I know few of you will be surprised at all by that.

Steve was a packrat. I had it in my head that he was a bit of a packrat, but I think the past year of cleaning out his stuff makes it apparent that he was borderline hoard-y.

I’m having a visitor from out of town and I decided that would be my impetus to tackle the last bastions of Steve’s packrattedness. What the hell was I thinking? Did I clean the kitchen and the bathrooms? No. I started a project that makes the entire downstairs look like… like… okay, there are no words. But picture a scene of utter devastation, perhaps after a tornado or an earthquake. Now, imagine that Godzilla comes on the scene and moves another scene of destruction on top of it. Got that? Okay, now imagine space aliens disintegrate half of it.

Yeah, that’s about right.

Then put cat hair on it.

Lucky for me, my visitor is my boyfriend and I think he’s slightly too in love to dump me over it.

Steve was adamant that he wanted me to go on with my life, and he would have been delighted that I found someone to love. But I think I can hear his ghost snickering a little bit anyway. He was never all that interested in making my life easy.

I bought a chocolate bar from a manufacturer I’d never heard of–Chuao. It appears it is supposed to be pronounced “Chew-Wow” based on a little ad inside the packet.

And wow is right.

Dark chocolate with panko breadcrumbs and sea salt. I am very much in favor of this.

Horseradish and Cheddar, by Herr’s.

My god. It’s like the people at Herr’s were just sitting around, wondering how to make the perfect Julie chip, and then they made them, and then they decided that to torment me they would only make them available at Kmart and only really randomly.

In any case, I found them again.

If you like horseradish, try these. You will only be sorry if you only get to have them once. Which could happen. So don’t try them. Or try them and blame me for the pain and suffering you experience.

I’m a martyr for the cause, baby.

My niece informs me that she has been told by a local historical society person that my house contains (dum dum DAAAA!) a secret door! The theories were that it was an Underground Railroad house or a bootlegging house. Since the house is too new for the Underground Railroad, it must be bootleggers! Whee!

Okay, I’ll admit that it’s not likely, but still. Whee!

Spamming jackasses. Grr.

GRR!

Don’t view the “See who is looking at your profile” application. It will spam your friends.

Lodge a complaint. Kick someone in the shins. Eat your broccoli.

… when I tried to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

You’ve probably seen it, but if not, watch!

It was the Target parking lot. 6-something pm. Partly sunny. I pulled into a parking spot and was just listening to the tail end of an NPR report. A dog sat in the back window of the car opposite me. I had to roll down the windows after a minute–it was humid and the sun was strong when it wasn’t behind a cloud.

The dog climbed down from the window. A man and a woman parked next to the dog’s car and he, the driver, seemed interested in something he saw in that car. He peered through the window, gesturing to the woman with him. Then he walked away.

I wanted to know what he saw. I wanted to know where the owner was. I decided I’d go into Target and if the car was still there when I got back, I’d do something. I walked past the car and I too peered through the window. I couldn’t see anything but a fabric doggie carrier.

How hot was it? I couldn’t tell. The car windows were cracked, not enough for a forearm, but enough for a slender dog nose. And it was a slender dog. A small, yellow dog, shaggy and mutty.

I was in and out of Target in under 10 minutes. Nothing had changed in the car. I decided it wasn’t really that warm and turned on mine, but as I pulled out of the parking spot, I felt how good the air conditioning felt. It was warm out. It had to be warm in that car.

I pulled back into a spot, this time right next to the car, and I dithered. I called my boyfriend just to get a second opinion, but he didn’t answer. Should I tell Target? Should I call the cops? Should I mind my own business? Was I overreacting? Probably. Was the dog going to die? Probably not. Or was he? Where was he?

My boyfriend called back, told me the temperature, waited while I dithered. And dither I did.

I saw her as soon as she left Target. She matched the peace sign on her beat up car. She hadn’t bought anything.

She climbed into the car and looked over her shoulder, then pawed through the clutter on the back seat. I didn’t see the dog. She was tossing things around. No dog.

But she drove away calmly. Someone couldn’t drive away calmly with a dead dog in the back seat. Someone would have to feel something with a dead dog in the back seat.

So, the dog was alive, and I am officially the world’s worst guardian angel.

I went to the grocer yesterday, came home, quickly started dinner because I was hungry, and forgot to put the groceries away. I had to throw away quite a lot of chicken.

I have developed a head-slapping dance as a result. Set to David Bowie, of course.

I used to cook quite a lot and enjoyed making experimental recipes. I’ve definitely fallen down on the job when it comes to cooking lately, but the urge has returned in a big way. Hurrah!

This week, I hope to tackle:

Scalloped leeks (perhaps with celeriac)
Greek chicken and lemon soup
Italian wedding soup

I love soup and I love casseroles, so this is a good start.

The older I get, the less I can eat of the types of food I adore, so it’s time for me to establish some new, mild recipes that my digestive system can handle. I’ll still whine about it, though.

There was an insect in my office. I don’t really know what sort it was. It buzzed. It was shaped like a wasp, but striped like a bee. I’ll call it a basp.

There isn’t any way to get a trapped basp out of your office without a basp-keeper suit and, surprisingly, I don’t have one of those.

So I just sat and listened to it ping off the screen on the window and felt bad that it would die there. And there’s something worse about dying when no one knows or really cares what species you even are.

I have a wasp sting on my hand from a few weeks ago. Occasionally it puffs up a bit, like a mosquito bite.

The stings last longer than the basp will, I reckon. There’s a hell of a metaphor there. A hell of one.