Day 31: If we were sharing a box of wine on my porch

Tonight is the last night of July, and I'm pretty happy that I managed to only miss 2 days this month. I'll make those up, of course, because my OCD insists on it. Coraline has written -- or at least inspired -- some of the most popular posts this month. One of the reasons I haven't been blogging as much is because I thought my life as a single grandmother might not be nearly as interesting as my life as a single woman living alone was, but apparently I was wrong. I intend to encourage Coraline to start her own blog as soon as she can write.

As always, I appreciate everyone who comes here to read and stays until the end of the post. Blogging experts advise choosing a topic for a blog and then sticking to the damn thing in each and every post. Other rules include posting consistently and keeping posts short so readers don't have to scroll. I'm pretty sure my batting average wouldn't get me into Little League, must less the pros. My rule is I do what I want, and you all get what you paid for.

All kidding aside, I, my ego, and my Muse Dolores do sincerely thank you for reading.

And now, on to tonight's random, rambling one-sided conversation which really would not happen if we were sharing a box of wine for realz. I would let you talk sometimes, especially if you wanted to ask me something about myself. That's if, OC, we were sitting on my front porch sharing a box of wine. (It's OK if you drink something else as long as you bring potato chips and chocolate to share.)

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If we were sharing a box of wine, I would counsel you that experience tells me cucumber slices are a poor substitute for potato chips no matter how much salt you put on them.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I would tell you I've decided to stop checking out books at the library. And that's significant because between the 2 of us, Coraline and I always have at least 50 books and videos checked out. It's obscene really, but they let me take them for free, and so I get greedy. I've decided though that I really need to read the books I own, both hard copy and on my Kindle, instead of putting the library books first and never getting to the ones on my personal shelves.

The other day I took back a full bag of books so heavy I could barely carry it. I kept only one book, the latest by Louise Erdrich, titled LaRose. I'll still check out DVD's, but no more books for a while. I feel lighter already. I'm going to get rid of a lot more books in August too. It's not right that I should feel so weighted down by paper and words. Sometimes I think I'd like to live in a hotel and just visit my house.

If we were sharing a box of wine,  I'd tell you about the play I'm in, titled Semple Gifts. It's a play about Aimee Semple McPherson, who had a crazy interesting Pentecostal life. I'm playing one of the lead roles, so I'm glad it's reader's theatre so I don't have to memorize a long script. Apparently someone else was cast in my role, and she wasn't very reliable and quit or something. I don't know for sure. I said yes when the playwright/director asked me, because I miss theatre so much. I think it's going to be good. The music is fun, and I learned a lot about a pretty influential woman in American 20th-century history. We would raise a glass and toast Aimee, and the irony would not escape us, because she was probably against drinking, at least on paper.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I'd tell you every time I have a birthday, I feel like I become more and more transparent, and someday I will become utterly invisible. I'm finally tempted to lie about my age, and I hate that. So vain. Only a couple of people really give a shit about my age, and that says more about them than it does me. You would try to reassure me, but I'm a realist. I would appreciate that you tried though, and then we would probably end up talking about dating -- which I'm not going to do here.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I would tell you I sometimes buy the best presents! Coraline's favorite birthday present from me was definitely her magenta Kindle Fire that came with Amazon's Freetime. That means  she has access to hundreds of books, movies and games free for a year. Her addiction was immediate. And scary to me.

But I think the best gift I gave her was 8 cans of shaving cream. Often after I've finished my shower I'll call her in and wash her hair. Then I'll give her a big pile of shaving cream to play with and she'll stay in the shower running up my water bill for a while. So I gave her her own shaving cream so she could play with it out on the glass-topped patio table.

She had a ball. I had to get my hands in there too, and it felt so cool -- smooth and squishy. Eventually though, she had to come in for dinner, and by then she was covered in foam from her forehead to her feet. I had to spray it off with the garden hose. I thought the cool water would feel good on such a hot day, but she started whining. "What is the big deal?" I said. "It's only water."

"It's not that," she whined. "You got my clothes wet, and dark pink just isn't my color. I need to get these off."

1st world problems.

If we were sharing a box of wine, I'd tell you I have such shitty luck with gardens.  My community garden plot is in a new bed that sits right under a tree. Not only that, the soil is loaded with weed seeds that grow like fucking tribbles, That's my plot there. Not the one you can see. The one on the other side of the tree.

My garden in my yard suffers from the same fate. Too much shade from the neighbors' trees on either side. The neighbor to the north is growing a massive patch of poison ivy up the trunk of said huge tree while my poor tomatoes are pale and sickly looking. I think I should probably give up and put my energy elsewhere next year. Coraline thinks we should just grow raspberries, and let people pick as much as they want. I'm not sure that's the answer either.

If we were sharing a box of wine, we would laugh about this. Because we either need to laugh or run screaming from this country in terror.

If we were sharing a box of wine, it would be empty and I'd mention that it's after 3:00, so I should get to bed. Feel free to crash in the guest room. I'll open some windows and turn on a fan.

What would you tell me if we were sharing a box of wine?