Hi Darling Ones,

Walter, my one true canine live, and I have been reunited and it feels so good. I missed his puppy butt and how he pounces on me whenever I walk into the kitchen because he’s sure I’m getting something to eat. I always share whatever I’m eating with him. Last night he had roughly 1/3 of my dinner. I’m a sucker for this dog.

Right now, it’s just me and Walter in the living room. Wendell is a literal fraidy cat and stays upstairs all day, only coming down once everyone goes to bed for the night. He also has to get in all his cuddling and fetching playing in once I go to bed, which is not ideal. However, in the wee small hours of the morning he climbs under the cover and curls up next to my butt and thighs. I do love a good bumper buddies situation.

Back to Walter, I can tell he is not used to hanging out with me. Right now, he’s laying at my feet and every time I break into song he lifts his head and looks at me as if saying, “what are you going on about now?”

It’s also good to see Sister #2 and Ben, and not just because Sister #2 affirmed that I do look like Alex Papasian.

Having them here simultaneously reminds me of how wretchedly lonely the past year has been and also how much quiet time I need to think. This is not a complaint, merely an observation. They’re only here for a week and have a lot of not-including-me social activities planned so I don’t think we’ll reach complaint levels of over-socialization.

This afternoon Ben’s gonna put up my new chandelier and I am ridiculously excited about this. I don’t even know if I told you about the chandelier. It’s adorable and involved buying 25 light bulbs.

Tomorrow, I think, Sister #4 & Dolly are coming to celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday.

More later,
Jodi

The post Just Like Peaches & Herb appeared first on I Will Dare.

Now that the polar vortex has broken I’ve got a chill I can’t seem to shake. My insides feel like they’re constantly shivering even though I’m fully-clothed under a warm blanket with a tiny, furry space heater curled next to me. In 159 words I’m going to sink into a hot bath and then hit the sheets. I’m zonked.

Yesterday’s furnace-anxiety was replaced by pee-anxiety. It seems Mr. Walter Hobbs is part camel. Ben took him out last night before he left around 8 p.m. and then Walter refused to pee again until 4 o’clock this afternoon. That’s what? NINETEEN HOURS without peeing. I took Walter outside about four times from 8 a.m. until noon, and he refused to go. He refused to take more than two steps outside the front door. He was having none of this polar-vortex bullshit.

I was, of course, worried. I searched my house for pee puddles and found nothing. This was a kind of bladder-holding feat I didn’t think was possible. Apparently, it is. My brother-in-law said Walter did the same thing yesterday.

I wish I had that dog’s bladder. I think I peed nineteen* times from 8 p.m. last night to 4 o’clock this afternoon.

*only a slight exaggeration.

The post Day 191 of 200: Tales from the Polar Vortex Day III appeared first on I Will Dare.

Walter is curled up on the couch next to me, he’s leaning against my left leg and I keep taking my hands off the laptop so I can pet him and tell him how much I love his butt. I’d do the same to Sully, but he’s crashed out in a nest of blankets on the other couch.

Speaking of Sully, wanna hear another story about how smart he is?

On Thursday, he kept bugging Ben as he installed a new doorknob. We’ve taken to calling the dog Sully Kravitz because he’s the nosiest. In an attempt to get Sully Kravitz to leave Ben alone I asked him to go get his dragon. Usually the dragon is in the blanket nest Sully has made in front of the TV, but for some reason he had left Draggy in the windowsill where he likes to perch when keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

“Sully, go get your dragon,” I said, and he ran to the blanket nest. “Nope. It’s up there,” I said pointing to the window, not holding out much hope he’d figure it out since Draggy was hidden behind Ben’s coat.

But damnit if he didn’t figure it out.

The post Day 138 of 200: Sully Kravitz the Smartest Dog Here appeared first on I Will Dare.

I officially ruined Thanksgiving at 2:08 p.m. when I quizzed my libertarian, Trump-voting nephew a little too severely for his tastes and he went upstairs to his bedroom not to return until well after dinner had been served and cleaned up.

For the record, I did feel awful and volunteered to go home so he could enjoy the holiday with the rest of the family. And I’m only a little pissed that I made the offer because emotional labor and male privilege and women’s work, etc.

This all happened well before my parents arrived at Sister #2’s house. Once they got settled in, my dad said, “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s right here,” I said, petting Sully who was sitting on the back of the love seat next to my shoulder.

Jaycie and my sisters immediately burst into laughter.

“What?” I asked. “They are brothers.”

“He wasn’t talking to Walter,” my sister spit out between gulps of laughter that brought her to tears. Apparently my dad was not talking to Walter who was standing near my dad, but rather to my niece sitting next to him.

We spent the rest of the night arguing if Sully and Walter were brothers or not.

The post Day 122 of 200: The Brothers appeared first on I Will Dare.

Me: sits down on couch after going to the bathroom.
Walter & Sully: stand in front of me tails wagging awaiting food.
Me: “Stop it, ya bastards. You don’t get to eat every single time I stand up.”

Me, 30 minutes later, makes an extra hot dog so Walter and Sully can split one of their own and not eat any of mine.

Scene: I’m making a ridiculous and so-not-worth-the-effort no-knead, slow-rise garlic and cheddar bread that involves preheating my Dutch oven in a 450 degree oven. Also, you should know, my smoke detectors lose their shit whenever I open the oven door and it’s set to anything higher than 400.

Me: opens oven door and the smoke detector starts to shriek.
Sully: loses his shit and runs barking upstairs, comes down stairs, runs back up, and comes back down.
Me: shuts the oven door and then waves an oven mitt at smoke detector to get it to stop. I come out into the living room to find that in his panic Sully has brought down a pair of dirty underpants and one sock. NOTE: these are not the same underpants and sock that he has added to his blanket nest in my bedroom.

The post Day 103 of 200: Scenes from a Weekend appeared first on I Will Dare.