Updates from the Domestic Diva
Har Di Har Har
Hello Friend,
Over the course of the past five days I have washed approximately a gazillion loads of laundry, decked the halls with copious amounts of the perfect sprinkling of sparkly stuff, wiped down every surface with warm soapy water in vague hopes of banishing the layer of barn dust that settles on every knick knack, shelf, crevice, nook, and cranny. I have scrubbed and scraped, washed and wiped, stacked and stored. I’ve managed mini mountains of dog detritus only to be met with the inevitable newly deposited mounds mere moments later. I have gone up and down the multiple levels of stairs in this godforsaken second story barn apartment enough times to cause my considerable posterior to cry out in agony with each step.
The ba donk ka donk is unsettled in my trunk.
I would not complain if some of it took off for parts unknown. There is a pie in the freezer that may thwart such a departure.
I just completed a third round of vacuuming the heady mix of fuzzy stuff I call spiderdogwebhair. Mr. Potter is mopping the pale grey ‘waterproof’ laminate floor we had to purchase in the early days of the pandemic due to the lack of choices at the store where their only product was flooring.
Scene Opens on a Flooring Store in a Strip Mall, filled with aisles of flooring samples in a dizzying array of colors and finishes.
Floor Guy: Welcome to Floors Are Us, or Floor is Us, as we have just this one floor.
Us: How about this floor?
Floor Guy: Nope.
Us: This floor?
Floor Guy: Sorry.
Us: Can we look at this floor?
Floor Guy: No, not available. Can we interest you in this floor instead?
Us: Which floor?
Floor Guy: This pale, grey, faux wood laminate floor.
Us: I mean, I guess, if that’s all you have.
Floor Guy: It is. It is all we have.
Scene closes with a disappointed couple convincing themselves that this pale grey faux wood laminate floor will be fine.
It is fine, but it is not the best floor.
To add literal insult to injury, Mr. Potter permanently injured his hand installing it.
In other news, over the course of the past week I have read about fifteen essays by political writers who I am sure feel they are doing us all a great service at this perilous moment by barreling down the autocrat rabbit hole so deeply that it makes even me, a pragmatic optimist, feel like giving up and crawling into a blanket fort forever. Will the coming months bring us horrors untold? Maybe. I hope not. I have no idea, and quite frankly, neither do they. I can’t continue obsessing over which dystopian novel is moving into the non-fiction section this January. I’m not sure what we can do right now besides find the bits of joy in the calm before the storm and stock up on toilet paper, canned goods, and bottled water. Also, maybe tin cans with very long strings for incognito communications.
To these purveyors of tragedy I respectfully say…(be forwarned as the language is about to get salty, friend)
For fuck’s sake, Cassandra, take it down about fifteen notches! We get it, Orange Man, Captain Ketamine, and their circus of scary clowns are sure to be an absolute shit show. Step Right Up to the WORST Show on Earth!
I just want to have a snacky and a sippy sip and a brief moment of respite under some soft blankets while listening to Vince Guaraldi on a loop before the advent of the apocalypse.
Is that so wrong?
This is a rhetorical question as no one, not even the Man with the Golden Toilet, is going to deter me from my holiday hygge. Damn it.
I have vague notions of a Mornings with Madge video tomorrow. I make no promises.
xoxo, Madge a.k.a. Margot
(P.S.: Fret not, I shall return to fight the good fight in the days ahead, but first, a snacky.)
Tonight, I had a food stocker and a deli worker at the store I shop for Instacart stand behind me and titter away with giggles and cheery banter saying to each other that they were so excited for the new world that will begin on January 20th. They just can't believe all the new and fantastic things that are going to happen. They know my political standing and were doing this only to antagonize me. I acted like I was deaf and did not respond at all. So they got louder with their breathy excitement and I walked away into the dog food section. They were pissed and stopped their hyper and shrill giggling immediately. It dawned on me that they didn't refer to a single thing that they were expecting. Their act was simply for show because... you know... they won!!! Now I do have to say that one of them is a 16 year old junior in high school whose father was just arrested for threatening someone with a gun and the other led a loud protest against the library for PORN in the children's section. She had four old women in her group and made the local TV news which was their goal! Ah yes... such political activists live in my neighborhood right here in good ol' South Carolina!!! I figure the next four years are just going to be a continuous episode of the Jerry springer show!!! Along with an out in the open robbery of our US Treasury!!
I’m with you, Margo! I refuse to let the Orange Man & his Clown Car steal my holiday happy time. Took me a couple of weeks to understand & accept that my life must go on.
That, my new FUCK ring and wine will get me through this season! Can’t guarantee anything after that. 🥴