The Daily Grateful

Still Halloween around these parts

I’m confused lately about what year we're in.  This is typically a January/February problem, not a November one.  Though the struggle is whether it’s 2014 or 2015 so at least I’m rounding to the correct wrong year.  I think this says a lot about what I think about 2014 and also probably something about how irrelevant a concept time has become since my mom died.  But instead of making it a big, lofty whoop and giving myself shit for not being present, I’m going to pretend Halloween is still newsworthy.  Two weeks ago is pretty much the present moment anyway.

If ebola can make a comeback then I can still post about Halloween.

Dan and I went all out—entirely for our own benefit.  There were three small handfuls of kids who came trick-or-treating before 6pm and then not a one.  So basically we, the childless couple on the corner, looked a little fucking nuts and a little fucking sad. It left me feeling strangely disappointed and because I couldn’t recognize that or get in touch with what I was feeling, I picked a fight. 

Not my most reasonable moment.  But it's in the past.

Look how fun we made it!  (There was a flashing light in the window!)  (We really looked crazy!)

The problem now is that we don't feel like putting anything away.

They look so orphaned.  (Note the leaf issue...)

Plus, Dan is still so impressed with his dummy.

My dad would be so proud.

I have a feeling it will be rocking a Christmas hat soon.

And prouder still.

He looks like he wants to stay there year-round.

He doesn't care about time either...

I smell a Spew mascot.

Futile Tool

You guys, I need a leaf blower manufacturer to sponsor my blog.  I’ll start every entry with a clip of me saying, “Brought to you by Futile Tools.  When you want to make a lot of noise and get nowhere, do it right with Futile Tools.”

Who are the leading names in leaf blowers anyway?  Whoever you are, I love you.  I don’t think you have a futile product.  I think mine—the leaf blower I currently have—is a futile tool.  So  maybe you should give me one of yours (preferably one with a vacuum attachment) and if it makes me a happier person than mine does (which I’m sure it will; did I mention mine is a plug-in?), then I will write delightful things about it.  And who doesn’t want delightful things written about their shit?  I think I just invented advertising.  (Or selling out.)

Also, dear leaf blower manufacture/supplier, I promise I won’t say shit again.  Or make any blowjob jokes, though it’s so temping.  You’ll note that I haven’t made even one blowjob joke and I’m already multiple sentences into this shit.

I’ll be a model spokesperson.

Does John Deer make blowers? One I can ride on?  If nobody has invented the ride-on blower, they should either invent that (because oh my gawd, what fun!) or hire me to keep giving them fantastic ideas.  It would need to have a vacuum though so it would feel like Pac-Man and not like I’m in a snow globe of blowing leaves that might cut open my eyeball.  Do they make ride-on lawnmowers with vacuums that eat the leaves?  This is a thing already, isn’t it?  I didn’t just invent a Leaf Pac-Man Machine, did I?  How sad for me.

But I think I did highlight why I need corporate leaf blower, lawn mower or home care sponsorship.  I don’t even know what tools are out there!  I can write about anything with extreme enthusiasm and utter naïveté!

Sample ad disguised as just anotha post: “Ham-mer.  Whoa.  Readers, put your rocks on a stick away and get yourself one of these things stat!  No more rocking in those fussy screws!”

It’s like having someone who is dying of thirst discover Poland Spring and then hawk it! "This clear stuff is amazing.  It literally saved my life!" (Poland Spring People, let’s talk.)

I would absolutely fawn over on a functioning leaf blower.  FAWN!  Because one that doesn’t function—one that blows the leaves the opposite, eye-ball cutting way, because the air bazooka doesn’t work properly—really makes you appreciate the good leaf blowers in life…even when you don’t have one yet.

There are more leaves every day, you guys.  Every day!  More!  There are leaves covering the driveway, leaves on the lawn, leaves in the gardens, the gutters, on the porch, on the steps to the mailbox.   I love raking. (Rake Makers—who makes this shit?—you hear me?)  But I just need to know the truth: am I supposed to do nothing but rake for the entire fall?  Is this what home owning is actually about?  Am I supposed to rake for many, many hours, many, many times a week or else feel guilt for being the one whose leaves are blowing into everyone else’s clean-as-a whistle-and-still-somehow-green lawns?  Just be straight with me.  Is endless raking just a part of tending to a home that nobody ever talks about because it’s so painful?  Like “ripping” during childbirth.  (I haven’t had a baby but I know about ripping.  Also, I have a friend who described labor to me as being stabbed in the stomach and electrocuted at the same time.  She is one of my favorite people.  And also the reason I employ 17 forms of birth control when using public toilets.)

Leaf Blower People, I’m talking to you!  (To clarify, I’m talking to potential sponsors.  Not you, Leaf Blowing Enthusiasts.  We’ll have our day, LBEs, as soon as LBPs hook a sister up.) Leaf Blower People, hook a sister up!  If you send it same-day shipping, I’ll tell people!  I’ll tell and you’ll seem so nice!

Plus, you’ll help preserve my self-esteem.  I used to love falling leaves and now I look at them as daunting tree petals of failure.  And why do I not remember my parents cleaning up all these leaves?  Other than my dad doing the driveway before it rained (per my mom’s request; a neuroses I have inherited—gawd forbid those driveway leaves get wet and tracked through the house), I can’t remember much in the way of leaf control.  It’s not like my parents were out there all fall blowing and raking and sweeping all these leaves.  Or were they? Was I just deaf to the sound of futile tools?

Is this just another of many awakenings I’ve had and will continue to have as I live in this house that they took care of for all those years?  Things were happening all around me—leaves fell, piles were amassed and managed—and I never even noticed.

Kind of makes me feel like a futile tool.