Nutshell & Wine Bottle

My friend Marq, who I hadn’t talked to in a while, made the mistake on 3/17 of asking me what had been going on. I packed a lot into my nutshell email: We have moved, and I love the house, but I am so exhausted from the whole scenario...closing near-disaster (Chase called us after we signed the papers, asking for more documents before they would fund...touch & go whether we could even move that week), dog door in the wrong place, fence redo, now we need a foundation specialist at the new house, the dogs tracked (trucked) in Katrina levels of mud last week…my dad loaned me some money for closing but then needed part of it back for his taxes... Interest in the old house has dried up, the realtor wants to meet with us to discuss "options." Also my work group just had a humongous reorg with more layoffs than expected, my manager and I are the only 2 people left in Dallas...Craig is complaining about his job again and sent in his resume for another one. Both dads were visiting last weekend, plus I had to babysit Craig’s little sister Frances for 2 straight days. (Love her, but…) Craig is obsessed with unpacking all the boxes in the garage but never has time to hang my pictures. His dad felt sorry for me and he and his wife put up all the Home Depot picture shelves (they look great). It took a lot of cursing & banging, but they got them up and only a couple are crooked, supposedly because the house was built crooked. One of the dogs, I'm guessing butt-head Marley, keeps having accidents in the den, where he apparently thinks there should be a dog door. We still don't have home internet (Craig was in charge of setting that up and gets defensive every time I ask about it), meaning I can no longer work from home, plus I am way behind on my sister’s to-do list (she needs addresses, needs web research, needs calls made, etc.) - yes, she does ask other people to help, but everyone else procrastinates or flat out ignores her. Did I tell you her parole application was rejected and by the way, her daughter just had a baby? Now she has calling privileges - collect calls - adding to the national Bowie debt.

Marq’s intelligent and caring response to all this was – hey, would you guys like to come over for dinner & a beer on Saturday night? I told him I drink wine now, not beer, and he opened a bottle of white just for me – it was an extra large bottle and I tried to pretend the size fooled me on how much I was drinking – but not really, I know I drank way too many glasses. Maybe I had some stuff to let go of…that Saturday was not a bad day but I still had previous baggage tied to my nether parts. I survived the wine overload due to divine intervention and/or because I ate so much of Marq’s delicious barbecue. I don’t usually eat much meat but I have to admit, it soaks up the booze.