Dad and I had a lot of time to chat the other day. Normally, chatting with my father is an exercise in restraint, confusion, irritation, and not a little head-shaking. This mostly stems from our differences of opinion on the Internet...and Aprilaires. Oh, and that I don't consume a side of beef at dinner. Well, and that I call it "dinner" instead of "supper". Hmm...and that I prefer my vegetables completely unsullied by salt or butter. Oh, oh! And that, despite the 50% Norwegianism that I possess, I prefer coffee to crude oil in the morning.

Obviously, we have things we need to work through. Obviously...

But, we had a sort of kinship together in the waiting room...mainly because neither one of us made the coffee and he didn't have to pay for it...but also because we shared a love and a worry for the same woman. He was talking about his father, who passed away almost two years ago. He recounted a day, about a week after the funeral, when he took his mother to church. She left the building after service, and ran into an old friend. She stopped in the middle of the current of churchgoers making their exodus, and completely ignored my father as he sat in the van. It is an irritating personality quirk, but I wouldn't take her any other way.



So, Dad's waiting in the van for his mother. He's frustrated. He's mouthing epithets and waving hand gestures (one can only assume). All at once, a large cloud covered the sun and rain poured down out of nowhere. Grandma grabbed her head and rushed toward Dad in desperation. My father began laughing, looked at the sky, and replied, "Thanks, Dad."

She held me to her bosom, rocking me as I whimpered. Knees pressed to my chest and arms encircling my shins, I felt the chill of the outside world and howled my misery from this safe cocoon. "I HATE THIS TIME OF YEAR! I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE I—"

"There, there," Mother gentled. "We'll make it better. Shh...we'll fix it. It will be okay."

I hiccuped a sob and sniffed ladylike around the accumulation at my nose. "I must brush my teeth." I announced, and scrambled spiritedly from her lap. This activity always makes me happy. I've a fondness for minty, slippery teeth. I returned to sit on the floor at my mother's feet, legs folded in a pretzel and my back slumped in the telling curve of an orthopedics's horror film.

She looked at Debbie knowingly, and I knew a rescue was on the wings.

It proved to be a sleepy day. The sun did not shine, the neighbors did not stir, and for my part, I spent seven hours trying to compose a single email. I was pretty hyper the day before, as some may have observed, (*cough*—Mark—*cough*), and yesterday was to be my first day of cookie detox.

But I had a sort of relapse early-on. I moaned in satisfaction as my teeth sank into my pumpernickel toast, and I had good feelings about the return of the health food, the departure of the cavity conjurers. The good feelings faded gradually as I finished that spot of fudge, the cinnamon roll, and they were totally absent by the time I polished off the raspberry scone. It was with the resulting tummy ache that I carried on so.

I was sprawled upon my back last night, weak and bleary, when Debbie called down, "Do you want any cherry chip cake, or should I put it down the garbage disposal?"

"GET RID OF IT!" came my passionate call.

I heard her steps cross the kitchen floor and the sink begin to growl. She asked Brenda, "What about the date balls?"

—"Get rid of them!"

"The cookies—?"

—"Get rid of them!"

"The—?"

—"Get rid of them! Get rid of them! Get rid of them!"

The growling grew loud and fierce, and the slaughter of the caloric devilry continued well into the night. My lips trembled into a grateful smile, and I returned to my comatose repose knowing tomorrow would be better. The kitchen was now pure.

Well, let me preface by saying that I never went through a tomboy stage—and I've also never been a diva. That being said, I have always had a kinship with the delicate details befitting the fairer sex. Dorm life proved interesting with my best friend, Sarah, as a roommate. Sarah was not into "froufrou" things...so much so, that many of them offended her sensibilities. I remember one night in particular when we had a bunch of girls in our room to watch Friends—because watching Friends, come on, it was practically a cult—and I passed around my bottle of floral lotion.

I was massaging a dab of it between my hands when Amy expressed interest in the scent. Soon it was passed to Julie, then Angie, and so on and so forth, until the whole room smelled of daisies. Sarah was purple from the fumes...both those resonating from our bodies and those emanating from her stoked irritation glands. It wasn't pretty. The windows were whipped open and the door quivered about its hinge as she stalked off into the neutral air of the hallway. In all fairness, it was a very concentrated perimeter of fragrance, and I could see how someone sensitive to such things might be left less than amused.

As ever, I have veered away from the subject at hand.

Purses.



Well, I have had a nasty run of luck with them as of late. Really, the last year-complete has been difficult. My strong sense of dedication disallows me the freedom of bed-hopping from one handbag's boudoir to the next. I mean, I could do it...but who could live with the guilt? The dishonesty of it all? Not me, friends. I'm a one-purse kinda gal.

The purse dilemma increased tenfold as my hours spent in waiting rooms amplified. There's only so much time you can whittle away sipping cappuccino and reading a Good Housekeeping magazine from 1993—a truth one can only garner from the bittersweet nip of experience. I would come to require both whosits and whatnots to help the minutes along.

Surveys of my purse returned an address book, a pocketbook, my cell phone, and gum. Surely this could amuse even the likes of me! SURELY! You know, I poured my heart into entertaining myself, but to no avail. I flipped through the address book a few times. I counted the change in that zippered pocket. I leafed through the coffeehouse punch cards. I read the ingredients in the gum. I scrolled through my missed calls list on the cell. So, see? I really did invest effort.

And, after those two minutes were over, I has totally bored with the purse. But what to do? It did not possess the wherewithal to encase further belongings, lip balm notwithstanding, and it wasn't likely to any time in the near future. I would see all of these beautiful, perfect-sized purses on Anna's website—Anna-originals!—and at one time I mused, "I should just make my own purse!" HAH. Between my ever weakening fingers and my innate laziness, that was a farce before it was even conceived.

My multiplying discontent was embittering me against my inadequate but innocent purse. All at once, I decided that a severance would be quite beneficial to us both...my homicidal thoughts were mutually destructive, which I can see in hindsight. I wanted to buy a new bag. I did so last week, as a sort of impending-employment celebration...that's him photographed above. Yes, I buy accessories when I really want to "go all out". What of it?

I love the new guy. I often find myself distracted from the focus of my days—usually something intense like peanut M&M's or can openers—and have a need to blurt, "I LOVE MY NEW PURSE!"

...and the room reacts as though Norm just entered Cheers and cries, "Puuuuuurse!"

Yeah. Cheap thrills...I know.

A new futon was delivered here today. Brenda called down excitedly, "The delivery guy is very cute. You should come up and say hello."

I squinted in telling mental discomfort. "Um. No."

"You should really come up. Really." Then she was gone. I really had to use the bathroom, but there was no way I was going up there...no way no how. I haven't sunken so low that I need my aunts to scour the neighborhood for men, have I? There has to be some bit of mercy in this life. HAS TO BE.

So I waited anxiously at the base of the stairs until the male voice disappeared. Debbie pranced by shortly thereafter and sang on jaunty step, "Miiiiissed Opppppppportunnnnnnity!" I'll be groaning until doomsday.

Part one, as you may or may not recall, left us in the midst of a garage door operational abnormality. It was Monday, as I returned home in the afternoon, that it really spazzed. I believe it is somewhat similar to an excitable puppy happy to have their owner back after their day at work. It jumps and vibrates and even tries to knock you over as you pass. It leaves you with this warm and fuzzy feeling...really.

Tuesday, my dad came over to look at the pup. He tethered something to someplace and replaced the whatchamacallit with another one because the first doohickey was loose and the thingies were touching without the button being pushed. My father rejoices in the fact that I possess such technical wherewithal. Add that to the fact that my meat consumption is nearly nonexistent and that I haven't consumed butter in four years—to say nothing of my preference for coffee that's more liquid than solid!—and you understand my nervousness about the security of my placement in his will.

Anyway, the garage door has been tamed. So much so, that it ONLY responds to the button that has the thingies no longer touching. The garage door openers—and we have three of them—all pulled a diva act and, with fists glued to hips and noses in the air, they strutted saucily from the runway of functionality. To add insult to injury, the keypad followed suit. Indeed, the garage door no longer opens on a whim—it no longer opens at all...except from the button that has the thingies no longer touching, as I already mentioned. It seems as though we should be able to work around this. So what if the door cannot be opened from outside of the garage? From a vehicle? In the scheme of things, is it really that important?

I was the one put in charge of asking my father about the door in the first place. Fears of the aforementioned will have me nervous to ask too much of this man...but yet, I did it...being assured that my aunts would leave me with a small fortune at their passing if things went too far. I was willing to work through the issues with the door. I was willing to seek counseling and really delve into why it's acting the way it is. I want to retire in Hawaii.

My aunts were less willing to compromise. Brenda can sometimes whine in a way that means she's joking, but it is quite easily confused with the whine she makes while she's being fussy and the whine she makes while she's on the verge of explosion. It is a useful skill she possesses, and I am happy to have picked it up so deftly. "I can't seem to get the remotes to work," she began, commencing of the puppy-dog-eyes. "And the code doesn't work outside!" Brenda does fake tears really well too. So does Miles. I don't so much—but I can pout like nobody's business. You don't need tears when you can make your lower lip tremble, trust me. "Get your dad back over here and make him fix it!" she cried, stamping her foot. My first response? Laughter.

Surely she was kidding. I want Hawaii, dang it! At her continued expression of utmost upset, I shuffled restlessly. "You serious?" My forehead wrinkled in disbelief and my eyes squinted in a "You've GOT to be kidding me" way. You know, she didn't specify that when she wanted the door to quit freaking out that she also wanted the remotes to work. I'm getting a gnawing feeling in my stomach that there will always be something else to fix, and I wonder if the woman will ever be happy. I see no problem in hopping from the SUV on a frigid and snowy evening after work, running to the front door, walking through the house to the kitchen entry to the garage so she can push the button with the thingies no longer touching, walking back out to the SUV, and driving it inside.

She does. She's high maintenance...Dad will be over today to look at it.

Dear lord, I hope I don't have to don the cheesehead again.