Just call me the bachelorette. My loving husband has abandoned me and our seven furry children for Washington, D.C. Now, there is a significant upside to having the house all to myself. I can make all the stuff he hates to eat: onion and rosemary pizza, pasta puttanesca, bagels and lox, and – my personal favorite – stuffed cabbage soup. I’ve got plans to entertain myself: the University’s annual drag show on Friday, our College’s annual Honors Day on Saturday, and the Art Department’s reception for its Senior Show on Sunday. I might even go see the Repertory Project’s rendition of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” if I can get over the fact that I’ll have to go solo. Somewhere in there, I have papers to finish grading, a departmental report to start writing, and a pile of research-related books to keep reading.
And yet, there are significant cons to being home alone. I have to scoop the cat box on a daily basis. My puppy keeps finding new and entertaining to chew up. My big dog is scared of the rain. The last item is really a problem, seeing how it’s pissing buckets outside. I spent a significant chunk of time (well, 10 minutes) standing in the front yard, getting frizzy hair and slimy leather clogs, begging the dog to go poop. He didn’t, so I am sure that I’ll be getting a 3 a.m. wake up call.
I also live in an old, old house which creaks and shutters in the wind. Normally, this wouldn’t freak me out, but I swear that the tornado/thunderstorm/insert-your-own-natural-disaster-here, high pitched siren has been going off for 30 minutes now. I’ve checked the TV. Nada. The internet. Zilch. The weather radio. Zip. I assume that there’s a short in the system while keeping my fingers crossed that a giant tree branch doesn’t fall on my house in the middle of the night!
Sidebar: When I sat down to write this blog entry, I intended to write about helping The Coach pack for his trip. I was going to tell you that we sorted through all our travel supplies – you know what I’m talking about – and found out that we had enough Imodium to clog up all of the residents of a small country for at least a week. There were four half used boxes of dental floss, three half used boxes of Q-Tips, three mini-first aid kits, and enough shampoo that I could wash every animal in my house and still have enough left for The Coach’s football players to clean up after particularly muddy game. I’d tell you that I am not sure how it all accumulated, but that would be a lie. I know how we got all that stuff because I buy new supplies every time I go on a trip because I am too lazy to dig through the bathroom cabinet. Oh well, at least I’m not like that guy on The Marriage Ref who had to go out and buy an Ikea cabinet to store all the stuff that he swiped from hotel rooms.
Editor’s Note: Our regularly scheduled programming — otherwise known as Tales of Oaxaca — will return this weekend.