyaki around his plate, Rodney left his seat to "plank" on the bench beside the window.

"OK, dude," I said without hesitating. "It's the hold still challenge."

"Don't move a muscle for five minutes," said Marissa.

Rodney held the position for about a minute. Of course, our real motive was just finding a way to watch the hockey game in silence, so we were grateful for what we could get.

Planking, water bottle flips, and epic fails - I'm not sure where Rodney is finding all these 2010 era fads. I'm sure there will come a time where Rodney finds new fads on his own, but for now it's like having my own personal time capsule from 2010.

Since I'm feeling tired this morning and I have one more picture on the computer desktop to share, I'm just going to drop this big old spider butt at the end of this entry.

Doesn't that look uncomfortable? This is a regular occurrence for young spiders. A dark, shiny, swollen butt is evidence that a shed is nigh. Spidey was probably surveying his box for a good spot to lay down a web hammock. He's very indecisive about this stuff, so he'll probably take another week or two to make up his mind.

That's what I got today. Hey, thanks for stopping by. Keep the coffee flowing, and have a good Wednesday.