1. The cat delivered two disembodied (disembirdied?) bird feet on our mat yesterday around dinnertime. The kids were SUPER squicked out. My husband, in a moment of True Lawful Evil, gave them detailed instructions on how they were to clean up, delighting in their squeals and groans of dismay and horror. Cat! Gift!

Except I had been out on an early morning walk and seen another pedestrian trip over a dead bird on the side of the road near our house. It was kind of a classic Rom-Com opening scene in which she was jogging with two dogs who spotted the bird first. Dogs stopped, and she ran into them, nearly going ass over teakettle, leashes flying, her screaming FUCK! and then seeing me coming out of my house and apologizing profusely. We had a laugh and she puzzled over the dead bird, like, What are we supposed to do with it? I guess because she didn’t want to litter or something, but also like maybe I had an answer/responsibility as the bird was in the street in front of my house. But small dead things seemed like part of the natural world and thus beyond my purview, so I said, “Leave it! It’ll figure itself out.”

And sure enough, the bird was gone when I returned, but Karma Enough, it was at my door that evening. The whole point being that those cats are acting like they love us and kill to be part of our family and present us with these gifts to make a big show of our relationship, but I know for a fact they regifted those bird legs.

2. Husband invited me to go ‘exercise the car’ which is what he calls driving around once a week so the battery doesn’t die. I was on the fence, I suggested with my lazy tone of voice, as I would have to put on pants.

“No you don’t” he said.

And as a big fuck you to all the lethargy and depression of sequestering, I did in fact, go on a car ride sans pants. It’s quite beautiful out there, all Tuscan spring and green hills.

3. Husband also began clipping his hair back with the kids’ barrettes. Usually my husband’s fashion choices fall squarely into cishet conservative male range, and TBH, although using a barrette as functional solution remains squarely in his Spock-like wheelhouse, I find the fashion departure quite interesting and attractive. Long hair! Pastel accoutrement! The subtle change of face and skull by drawing his hair back! All I’m saying is he could get it. You know, if we weren’t trapped in the house with three kids and thin walls 24/7/forever.

4. My mother announced earlier this week (last week? What is time) she was reinstating my dad’s memorial at the original date and time. So guess what I’ll be doing Saturday? The most futuristic memorial/possibly the world’s worst zoom meeting.

Plus side: only siblings, their spouses and children, my mother, and possibly my mother-in-law, who asked to be part. No Exes! No 20 person conference call where people glitch out mid-sob.

Downside: my mom was slap-in-the-face shocked when I told her my kids might wave and then depart without attending the memorial. Pandemic sequestering strikes again, giving us absolutely zero other places to be. Maybe I’m making the wrong choice here, but they expressed zero interest in attending and honestly, in present times, zoom funeral seems both too dark and too boring. But! Husband and I are fully dressing to the nines and afterward may celebrate by driving somewhere to pick up funeral food for home eating.