Life

“Tread lightly and do no harm. Approach the problem from a passive direction and everything will simply come together.”-Skunk

“Oh, F*uck, Ruby!!!”

Our boxer-pup Ruby has been skunked three times in past nine months, the last time being Saturday night. I know what you’re thinking: What a glamourous life you lead!

Everything we own has the lingering aroma of skunk woven into its cellular structure. I say aroma instead of odor because the inhabitants of my home react to it like it’s a new scented spray from GLADE, or a particularly cloying potpourri because well—we’ve all gone nose-blind.

We don’t smell the residual skunk in our shower, on our blankets, or in our clothing until we leave the house and come back.
And you know what? I have to say, it’s really not that bad!

Human beings are mysterious creatures. We are so incredibly adaptable and as if to prove that fact my entire family has adapted to the stench.

The first time, it caused my eyes to water profusely and I drooled like a cartoon wolf eyeing a pork chop.

The second time I gagged. Loudly.

This time the smell barely made me flinch.

Even the little brown dog seemed unfazed and her sense of smell is ten hundred billion times more sensitive than mine.

Here’s the thing, if you visit me three times…you’re a totem. I don’t care what you are. Grasshopper. Praying mantis. A Girl Scout selling Thin Mints. And since I am not one to miss an opportunity to ask “why?” I looked up “skunk totem.”

“If Skunk is your Animal Totem;
You are the ultimate pacifist, always preferring to avoid conflict and turmoil. You walk a very fine line between being a people “pleaser” and balancing your own self-respect and always maintain a “do no harm” attitude. You know how to be assertive without ego. You know how to attract others and are very charismatic. You have a good understanding of energy and how to use energy flows to get what you want.”

This makes no sense. It fits absolutely NO ONE in my house! Not one word of it. The three of us bicker like an angry pack of honey badgers. Ego is our middle name, and if charisma smells like skunk, well then okay. Otherwise…

My husband insists that this only goes to show that sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar, Janet—and a skunk is just a nuisance.” This all makes me mad because it proves that he is right yet again. 

And so…this bleeding heart has agreed to catch and release—the trap has been set and the skunk-scented potpourri is about to leave the building.

Geesh.

Happy Humpday y’all!

Carry on,
xox Janet

Taller, shorter, fat or skinny. Different, not wrong.
Black, white, orange or polka-dot. Different, not wrong.
Red hair, blue hair, or no hair at all. Different, not wrong.
Tattooed, pierced, bearded, half a shaved head. Different, not wrong.
Head-scarf wearer, wig-wearer, fully covered or barely covered at all. Different, not wrong.
Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian. Green Party, Etc. Etc. Different, not wrong.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender. Different, not wrong.
Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Unitarian, Baptist. Etc, Etc. Different, not wrong.

This is a post from back in 2014 when things seemed a little less complicated.
Carry on,
xox

The other day in line at my version of The Happiest Place on Earth, Target or “Tar-Jeh” as I like to refer to it; I overheard a couple of women in front of me mercilessly scrutinizing the cashier.

“My God, will you look at those fingernails, they’re so long! And that color!”

Her friend stopped unloading the contents of her cart onto the conveyor belt just long enough to lean forward to get a better look.

“Oh yeah,” she replied, “How does she do anything?

It appeared to me that she was doing her job just fine.

“And that blue color, bleck, all the kids are wearing that and I just don’t get it. It’s hideous.”

I was hoping that our checker Tracy, couldn’t hear them, even though they were making no effort to lower their voices, speaking with the same loud, rude, audacity I’ve heard some American’s use in a foreign country when they assume the victim of their vitriol doesn’t speak English.

Once they had finished verbally annihilating Tracy, they went to town on the lady in the line next to us.

“Oh jeeeeeez, she’s too old to be wearing shorts. Not with legs like that! One of the women snorted. “She should get that vein stripping surgery that Nikki had done, then maybe she could wear those things…but then only in the privacy of her own backyard for godsakes.”

“Looks like a freakin’ roadmap. Disgusting! My eyes can’t un-see that,” her friend chimed in, throwing cat food, tampons and a Snickers bar on the conveyer belt.

Suddenly, I realized that because I was behind them, at any moment I could become fair game. Terrified, I set my head to the swivel setting, looking around for another line in which to hide. Certain I was about to become the next victim of the Target Fashion Police, I started to pray…

Dear God, if you care about me at all (and I would understand if you don’t recognize me or even know my last name because, well, it’s been a while) please help me vanish into mist. Seriously, I can’t walk away now,  I just can’t, that’ll give them a perfect shot of my ass in yoga pant, my blue toenail polish, and this old CURE concert T-shirt I wear when I want to feel relevant. Fuck it! I’ll be damned if I’m going to give them all of that ammunition for their nastiness. Better I just stay put, duck down, start to drool, or become mist…yeah, mist would work.
…oh, shit, thanks, I mean, Amen.

Do you know people like that? That judge anything that’s different from THEIR “normal” as wrong?

Hey, ladies, with your overdone Botox, orange skin, and fake designer handbags, (sorry, but you asked for it) it’s not wrong – it’s just different.

I once took a friend to a group meditation which I attended once a month. She was interested in starting a practice, and I’d known these people for over ten years. A previous friend I had taken, described this group as an old, cozy pair of slippers – warm and welcoming. I thought so too.

Meditation was great. My friend seemed to genuinely like the people, chatting and laughing afterward while sipping her alkaline water.

On the way home in the car, I was in for a rude awakening.

“Ernest guy…what’s his story?” she asked.
I knew who she meant, one of the men IS very earnest in his social interactions.
“Oh I don’t know, I’ve known him forever. He can be kind of intense – but he’s sweet, really.”
“Well, he creeped me out. Then that Birkenstock, ferret-faced lady, ha! She’s something else.”

“Hey! These are my friends, sort of…anyway..they’re sweet and harmless and they seemed to really like you.”

I was trying to keep my cool, but I wanted to punch her in the throat. OMMMMMM back to a loving place.

“Yeah, well, they’re not my people, too granola, woo woo, Patchouli, for me. But I did like the water. And the meditation.”

Too bad sister, because I’m never taking you again, I thought silently to myself, not wanting to start a car-fight.

Truth is, I’d heard this same friend level judgment on everyone around her in ten seconds flat, but they were usually strangers, not people I knew. (I can only imagine what kind of animal MY face resembled.) Seems anyone who didn’t fit in some little box she had envisioned as “correct” – was somehow wrong.
They were ferret-faced, creepy, granola-eating (so what) freaks.

“Look at that pedophile waiting at the corner for the light?”
“Look at that girl’s eyeliner, who did her make-up? A raccoon?”

I know this seems like a duh, but I’m going there anyway. Obviously, SHE had some self-esteem issues or she wouldn’t be looking around with such a cruel eye and a sharp tongue.

After I ditched that judgy friend for good, I still couldn’t escape it, the judgment that is—I started to notice it everywhere.

Two guys at Starbucks sneering judgmentally at one of those overly complicated coffee orders the Barista was shouting out at the pickup counter. You know the one: grande, half-caf, sugar-free, one pump, vanilla latte with extra foam.

So what! Why is my order any of your business and why is it somehow wrong?

Variety makes the world go ’round. I personally relish it.
In my opinion, it makes life and people watching supremely entertaining.

Because it is so glaringly obvious to me now, I promise to try not to make you wrong.

Be your badass selves.
Fly your freak flags.
Wear your blue nail polish, go ahead! Pierce, tattoo, flaunt those daisy dukes, wear that red MAGA cap to the picnic (Gulp, I had to add that).

I LOVE IT. 

DIFFERENT inspires me! It gives me ideas, things I would have never have thought of.

As far as I ever contemplate pushing the envelope—someone has been there, done that, SO last Tuesday.

Start paying attention, see if you can catch yourself or someone around you judging different as wrong.
It’s okay if someone loves pickled herring or sleeps until noon or sings the wrong lyrics to every song (that’s actually endearing).

What do you think? Clue me in. Tell me about it in the comments!

Love you, my tribe,
Xox

In my humble opinion, this is one of the advantages of aging. To be able to look back on all the asinine things you were convinced, in that moment, that you absolutely, positively HAD to have—and be thankful to God they passed you by.

Several come to mind. Certain jobs, men, tattoos.

Lace-up leather pants.

So does a haircut straight from the pages of Vogue that my hairdresser, (who has remained a friend, probably because of this very thing) talked me out of at the last second.
“You can’t carry it off,” he said, after downing his second or third glass of liquid courage as I showed him a picture and begged for his compliance.
In the end, he was dead on. I didn’t have the neck length, face, cool factor, body, zah-zah zoo, bank account, self-esteem, etc. to wear the equivalent of Madonna’s armpit hair on my head. Permed. Long in the front. Dyed purple. Shaved on the sides for effect.
Think Apollonia in Purple Rain.

Lord have mercy.

Don’t get me wrong. If I’m honest, which I try to be, well, at least every other Tuesday in months that end in a Y,
I’ve fought for and gotten many things which in hindsight I wish someone had just locked me in the attic for a decade or two until I came to my senses and reconsidered. I bet you have too.

An all-white kitchen. Had to have it. Huge regret. Giant. And one I live with daily.

White kitchens, unless you employ a staff of tens to clean and repaint the walls and cabinets on a weekly basis, look good for the first five minutes. You feel like the luckiest woman to ever wield a spatula as you survey, hands on hips, the blinding white glory that your eyes behold.
Then real life kicks in with real dogs (big dogs, not purse pooches) with their eye snot, dog food laden jowl drool, and the snarfed face smear-fest that is perpetually showing up on every surface at about knee height. Never mind the bacon splatter, tomato sauce, and wine stains. Oh, and the chipped paint collateral havoc that living your best life seems to wreak.

Needless to say mine, because my husband is a contractor and as such insists that in the small print somewhere in our marriage contract it is stated that he MAY NOT smell wet paint or drywall dust at home—my kitchen is in a constant state of “long in the tooth” which is just a colloquial term for shabby. And not in the chic way which is tragically out of style anyway.

If you aren’t listed on the Forbes Wealthiest Americans list and you show me a picture of a Nancy Meyers, all-white kitchen you love and are thinking of building and you ask you my opinion—I will take a page out my hairdresser’s book.
“You can’t carry to off,” I will say, knowing you have neither the time, staff, nor fucks left to give.

And you will thank me.

I like taking this time to look back and see how life has saved me from myself. To be grateful and count my blessings for all of the bullets I’ve dodged.

I only wish I’d bought stock in those Mr. Clean spot remover thingies I use every damn day for the white kitchen cabinets I absolutely HAD to have.

Carry on,
xox

This is for all the unicorns out there. You know who you are.
My messege to you four decades later?

It all works out better than okay. Swear to god.

Now, go out there and live life like the lucky anomoly you are!
xox

I was married at twenty and divorced by twenty-six.

It was the eighties, the decade of Princess Diana and Madonna, and it seemed everyone was doing it—getting married young and divorcing.

Even my best friend at the time shocked me when she suddenly filed for divorce. When someone close to you calls it quits you take a magnifying glass to your own relationship, searching for the cracks. Well, no close inspection needed for ours, it was shattered to bits; held together with ducktape, spit, and glue.

I have to admit, in the beginning, her divorce left me reeling, after all, they were the perfect couple. But after they’d been apart a while, I saw how happy they both were and that’s when it finally dawned on me that deep down—my husband was probably as miserable as I was. Relationships don’t happen in a vacume. That’s when I decided that for the sake of our continued happiness as human beings—we could not stay married for one. more. minute.

NOBODY LIKES A QUITTER

It was impossible to paint a picture of my ex as an insufferable troll.

People understand when you divorce a man who is a cheater, an addict, or someone who can’t hold a job. It wasn’t him it was me. That line is cliché I know, but some sayings become clichés because they’re so damn true! My ex-husband was/is one of the nicest men on the planet and that sucks even more. I left an all-around-great-guy because I yearned for something more.

“More than what?” my dad asked upon hearing that I wanted a divorce. “What more could you possibly want? It doesn’t seem like anyone can make you happy!” He was right about that. That was my job, only I didn’t know it at the time. I only knew that something profoundly wonderful was missing. Something…untenable, indescribable and indefinable—and I wasn’t able or willing to settle for less.

That made me feel greedy. And wrong.

Other people settle. Why can’t I? It would be so much easier!

God, I had so much to learn! I had gone from living under my father’s roof to living under my husband’s. I identified as someone’s wife. Until I wasn’t.

HIDDEN BENEFITS

I would say the biggest benefit was becoming comfortable with my own independence. I had been half of a couple, a team, and now every decision, every mistake, was mine alone. I needed to figure out who I was and what I wanted from life, and in the process I was forced to wrap my brain around living without a man.

When there was a creepy sound in the middle of the night who checked it out? Me and my trusty baseball bat.

I started taking some risks, teaching myself how to invest money. I bought stocks and bonds, which scared the shit out of my dad, but ended up rewarding my courage with surprising dividends.

I also became skilled at all manner of apartment maintenance and eventually acquired a power drill and a small, red toolbox. Woof!

DATING

I had a hard time with the label divorcee. Every form I filled out asked me my marital status and checking the DIVORCED box reminded that I had failed at one of life’s most cherished milestones.
In my twenties.

Guys aren’t sure what to make of a twenty-six year old divorcee. No wild-eyed desperation or ticking time clock here. Some of them acted relieved. Many seemed a bit bewildered. Truth be told, it scared the bejesus out of most of them.

I don’t know where all the other twenty-something divorcees went to date—but in my circle, I was as rare as a Unicorn.

A twenty-six year old divorced Unicorn.

TRANSITION IN MY THIRTIES

Once I realized, much to the amazement of my single girlfriends, this controversial fact: that most of the men out there really did want to get married and have babies; and that a divorcee was way too much of a wild card for them at that stage of the game—I was able to formulate a game plan.

I dyed my blonde hair red, which narrowed the field even further. Only serious, artsy guys need apply.

I decided that unless I met someone extraordinary, marriage and children would probably not be a reality for me; and except for about a month when I was thirty-three and everyone around me was having babies—I was more than okay with that.

I made a great life for myself. I had a career I loved; great friends, wonderful family and I made foreign travel my passion.

That all felt amazing. Until it didn’t.

EVEN UNICORNS GET A SECOND CHANCE

After I turned forty, stability became my middle name. I settled down, bought a house in the burbs, let my hair grow longer and went back to being a blonde.

I started dating. Seriously, and a lot. Eighteen unmarried years had gone by and men my age and older couldn’t have cared less that I got divorced in my twenties. Most of them were on their second or even third divorce.

I was no longer an anomaly, an outsider.

I decided to go on a blind dating binge and that’s how I met the extraordinary man I married at forty-three—he was definitely worth the wait. At last I found that indescribable, indefinable something I’d spent nearly two decades searching for—and he found me.

Isn’t timing everything? Ain’t love grand? Maybe it was greed. I don’t know; I think it was all just dumb luck.

We all know how lucky Unicorns can be.

photo credit: http://therealbenhopper.com/index.php?/projects/naked-girls-with-masks/

A bass drum thrummed like a heartbeat behind the wall next door.

No big deal. There were only twenty of us, sitting on the other side, in lotus, attempting to meditate.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Is that Drake? I wondered for a hot sec.

I’ve participated in that Sunday morning, nine-thirty meditation for six months now and this was the first time the thump thump “music” had encroached. 

Huh. Interesting. 

That wasn’t the only thing that was different. 
Laurie, our usual teacher, and the ONLY one I’ll go to because she isn’t twenty-two, with a Valley Girl accent, spray tan, and a whopping year and a half of mediation under her Gucci belt—was absent. 

In other words—there was a sub.

I tried my best not to get all twitchy, but I’m not a fan of substitute anything.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Veggie burgers, Vegan cheese—just to name just a few.

I could feel the anger rise up inside me. My ears caught fire and I started clenching my jaw like I was arguing a case before the Supreme Court. “Your honor, YOU can’t handle the truth!”

In other words, I was losing my shit—in meditation class. Which translates, in every language known to man and some that aren’t, as an “epic fail”.

Every fiber of my being wanted to jump to my feet—flip a table—start a fire—spill hot coffee—and then race to my car.

Repressed rage, party of one?

‘There’s a reason Laurie’s not here,’ the calmer, less violent part of me reasoned as it gorilla glued my butt to the cushion. ‘Stay and figure it out 
Maybe this woman will be good. 
Maybe you’ll learn something. 
She’s just different, not BAD.’

Fine. You win. (But insert resting bitch face here.)

So I did. And she was, maybe not better, but really, really good.

Then, in the middle, just when I’d started to drool, the thump thump began.
Huh. Interesting. Drool. 
Seriously? Drool.
I’m so glad I’m in here and not in…drool.

When we came out of mediation, the first thing Kim, the sub, remarked on was the thump thump.

“Does this always happen?” she asked the class. Half shook their heads no, while the other half said yes, which wasn’t true, but that’s what happens when you ask a group of people to weigh in on anything. 

“Because I have a thing with ambient music,” Kim-The-Sub confessed, ratting herself out.
Oh, really? Over the years I’ve struggled with the frustration that comes from trying to meditate in a city like LA. Don’t get me started on leaf blowers!

Anyway, I could relate so I went full meerkat.

“Ever since a Buddhist retreat in 1999 (okay, how much do I LOVE that not only was she was alive in 1999—she was at a meditation retreat!) music seems determined to interrupt my meditation. From jinky Tibetan street music, to heavy metal, to the ice cream truck, it’s all out to get me!”

Makes sense, right? That explained why that strange thump, thump tried to interrupt our class for the first time in well, ever. 

Because just like the rest of us, Kim brings herself wherever she goes! She has her narrative—about annoying music— complete with traveling evidence!

Can I get an amen? Because, I mean, who doesn’t love proof of the obsurd fact that we bring our shit wherever we go?

I’m feeling warm fuzzies for Kim-The-Sub who may have just rocketed to the top of my list of favorite meditation teachers. 

I’m thinkin’ she’s a keeper.

Carry on,
xox

Get a house in the suburbs, they said. An ivy-covered cottage with mature trees just north of the hills.
That way you’ll get to experience all of the flora and fauna the area has to offer, they said. So much better than the concrete jungle of mid-city, they said.

So, we did.
We listened to “them”.

And for almost twenty years it’s been exactly as advertised—idyllic—except for that July a few years back when the coyotes ate my two Siamese cats. I can honestly say that put quite a damper on my summer. Still, we have managed to co-exist with nature in a very cordial and symbiotic way.

I leave past-its-prime fruit out for the squirrels so they’ll leave my bird feeder alone; we tolerate the enormous spider webs that are mysteriously woven overnight in high traffic areas and happen to always be at face level. There’s nothing like walking outside in the early dawn hours with a cup of coffee and becoming entangled in a giant, sticky, web that entraps you like a mummy and leaves you batting at your hair like a crazy person—all the while wondering where the damn spider went.

But like I said— we agree to co-exist.

Well, except for the crows. My husband wants to shoot them because they’re colossal pains-in-the-asses whose poops are ruining the paint on our cars. I fight, like a cheap defense attorney, for their right to occupy our giant tree in the front even though the evidence is overwhelming AND it pisses me off too. The sheer volume and size of their shit attacks are hard to fathom. I had one last week, the size of a serving platter, that blotted out the entire driver’s side of my windshield. And it was purple. Wtf?

Nevertheless, I won’t allow him to kill them although I’m pretty sure he’s already had target practice with a few.

But only the ones that laugh at him. Crows laugh you know.
At you.
At your dog.
At your poor choices in cargo shorts.
But you wouldn’t know that unless you live in the suburbs.

Aside from that; things have been quiet. That is, until this year, or as we like to call it: The Year That Wild Kingdom Took Over Studio City.

Lest you label me a complainer—I will first tell you some things I love about living amongst nature.

I love the squirrels, they’re chatty and cute and they hide peanuts in my flower pots… Yipppeeee.

I love the birds. They sing and crap joyfully while building their nests in the drawers of the outside potting table where I keep the clippers and the tiny garden spade—so I can’t get to them until the babies are hatched and raised and go off to college.

I love all the spiders and their cobwebs (which I learned recently are abandoned spider webs that have dust bunnies stuck to them) but I already said that.

I love the hummingbirds who actually come up to my face and make their cute little brrrrrrrrrr sound while I’m watering.

Ok. I’m done.

This year has been the year of the skunk and now, as of late, the year of the raccoon—and I don’t mean I’ve gone schizophrenic on the Chinese calendar.

We have captured and released three skunks after our beautiful but stupid boxer, Ruby, got skunked four times.
It has cost us the equivalent of a monthly car payment for an exterminator to wait them out and once caught, have them relocated to a more hospitable zip code.

But who needs money anyway?

Once those little rascals went bye-bye we mistakenly let down our guard thinking that the worst was over.

Until last week when twice, Ruby and I were woken up by the smell of skunk. Again.

One of my friends joked that the skunks are hitchhiking back to our house because they miss us. I had her killed.

This week there hasn’t been any skunk stench. Nope. Just the terrifying screaming that accompanies Raccoon Fight Club which starts promptly at 2 am—two shows a night—two mornings in a row. The sound is SO loud and horrific I’m certain that if a skunk were anywhere in the vicinity the smell would be scared right off it, but it was not the deterrent I’d prayed for.

“It’s just cats”, my husband mumbled in his sleep the first night. That’s his answer to everything.

“Yeah, if a cat is as big as a dog and screams like a child whose foot is caught in a bear trap,” I replied. To add to the racket, Racoon Fight Club had a cheering section—like it was a fucking championship prize-fight in Las Vegas. The rats who inhabit the Bougainvillea covered fence like it’s rent controlled apartments, were squealing their little hearts out. Favorites were picked. Bets were placed. Peanuts exchanged hands.

Oh, the rats? Haven’t I mentioned them yet? Oh, pardon me. Yeah. Our house is a veritable torture museum obstacle course of mouse traps that are set…everywhere. Apparently, all of Studio City is infested with rats.

They say it’s all the ivy and mature trees. Fucking “they”!

Anyway…After fifteen minutes of cowering in the corner with Ruby, it finally stopped. All of it. The screaming, the squealing, and our whimpering.

Last night it started again only this time it was so deafening and ferocious I could have sworn they were inside the house. Ruby and I jumped into each other’s arms, shaking like two pitiful Chihuahuas. It even woke up my husband and forced him to put on pants.

You don’t want to do that in the middle of the night.

You don’t want to make my husband put on his pants because then he means business—and somebody’s gonna pay.

I heard him grab the giant industrial flashlight that occupies valuable real estate on his nightstand. I hate that thing. It’s ugly AF, weighs a ton, doubles as a weapon, and is so bright I’m sure they can see the light from space.

Husband opened the door to the backyard and yelled “Hey!” because wild animals respond to bald guys holding klieg lights yelling at them. In reality, the screaming didn’t even miss a beat. I wondered how any of our neighbors could sleep through this horror movie nightmare, I’m sure I’ll read about it in the neighborhood blog: Neighbors hold middle-of-the-night, illegal racoon fight club on their rat infested fence.

After another ten minutes of relentless screaming from the raccoons with the rats cheering loudly in the background —I’d had enough. Someone had to do something! I left the safe embrace of my cowardly dog and barefooted my way out the door to the deck on the far side of the yard. I could see the glaring beam of light shining from the flashlight on the other side of the lawn where my husband was hiding standing.

It seems he had bestowed stadium lighting upon Raccoon Fight Club which only caused the rats to cheer louder!

“It’s two raccoons”, he whisper-yelled over in my direction. I could barely hear him over the commotion. But I know they heard us, those two raccoons, yet, whatever they were fighting about overrode their fear of two humans.
And a dog.
As an aside: Where’s the memo that goes out to the wildlife in the neighborhood that lets them know that our house is probably not a good idea for staging Fight Club because —IT HAS A DOG. A little brown dog that will…right.

Anyway, this next section sums up our marital partnership in five or six sentences. Maybe it will sound familiar to you?

“I’m hosing ‘um!”, I yelled over to my hero who was shining his beam of light right on them like it was the Super Bowl half-time show. Meanwhile, the raccoons gave not. one. shit. They just kept on with the scream fighting. So I turned the hose on full strength and blasted them with everything I had.

I think for a minute they thought it was part of the show. But Lord have mercy it shut them the hell up.

Blessed silence.

“They’re gone”, he informed me. “Good idea”, he added as he powered down the klieg light they can see from space.

”Uh, ya think?” I muttered under my breath as I wound up the hose and stood for a moment like Wonder Woman—and then went back to bed.

Being the woo-woo, California knucklehead that I am, I saged the entire yard this morning concentrating on that corner, which I’m convinced is a portal to the mouth of hell.

Hmmmmm...I wonder… how much is it going to cost us to trap and relocate two raccoons? They are definitely meaner than the skunks. Hear that? I’m starting to miss the damn skunks!

I think I’ll start a Go Fund Me Page.

Carry on,
xox JB

Even if you don’t believe in God, you have to admit that intelligent design had something to do with this little experiment we call planet earth, I certainly do!  We celebrated Earth Day the other day and at the risk of getting all preachy on you:

1. Every day is and should be Earth day!
2. A few months ago, a friend sent me this article about trees. Not only do they breathe, they have a pulse, a heartbeat so to speak, every two hours!

https://articles.spiritsciencecentral.com/3-unbelievable-facts-trees/     

The health of Mother Nature and Earth is critical to our survival as a species and if you don’t believe that—go hug a redwood, or swim with dolphins, or simply sit on a porch and watch a late afternoon electrical storm roll in…

Okay. I’m done. Keep breathing everybody.

Carry on,
xox

I call this, brother hugging tree

“And then, when you’re off chasing a dream, you miss out on what’s happening right under your nose.”
~Charles de Lint

Oh, hello Paris, it’s me, Janet…Again.

In my mind, we are old friends given the fact that’s this is the third time in a decade that I’ve visited your beautiful City of Lights.

You might not have recognized me. My hair is a softer shade of red now that I’m rounding the bend toward forty, and I may even resemble a local Parisian woman, not the ‘American in Paris’ tourist whose skin I inhabited the other two times.  Much to my surprised delight a Frenchman asked me, ME,  for directions this very morning.  Anyway, it’s okay if you didn’t know who I was.

Paris: Bon Jour Jeannette, good to see you again. Nope, sorry, you are right, I didn’t recognize you because all American tourists look the same to me.

Me: But the man asked ME… uh…right. Was it sitting on the wall on the banks of the Seine, having my picture taken that gave me away?

Paris: No. Well, yes, that and the metro schedule and map of the city that I can see protruding from the little bag you’re carrying. Also, and I say this with the all the sensitivity I can muster ( I am Paris after all), no self-respecting French woman would be caught dead walking around my city with a sweater tied around her waist.

Me: Right.

Paris: Enough idle chit-chat, what brings you here?

Me: Oh, uh, it’s kind of awkward. I’m here with my boyfriend, but I can see the writing on the wall. We’re here for a friend’s wedding, traveling around Europe for three weeks by train and I’m sorry to say we can now add long distance travel to our ever-expanding list of incompatibilities.

Paris: Right. Sorry. How can I help?

Me: Ugh. I’m so tired. Chasing love for so many years is exhausting. Although…I do have to say I love your men. I think my next serious relationship has to be with a European man.

Paris: Well, Ma Cherie; there’s European men and then there are French men. Do you think you are ready for a Parisian man?

Me: Yeah, sure…no, you’re right…probably not. But I think they are sublime. I’ll aspire to one, yeah, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll…

Paris: You can start by untying the sweater from around your waist. Try your shoulders instead.

Me: Right. Listen, do you think I need to move here to find true love? You know, I’m not getting any younger and I’ve fantasized about doing that for years! What do you say? Rent an apartment here, eat cheese and warm baguette while walking the city, find an amazing jewelry job and a gorgeous French husband all at the same time?

Paris: This may surprise you but—I don’t believe in chasing dreams. I say go back to Los Angeles and be yourself. Wear your sweater as a belt and let the love of a Frenchman find you there. You never know, there could be the Parisian man of your dreams living within a ten-mile radius. Fate will intervene. If you are meant to marry a Frenchman…he will find you. Stop running.

Me:  Thank you Paris. I have to go now. I’m wearing a dress and the rough stone is exfoliating my ass and not in a good way. I love you.

Paris: Je t’aime Jeannette.

This is a true story. Mostly.
Actually, the moment our plane landed back in LA my boyfriend and I broke up. That was okay. I had my European dream and I just kept putting it our there and lo and behold, four years later, on a blind date in Los Angeles…I met the most delicious Parisian man…who it turns out lived within a ten-mile radius of my house. Fortunately, he was able to overlook my poor use of sweaters—and married me nine months later.

To me, that just goes to prove that ANYTHING is possible!

Carry on,
xox

Hi All,
I posted this on Insta this weekend (if you’re not following me, shame on you!) and when I looked at the comments, everyone pretty much agreed that this was a metaphor for life masquerading as story about wisteria.
Take a look and see if you agree.
xox

This never gets old and I’ll never take it for granted since it’s been close to twenty years in the making.

When I bought this house, a friend gifted me with two potted wisteria plants that bloomed anemically for a couple of years.
“Put them in the ground,” someone suggested after getting tired of hearing me complain. “You’ll have better results.”

So I did, put them in the ground; the results unfortunately were…meh..unimpressive.

Then, when we remodeled, I was forced to pull them up and imprison them back in pots for almost two years where they lived unhappily—just barely. If plants can live on neglect and vengeance—that’s what they did.

My dream was to have them frame our newly built outside living room or ‘casbah’, as we call it, but by this point they’d been through the ringer so let’s just say my expectations were…low.

For over seven years they held a grudge, refusing to bloom. People advised me to not to give up hope.
“They’re in shock,” they said, “They’ll bloom eventually, once they feel secure. Be patient.”
Since patience is not a virtue I possess, I forced myself to forget they were a flowering vine and was just grateful for the shade they provided every summer. 

Then, when I least expected it—THIS started to happen and I have to tell you, it’s better than anything I ever expected!
And I can’t even about the fragrance—it’s intoxicating!

Mother Nature. She can be a deliverer of life lessons…a bit of a bitch…and a show off!

Carry on,
xox JB

On my way to meet my friend for lunch on Tuesday, as I rushed my face off because I had totally spaced and the only thing that got me away from my computer was her phone call at 12:15, asking me where I was, and did she have the wrong day? 

As an aside can I just say right here and now that I can’t believe I’ve turned into THAT girl—the one who forgets about plans because she’s chasing a dangling participle around a particular paragraph, or worse yet—she gets sucked into a FaceTime vortex that morphs time and spits her out somewhere inappropriate. And late.
Lord. Have. Mercy!

Anywaaaaaaaaayyyyyy…
I was traversing a crowded parking lot when I observed with my own two eyes, something so perverse it filled me with rage.

I saw two millennial men, strolling to their car(s) eating ice cream cones! On a random Tuesday! In broad daylight! 

It wasn’t National Ice Cream Day (I, of all peole would have known) so I had trouble wrapping my brain around what I’d just witnessed. 
Here is just a snippet of my internal dialogue —aka—food rage (maybe you can relate):

Me: Huh. Must be nice. Look at them, they probably think by walking to their car they’re working off the calories.
Men.
I’d have to walk to Nebraska and back just to justify the sugar cone. 
I wonder who’s idea that was? Did one guy say ”Gee, let’s get an ice-cream cone,” and the other guy said “okay” without any argument? Without reciting all of the reasons why that was a bad idea? What are they, nine?
Women don’t do shit like that! We insist we’re full when in reality we’d trade our first-born child for an ice cream cone. Everyone knows women don’t do spontaneous dessert! We have to have an excuse! Like a bad break-up or being on vacation. And even then we feign disinterest.
Me: “Oh, look, a new ice cream shop. Should we go check it out?”
Everybody’s Fucking friend Sheila: “Oh, I don’t know, ice cream, really, we just had lunch.”
Me: “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say, wishing a car would jump the curb right then and put us both out of our misery.
But not these guys! They’re clearly making no excuses!
And it’s obscene the way they’re flaunting it! Strolling like that! Like they’re in some fucking piazza in Tuscany! They have some nerve!!

As much as I wanted to, I could not become the better version of myself. Things started to snowball downhill to a bad place. I wanted to trip them both for acting so carefree, sending their cones splatting onto the pavement. Nobody needs to see that shit out in the open! All it does is makes us feel bad about ourselves! Or better yet, I wanted to accidentally stick my face, tongue extended, into their cones, you know, for quality control purposes…That’s when I almost got hit by a car which pulled me out of my food rage because that’s what happens when a woman of a certain age spirals out of control on account of ice cream. 

Question: Can anyone relate to this or is it just me who’s carrying this deeply buried, unexpressed dessert rage?

Carry on,
xox 

Is this creepy? It feels a little creepy to me.