I Like Big Soaps and I Cannot Lie, The Burden of Lunch, Gray Cat Update

A little disappointingly, FEMA school was canceled this week due to the government shutdown, so now the onus is upon me to show up to work as usual (yawn!) and get a proper blog post up. So here goes: The big excitement in the Typist household over the weekend was a tiff over soap. I had dutifully trudged off to Local Big Box Grocery Store to buy sundries and things for us to eat, and when I got to putting the soap away, I realized that we already had a fair supply of it, as I had neglected to check the bathroom before I left. I made a casual comment to Mr. Typist about our surplus of soap, which he immediately used as a launching pad to go off on a tirade about how I keep opening new soaps when there are admittedly thin but perfectly good soaps still in the shower. He further opined that he has suspected all along that I have a “thing” for big soaps, which unfairly places the burden on him to mash all of the thin soaps together into one soap large enough for me to deem worthy of use. He is completely correct, of course. I like big soaps...thick, blocky soaps that fit in my hand well and lather up like a boss. I have confidence in big soaps, whereas I am suspicious of the ability of thin, brittle, worn-down soaps to do the job to my standard. I do not view this as a character flaw, and I refuse to apologize.

The cafeteria at my place of work was recently closed down, which has left me with the burden of bringing my own lunch, as restaurants in my neighborhood are now far too pricey and I can’t afford to eat out very often. I had known this was coming for a while, but I’ve been conveniently in denial about it. I finally bit the bullet last week and half-heartedly purchased some bread, some overly-salty lunch “meat” and an insulated lunch bag. I assembled a little sandwich making kit each morning and tried my best to put together a sandwich on the few square inches of desk space I have available to use as an ad-hoc food prep area. This lasted three days until I gave up. The whole operation was just too burdensome and involved. I had to clean my utensils in the bathroom sink that only has intermittent warm water, make sure my little thing of mayo stayed properly cold, clean all of my plastic containers, remember to bring my lunch bag home…it was all too much, when I was used to being able to just sweep into the cafeteria and grab something to go that I could eat at my desk. So now I need a new lunch plan. I think my lunch plan may just be to skip lunch and go for a walk instead. How long that genius scheme will last will depend on how hungry I get.

I arrived home the other day to find Buddy’s nemesis, Giant Gray Cat, aka Miles, curled up on our porch, snoozing peacefully. I said hello and gently petted him. He stood up and sniffed me and was very friendly and gentle. He looked me in the eyes with curiosity and sniffed my bag and rubbed his fur against my legs. I’d never seen him up close before. He is really quite a beautiful cat, with big orange eyes, soft fur, and a royal bearing. I wish Buddy would just give up the rivalry and be friends with him. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, as the minute I walked through door and Buddy smelled a whiff of GGC on my hands, he glared at me suspiciously and immediately went to his scratcher to sharpen his claws.

Here is a silly blast from the past, because sometimes we need a little divine silliness in our lives: