This weekend, my four-year-old niece is coming to our house for a sleepover. I have ordered in supplies, including frosted animal cookies and those gross soylent green yogurt pouches children love for some reason. I have a can of Spaghettios and boxes of (organic) macaroni and cheese. We have apples ready for slicing.
I tend to be a little extra when my niece comes over because I am her aged aunt and that is what aged aunts do. Her unicorn sheets are on the guest bed and shortly I will get the unicorn nightlight out for her as well. We have bedrails, we have stepstools for the bathroom sinks, we have a drawer that is mysteriously replenished with toys and coloring books between visits. It goes without saying that I will not get much sleep the night she is here but she is very easy to entertain when she is awake, mostly because I am not her parents. Plus, when we drop her off, we get to go swimming.
Yesterday I finally found the time to finish putting new hardware on an old dresser I rescued from a nearby curb two years ago. In my defense, I ordered the new hardware almost immediately after bringing the dresser home, but whatever 100-year-old wood this thing is made of reduced my drill bits to something you’d buy in a pink box labeled My First Tool Set. But if nothing else, the pandemic has afforded me the opportunity to learn about things like brad point drill bits, and now all of the hardware is more or less in place. I also chose some fabric for an old chair my dad is recovering for us, so I’m feeling very accomplished.
This morning I was reminded of my favorite commercial. It is a tragedy that this ad only runs for part of the year, and if the company ever stops running it I will organize a letter-writing campaign to bring it back. Every time I watch this commercial, every time – even if I watch it several times in a row – I am guaranteed to LOL. This actor – the man on the left – deserves a fucking Emmy for his delivery, which is NOTE PERFECT, I dare you to say otherwise. There is a lot about the ad that is so good – the gingerbread man’s clothes are only on the front of him! Because they’re royal icing!! – but that last line gets me every time. Truly, I treasure it.
This morning I took both dogs to school and I was well and truly over them by the time we made the short drive to the daycare place. I put a new seat cover/dog containment device in the back seat of the new car, but I hadn’t gotten around to installing the don’t-you-fucking-jump-up-here barrier, so you can guess what happened. Nothing like a cold nose in the ear and trying not to swerve into oncoming traffic, haha!
Everything about the dogs is so labor-intensive right now. On one hand, I can’t wait for the puppy’s first birthday to roll around, but on the other hand, I also feel the pressure of needing every second of that time to engineer some of the personality defects out of her little dog brain. (Don’t @ me, she is defective, all dogs are defective, much like all people are defective, so relax.) I love her now and she is mine forever but God has truly sent this one to test me.