If we were sharing a glass of wine from a safe distance ....

No way our wine could be this close together.

If we were sharing a glass of wine (but not the bottle), I'd have to get this out of the way. It's the new talking about the weather. It's weird to think we can be heroes simply by staying home, but it's true. Of course, we're not heroes like our family and friends who are on the front lines defending our lives: doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, firefighters, police, grocery store workers, pharmacy workers, mail carriers, Amazon workers ..... Lots of heroes are out there taking care of us and we have to take care of them by staying home. Simply staying home. I think it's kind of stupid at this point that the government has to order us to do the right thing, but here in Ohio, we're on a "stay at home" order. I didn't need to be told twice a week and a half ago. I neither want to die nor to kill someone else.

If we were sharing a glass of wine you might notice my 115-pound standard poodle Crow Cocker looks pretty weird.  He hasn't been to the groomer since .... I don't know. It's been a while. I've been distracted by some shit. So earlier I started to shave him down myself. I got 1/3 of the way through his mess of matted curls. He won't let me take his photo tonight. He's embarrassed. So here's what 1/3 of the hair on a 115-pound poodle looks like. I wish I could think of some way to repurpose it ....

If we were sharing a glass of wine I'd tell you I got an email today titled "Death Awaits You..." from the author of a book I recently downloaded for my Kindle. I couldn't unsubscribe fast enough. I probably won't read the book either. Must be a reason it was free. We'd call that guy an asshole.

If we were sharing a glass of wine I'd say I've found a new use for my kitchen tongs. I call it my Corona Hand (not related to Handypenis). When I drove over to a local CSA farm to get some spring greens, I got out of my van and picked up my bag with a pair of tongs, brought it home and sprayed it with rubbing alcohol. If I were working a cash register anywhere, that's what I'd be using to check people's shit, with a glove. Tongs, people! Use them!

If we were sharing a glass of wine I would offer the following observation: holding a fist-sized smooth rock that's been warming on the furnace vent is more comforting that you'd imagine. Holding a warm smooth rock while a cat purrs on your lap is like being back in the womb. Only not as moist.

If we were sharing a glass of wine we'd probably agree looking at Facebook memories isn't so much fun any more. I've decided to take a break from them for a while. I  need to focus on today.

If we were sharing a glass of wine it would be long gone I would tell you I read today that people who are secret harborers of the COVID-19 lose their senses of smell and taste. So I've decided I'll feed my dogs pizza and if I can't smell dog farts within 2 hours, I'm going to get tested. No worries though. So far, so good.

Well, it looks like the bottle is empty. I got lucky and picked up a pile of newish 7-day DVD's at the library the day before it closed, so I'm going to watch Judy and immerse myself in someone else's problems for a while. Tomorrow is another day. I think I'll continue shaving the dog and sew up some masks. I'm not too proud to wear one the next time I go to the grocery store. Click that link before you disagree.

Stay home and stay safe, my friends

If we were sipping a glass of wine: Day 25

If we were sipping a glass of wine together I would tell you this is my favorite quotation from a movie: "You gotta be brave before you can be good," from Hearts Beat Loud. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it. It's a story that will leave you feeling good. And don't you need that after a day of scrolling Facebook and reading rude, stupid, incendiary texts shit out of a disgusting orange goat fart? Watching a movie about good people heals hope. You can watch it free on Kanopy if your library offers it.



If we were sipping a glass of wine together I would tell you I have discovered the most delicious way to eat leftover turkey .... OK, I didn't discover it. My friend Chicken Grrrrl told me how she does it. Whatever. She said she mixes leftover cranberry/orange relish with mayonnaise and spreads it on good white bread. Then she adds leftover turkey and a leaf of crisp lettuce. She said it's delicious.

I don't eat much bread, so I made mine in a big lettuce leaf. I squirted on some mayo, spread cranberry/orange relish over that, then piled on some leftover turkey. It's divine. Much better than it should be. Maybe even better than the original turkey dinner. If I were making these for company, I'd add some chopped toasted pecans, but it's highly unlikely I'm going to share. Try it either way. You'll feel positively gourmet.

If we were sipping a glass of wine together I would tell you Coraline wants to take karate. She's 7 and what she really wants is someone to teach her how to protect herself and how to take somebody who's bigger than she is down. She's not worried yet about boys or men trying to force themselves on her. Thank you, Jesus. But she does have a good friend, a sweet boy, who is a year older than her, and who is bigger and stronger. He plays a lot of sports. And they like to wrestle. She wants to learn some moves so she can compete  better in their wrestling matches. It's not that he's too rough nor is he mean or aggressive. He's just physically stronger and used to being tackled in football.

I'm guiding her toward jujitsu. Might as well get a start on self defense. Every woman needs it, much as that makes me want to throw up my glass of wine. I wish I'd taken my daughter to some kind of martial arts class. Lesson learned.

If we were sipping a glass of wine together I would long ago have offered you some Lays Classic potato chips or some lime tortilla chips or some peanut butter-filled pretzels. I don't know about you, but I like some salt with my wine. And that's why I've decided I have to join Weight Watchers.

I hate to admit this here where you only see my words, but I am fat, and now it's not all in my head, damn it. Elvira says I'm not really fat, but she's wrong this time. Sweet, but wrong. I feel like I'm wearing a fat suit, and it gets in my way. And the fatter I get, the less I want to move around like I used to. I used to put 100 miles or more on my bike every week. Now it just sits there and I haven't replaced riding with anything other than eating more chocolate and drinking more wine. I'm disgusted with myself.

A few of my friends have done Weight Watchers and it worked. So I'm going to do it too. I may wait until after the first of the year. Or I may be repulsed enough by myself to start during the food-filled winter holiday season. Ugh. If only there were a magic pill. Or a magic glass of wine.

I suppose we'll have to drink tea next time.

If we were sipping a glass of wine together I'd tell you Miss Serendipity visited today. As I was getting ready for the day, blow drying my hair and putting on mascara and such, I was thinking about Facebook and how much of my precious time it takes up. How I'm like a rat in a maze trying to find the lever that will give me a like or a heart or JACKPOT! a comment. And how I need to get off it for a while and get back to doing some of the things I used to do. This isn't the first time I've had this come-to-Jesus meeting with myself, and it was probably triggered by an artist friend who often takes breaks from Facebook -- even disables her account [shudder] -- so she can focus on her art and on her inner life. Whatever the reason, I knew I had to do something about this addiction.

And then I went to the church up the street from us, and the minister's sermon was about paying attention. And about how we don't pay attention because we're paying attention to our screens. And how Facebook is not a replacement for real, FTF interactions with other people. It's like she was talking right to me, because I'm pretty sure I'm married to Facebook and I never even got the ring.

I felt a text vibrate my phone in my back pocket during the sermon and it was all I could do not to grab my phone and immediately open it. I waited until the offering to surreptitiously glance. I didn't answer it until I got home though, so I think I get half a point.

I wish I could do both. I wish I could cruise Facebook for hours every day and still play my guitar and make art and write the fucking book nobody will buy already. But I can't. Not only that though, I'm not paying attention and it's affecting my attention span, which is almost nonexistent these days.

So I'm going to make a list of the things I'd rather be doing than Facebook, and then, once this month of NaBloPoMo is up, I'm going to stop carrying my phone around and checking Facebook every spare minute of my day. And just for good measure, I'm going to delete solitaire from my Kindle. I'm going to pay attention in December. It's possible nobody will pay attention to me because they'll all be on Facebook or Snapchat, but I'm going to give it my best try.

If we were slugging down the dregs of a bottle of wine, I'd have to tell you goodnight now and either push you out the door or make up the couch so you could sleep here. Then I'd let the dogs out, start the dishwasher, check the locks, tuck you in if you're still here, and head on up to bed. 

Good night. Sleep tight. We don't joke about bedbugs here in the 'hood. 

If we were having a glass of wine: Day 19

Some bloggers write posts that start "If we were having coffee ... ." I rarely drink caffeine though, and I write during a time when I might be drinking a glass of wine and most people are sleeping, so I write "If we were having a glass of wine ..." posts. Let's sit by the fire and talk.



If we were having a glass of wine,I would tell you I don't think Kroger employees should talk to customers while the customers are peeing. Some people have shy bladders that clam up midstream when a stranger talks from outside the stall about how busy the store has been that day. Not that I have a silly shy bladder, of course. Just some people do.

If we were having a glass of wine I'd tell you I'm a little worried about my pumpkin pies this year. I started to cook up a big orange Cinderella pumpkin, but I realized my refrigerator is too full of turkey dinner stuff to store a couple of gallons of pumpkin puree. So I grabbed a white pumpkin that was about the right size and cut it in half. Instead of the bright orange flesh I expected, it was white inside too. So I think my pumpkin pies are going to look pretty anemic this year. I wonder if anybody will even eat the my pale ghostly pies. Oh who gives a flying fuck. I don't really like to share anyway.

If we were having a third glass of wine I would fill you in on the status of butt plug plugging. You would ask me to fill you in, because apparently butt plugs are fascinating enough that numerous people have asked me about them as if I were an expert, which I'm not. I would share my disappointment that Jennifer from Plug Joy didn't respond to my email in which I shared my butt plug post to let her know I'd fulfilled my end of a bargain we didn't exactly shake hands on. I would have to say I think it's pretty fucking short-sighted to ignore my attempt at paid advertising when I not only wrote that post, I also inspired women at my church who have never plugged their butts to look into the practice. For all I know, brown paper packages have already landed on their doorsteps. Surely that was worth even more than $20.

And just to be clear, I would probably have to assuage your curiosity and admit that I neither vajazzle nor do I buttazzle. In fact, I wear very little jewelry, especially in my bottom area, which I do not consider my most attractive feature, even should I plug a fake pink diamond in back there. I certainly don't judge others who like a more decorative anal area. You do you. And if you do do you, and since we're on our third glass of wine, I'd have to ask if you can sit down with that thing in and does it make you have to poop. Moving on.

If we were having a glass of wine I would tell you my 100-pound standard poodle Crow Cocker had to have a growth that looked like a brownish-red balloon taken off his forehead. When I arrived at 5:00 after a crazy busy Friday, I hoped I could make Coraline's performance at her school's harvest feast, even though I knew I'd miss the dinner. It started at 5:30, and the drive back to the city would take 45 minutes and then I'd have to drive another 20 to the place where the dinner was held.

He wasn't ready. When the vet finally called me back it was to confess that she'd given him the wrong drug when she tried to put him under. It was a drug that usually wasn't given that way, straight into the bloodstream. She had to call doggy poison control, which cost $60. She generously said I wouldn't have to pay for that. They recommended she push IV fluids through him for two hours to clear out the unwanted drug. Two fucking hours.

So I sat on an old church pew and read a magazine for 2 1/2 hours while an exceedingly obnoxious woman tried to wake up her miniature Airedale called Willy by clap clapping her hands over and over and over again and talking baby talk in a high-pitched voice. Clap clap "Wake up, Willy." Clap clap "Do you hear the kitties, Willy? The kitties are meowing, Willy." Clap clap Clap clap Clap clap "Is your tail wagging? Is your widdle widdle tail starting to shake, Willy?" Clap clap Clap clap "See the kitty, Willy? Is the kitty going to get into that chocolate, Willy?" Clap clap Clap clap Clap fucking clap I'll bet Willy wished he could get a perpetual morphine drip. I considered choking her out with Crow's leash, but I didn't want to do anything that would prolong my wait.

Finally he got to leave, but only after I had paid $170 for my little jar of tumor. And entirely missed the school dinner.

If we were on our fourth glass of wine I'd confess that in spite of my jokes about dating and how it's not something I plan to waste my time doing, I sometimes miss sharing my life with another responsible adult. I feel like I'm slipping further and further behind and it would be nice  -- maybe -- to have someone else around to help fix the things that need fixing in an old house and to do the dishes after I cook and to help put clean sheets on the bed and to go on vacation with and ... well, it doesn't bear imagining, because I really don't see myself sharing my life with a romantic partner ever again. But there are times when I miss sharing responsibilities with another grown up. I would tell you that, but we'd both know my dismal track record and agree I'm better off alone.

By now I'd be falling asleep on the couch and the Netflix fireplace would have burned down four times, and you'd be thinking I'd done all the talking .... again. Sorry. That's what the comments are for. 

What would you tell me if we were having a glass of wine together? It's just us here, and I'm already half asleep. I won't remember in the morning.

NaBloPoMo #29: Would you eat from that bread box?

If you and I were sharing a bottle of wine, I'd call it a damn miracle if you got more than one glass out of it. Let's share a box tonight, OK? To be fair, I've enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend that started with food, and had lots of good times with family and friends in the middle, and ended with playing music with a friend. Who could complain?

I could. I could complain about mice, because for the first time since I moved into this house almost 2 years ago, I have fucking mice coming inside my house. And don't say everybody gets a mouse in the house every now and then, because 1. Not me. I do not get mice in my house. And 2. I've killed 9 fucking mice in the past month. Nine. (To be fair, I killed 8 and Crow Cocker killed one while I was at church one day. My dog is part cat, which is probably why he's such an asshole.) I even had to buy some fancy traps from Amazon, so I could dump the carcass and reload quickly. They're so efficient, I don't even have to replenish the peanut butter. I highly recommend them.

I still can't figure out where the little bastards are getting in, so I might have to spread a fine layer of flour all over my house and try to find tiny footprints. I suspect the reason they're moving in on me is because the house next door to me has been empty for 6+ years, ever since the pedophile who lived there went to prison. This past fall the bank finally put it on the market, and to do so, they cut down all the brush and vegetation in the yard over there, and cleaned out all the shit that gets left behind in a house and a garage when the owner goes to prison. That's the only thing that's changed, so I'm blaming my problems on the ecosystem being disturbed over there. Ultimately, it's the pedophile's fault.

I hate them so much. Fucking mice. They make me feel dirty. I'm at war!

If you and I were sharing a box of wine, I would ask if you've ever heard of using vaginal yeast to make sourdough starter. Or maybe a better question is whether you'd eat bread made from sourdough starter that had vaginal yeast growing in it. Or I should say possibly had vaginal yeast added to it that didn't grow, because there's no way to know if the vaginal yeast survived. Anyway, would you? I ask because of a blogger named Stavvers, whose blog is titled "Another Angry Woman." When she realized she had a yeast infection blooming down under, she dipped into her bread box and collected said yeasty discharge on a dildo and made sourdough starter with it. I don't need to recap the entire experience. You can read it here.

I'm going to answer first and say I don't think I'd enjoy eating sourdough bread made from (possible) vaginal yeast. It's not because I think anything about the vagina is disgusting. I'm sure a number of you have dined with pleasure on such a delicacy before, and more than once. In other words, people eat pussy. I just can't let go of the connection between how a yeast infection feels so burny and itchy and the idea of putting that yeast infection in a loaf of bread and then eating it. That's why the other animals wouldn't help you make that fucking bread, Little Red Hen!

However, yeast does grow in the vagina all the time. And other places in our bodies too. It's only a problem when it gets overgrown, and then we call that an infection.  So .... if I say I don't want to eat vaginal yeast bread, does that mean I need to work on my love of the vagina? Maybe it does. I don't know.

Your turn. Would you eat it? The bread, I mean. Please answer in the comments section.

If you and I were sharing a box of wine, I would complain that the final harbinger of winter has finally arrived. I tried, as I do every year, to pretend that winter simply wasn't going to happen, and the lovely fall weather would carry through until spring hit us with mud. This in spite of the fact that I had my furnace on early in October. And then there were all those leaves that fell off the trees and the garden dying back, the pumpkins on the porches and the taste of pumpkin pie spice in every damn thing. I had warning enough. But this morning, I had to give in, because this morning  .... This morning, damn it, I had to put lotion on my butt.

Winter is near, my friend. Let's pour another glass. We'll be switching to hot toddies soon enough.

NaBloPoMo #19: If we were having a glass of wine ....

If we were having a glass of wine .... is a new feature here on Reticulated Writer. I didn't make it up. Lots of bloggers do it. Some drink imaginary coffee, but I don't drink caffeine, so we're going to drink wine. Because I said so.
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If we were having a glass of wine, I would say, "That's enough about you. Let's talk about me. Did you know I won a prize -- $25 and a trophy! -- at my neighborhood chili cook-off?"

And you would say, "But you hate spicy food. One drop of hot sauce in a swimming pool of chili would make you whine unbearably for hours. How could you win a prize at a chili cook-off?"

And I would tell you about how I didn't want to go to the chili thing, but my neighbor and president of the neighborhood and one of my co-stars in All the Sex Monologues insisted I had to. I said, "I'm not coming. I don't like chili. I don't like spicy food. That's why I didn't come last year."
He tried to look patient. "You can bring your own chili then. Whatever you like. It doesn't have to be spicy. Just eat your own."
"But I won't win if I bring my chili," I said. "If I come, I want to win."
"You never know. You might win," he said.
"I did win a chili cook-off at my church," I said. "But I think my daughter and her friends stuffed the ballot box. I don't want to come."
"OK, then, come for the beer. We'll have beer," he said.
"I don't like beer," I said. "Beer is yucky."
"You don't like beer. Fine. Bring some wine, then. You can drink wine, can't you?" He wasn't so patient now, but he was still trying, because he also wanted me to commit to raking leaves at 9:00 am the morning after I was having a party. It wasn't going to happen, because I like letting my leaves rot where they land. Also, my parties go late late late.
"OK, fine. I'll come. I'll bring my mild Iowa chili, which nobody will want to eat. But I'll come."
"Good! And you'll rake leaves too? We want our street to look nice." He's persistent.
"Sure," I said. But my fingers were crossed behind my back.

So 5 hours after my last guests left Saturday morning, I was up making a big fucking pot of chili, because I don't know how to make a small batch of chili. I also stirred up a pan of cornbread, because chili has to have cornbread. As I pulled my cornbread recipe, written in my mom's hand decades ago, out of my old recipe box, a wave of nostalgia hit me. First, because my mom had a stroke 16 years ago, and she prints with her left hand now. Her familiar handwriting is only found on historical documents, like my cornbread recipe.

But also because I remember coming home from school on afternoons when I had a basketball game and smelling the crockpot of chili my mom would have waiting for me. If I had an away game, I'd eat it fast with a piece of cornbread slathered with butter and honey, gulp down some black coffee, grab my uniform, which she'd washed for me, and head back out the door to catch the team bus. Everybody else would eat later, and then come to watch me play. My chili is pretty close to what my mom made: more like soup with tomato juice, ground beef, beans, onion, and a little chili pepper. I add a couple of secret ingredients to mine, but it's still similar.

Many years ago when I was an 18-year-old bride I asked my mom to copy some of her recipes for me, and the cornbread recipe was one of those. My grandma gave me a recipe box she wasn't using, and I started my collection with recipes from my mom and both of my grandmas. It grew with recipes from friends over the years .... until it didn't any more. These days, other than those old recipes, I keep my recipes on my computer or on Pinterest. If I need a hard copy, I print it out. If one of my kids needs a recipe, I email it. But for some old standards, like cowboy cookies, pumpkin pie, and cornbread, I get out my old recipe box.

Back to the chili cook-off. Twelve people brought entries, and most of them were spicy. I tasted 2 or 3 of them, and then filled my bowl with my own. It was delicious -- to me. Just like Mom made.

Eventually it was time to vote. Voting was done on a sheet of paper with hash marks. I cast my vote for the chili that had the most votes already. Mine, I noticed, didn't have any votes. I was probably the only one who ate any. Like I gave a fuck. I didn't even see the sheet for voting on the cornbread.

Imagine my surprise when Jason announced that cornbread #4 had won the cornbread contest! I had to run to the kitchen and make sure that was really my number. It was! $25 cash and a trophy for my mom's cornbread.

As for the chili that won, the woman who made it said she'd followed the guy who won 2 years ago outside and sat on him until he told her his secret ingredient, which was ..... are you ready for it? Velveeta. Velfuckingveeta cheese won the chili cook-off. It's not even food! Whatever though. I was happy with my little trophy and $25 cash in my hand.

I called my mom in Iowa and told her we'd won.
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If we were having a glass of wine, I'd tell you I went with a friend to an audition Tuesday. She'd never auditioned before, so I went to give her moral support. I know the director, and I knew she wouldn't mind if I just watched. I wasn't auditioning myself because I thought I was much too old for the parts. Imagine my surprise when 3 of my friends and a couple of acquaintances showed up. Apparently the director was looking for older women for this play, and had sent them emails asking them to come. They talked me into auditioning too.

Now, I do love auditioning, but I felt a little silly, because I was too old for this play by at least 20 10 years. And there were lots of young -- I mean young -- women there. The friend I went with is barely over 30. But it didn't matter. Experience showed with the older actors. It was interesting to watch the difference.

I didn't get a part. I didn't expect to. But my 3 friends and 2 acquaintances did get the 5 parts .... and I'd be lying if I didn't admit I felt a tiny bit left out. Not that I imagined myself getting a role as a bride's maid, but .... it would have been fun to work with my friends.
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If we were having a glass of wine, I'd say, speaking of plays, All the Sex Monologues made over $2000 for Planned Parenthood, and that's after expenses. It's not a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.5 million the fucking Ohio Senate and House just stripped from PP though. I'm proud of what we did. I'm worried sick about all the women who have lost their health care.  I'm worried sick about my vagina and all the fucking Republicans who keep poking their heads up in there like rude tourists. Women are going to have to stand up and get loud.
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If we were having a glass of wine, you'd probably think I was doing all the talking. And maybe you'd offer me some chocolate, knowing I dearly love me some dark chocolate with my wine. But I'd decline because I'm on some fucking sugar fast, and I can't eat chocolate or anything good. It hasn't really been that hard, and I've given myself 3 cheat days. And Thanksgiving is coming up and that entire weekend is a cheat weekend.

I've probably reduced my daily calorie intake by about 4000 chocolate and wine calories a day this month and I've lost ..... drum roll please! Half a pound. And that's probably because I peed before I weighed myself.

It would be a lot easier to resist that bag of frozen chocolate chips if I had realized one single fucking benefit in the past almost 3 weeks. But it doesn't matter. I've been doing the research, reading the studies, and sugar has zero benefits either. Other than its addictive taste, it's nothing but bad news. Kind of like any guy I ever dated ever.

And speaking of dating .....
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If we were having a glass of wine, I guarantee you the subject of dating would come up, and you would say, "Whatever happened to those 10 men you were going to date?" And I would say, "They don't exist." And you would say, "Oh, c'mon now. I don't want to hear that. There's someone for everyone. When you're ready the right person will be there. Because you're too fabulous to be alone for the rest of your life. You have to be open to him when he comes along though. Or she. Why don't you try to find a woman?" And you would raise your eyebrows as if to tell me you know I'm just not open enough or we wouldn't be having this conversation, because otherwise? Otherwise I would be way too busy fucking my brains out with my brand new boyfriend or girlfriend, who adores me and cooks for me and fixes my computer problems and cuddles with me on the couch while we watch Netflix, eat buttered popcorn and drink chardonnay.

My faithful friend, I love your optimism, but you're full of shit. First, because there are too many single women out there for you to still believe there's someone for everyone. And second, surely you can't believe lesbians are more plentiful than men. Seriously? And finally here's where I'm at on the topic of dating .... which doesn't mean I won't write about that shit whenever I want to because I do what I want, but you are still full of shit so full of crap.

But I do love you, and since you want me to find someone so bad, I'm going to introduce you to my imaginary boyfriend Simon soon. He's cute and funny and he adores me. You'll like him. I promise.

I'm glad we could share these glasses of wine together, but holy insomnia do you see what time it is? I've gone on and on .... But don't leave yet. What about you? What's going on in your life? Pour another glass and tell me. I've got all night to listen.