Moose in the Kitchen

Something about a hot, sunny Saturday makes me lose my head.* Possibly because there are only four hot, sunny days in recorded San Francisco history. Usually, waking up on a Saturday means poking my fetchingly cowlicked mop between the curtains, contemplating the fog bank moving toward the house, and scratching something delicate while wandering into the kitchen to fire up the coffee pot and the to-do list.

Last Saturday, it was hot. It was also sunny, a combination which made adhering to my to-do list a crime against humanity and irrefutable proof that I do, indeed, have a large broomstick jammed up my ass. So I crumpled up the list and tossed it into the garbage with a flourish. (Metaphorically, I mean. My to-do list is a computer document. But I very determinedly clicked the red button on the top left hand side.)

Once the decision to abandon a day of laundry and tub-scrubbing is made, all systems are GO. Sweaters hurtled across the room as I frantically pawed around the [meticulously organized and pleasingly arranged] detritus at the bottom of my closet. I found a summer dress, flip flops, and a hat while the dog choked on the dust and shook a sweater off her head.

Beach trips require the car that doesn’t have a top – or a backseat. Which means the dog sits in my lap. She, to be clear, is no mincing Tinkerbell. We’re talking 50 pounds of wriggling, clawing, pissed-off canine. Meeka firmly believes that the front seat is HERS and I have no right to be usurping it with my distressingly hairless (and rather pasty, she’d like to add) limbs.

She gets over it. Fifty unhappy pounds or not, I’m still bigger. Also, I have opposable thumbs with which to open the bag of treats.

Full disclosure time: The above picture was actually taken several years ago on the same drive (San Francisco to Stinson Beach). Because I forgot my camera, as I generally do because my camera is usually broken and therefore utterly useless. I feel quite sure that had I remembered my camera on this trip, I would have just broken it again. So it’s for the best. But I would have liked pictorial evidence of my patchy sunscreen application. Hint: Just because you can’t SEE the backs of your legs doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Sure, you’re sitting on them now, but what happens when you turn over? Huh?

What happens: You burn the backs of your legs to a tender, crispy pink. A color and texture that exactly matched the pork chop I ate later that evening. Which is as close as I ever hope to come to cannibalism.

So, I took a nap in the sun, took another nap in the sun, ate some honey mustard pretzel pieces, read my book, shook pretzel crumbs out of the spine, denied having finished all the pretzels, blamed the dog, am apparently rather transparent with my excuses and wasn’t believed, and took another nap in the sun. Because people who play volleyball or bocce ball or anything having to do with a ball and calorie burning at the beach just aren’t to be trusted.

I, my friends, am very trustworthy.

~~~

*It does not escape me that “lose my head” really means “ignore my to-do lists”. And, yes, my Friday nights are WILD.

Related posts:

1. Dogus Nervosa
2. Two Large Rumps, One Small Seat
3. One-Hundred Percent Airplane Free
4. The Dog is Just Happy We Finally Hooked Her Up With an Indoor Bathroom
5. Picture of Dog in Gray