I know it’s really andd truly winter when I take the dogs outside on a clear night, and Orion the Hunter looms large, just slightly off to the south. Jupiter is off Orion’s left shoulder, about to slip over the roof of my house to the west. When I let the dogs back out in the morning, Orion hovers over someone else’s night, and Venus is twinkling faintly in his place.
Why do I love the heavens so much? Maybe I read Voyage of the Dawn Treader too many times (just kidding, no such thing) and like to imagine I’m sailing toward the eastern edge of the world to find the seven lost lords of Narnia. Or maybe it is just how stargazing reinforces my inconsequentiality, which I find very freeing. In any case, I always enjoy Orion’s return.
Here on earth, strange things are happening as we inch toward the week to nowhere. Earlier this month I placed a $15 order with IKEA; a few days later I received both my order and someone else’s (very large) order, which was also addressed to me. I attempted to correct this using IKEA’s online chat, and I don’t know if you’ve ever tried this, but IKEA’s chat avatar is a cartoon bear with a name like GJUNDSVAR. The bear avatar stays on even after someone has entered the chat and said their name is Srinivasan or Eric or what have you.
When your internet connection drops (because of course it does), the chat window will say “Oh no! GJUNDSVAR has gotten some lingonberry jam on his paws! You’ll have to start over!” (This happened to me twice, with two separate incidents involving lingonberry jam, which, get your shit together, cartoon bear.)
When I finally got IKEA to agree to pick up the misdirected order, they gave me a date one week hence. Obviously, they did not show up; the box of goodies is either going to the Habitat ReStore or the Purple Heart Veterans. Sorry to whoever did not get their shower curtain, storage bins, clothes hangers, and pillow inserts; I hope GJUNDSVAR kept his paws out of the lingonberry jam long enough to help you.
Another strange thing: One morning recently, I forgot to give my little dog her morning drugs (half a Prozac, one trazodone). When I tell you it would be easier for me to leave the house without pants on than forget to give my little dog her drugs, I am underselling the rigor with which I administer her medication. The dog gets her drugs. We could run out of coffee, forget to take out the trash, neglect to pay the sewer bill, but the dog. Gets. Her drugs.
Nevertheless, I did forget, and I did put her and her brother in fleece jammies, and I did take them to dog school for the day, where I assume she was a very big asshole the whole time.
(Me, later that night, wondering why my dog is galloping around the house mewing inconsolably at her lucha libre squeaky toy: OH FUCK)
IN CLOSING, I had planned to do a year-end review issue where I listed out things I liked and hated, but I got bored with it pretty quickly and you can always read back issues to remind yourself that I love watching Shetland and don’t like summer.