1. Some time after Christmas I went out on my back porch to enjoy a steaming mug of coffee and realized someone’s drone was stuck in my tree. The tree right outside our upstairs bedroom window.

Nobody’s come to claim said drone, and I now spend my morning back porch time wondering if this is what celebrities feel like, and whether the teenage boys down the hill are shitting bricks and hopefully still grounded for losing their toy.

2. I burnt dinner the other night. Husband was picking up kids from sports. I sent them the news because my youngest kid loves cheese pizza and I wasn’t sure she’d eat something this burned. That’s her side there– the one that’s most blackened.

3. Late last month, my husband drove with one sibling to help a third sibling move. All three got covid. Or, to my skeptical eye, one jackass sibling had covid and let the other two come over and help him move anyway. The good news was that my husband was huddled in a cabin with his siblings moving boxes for the first two days and returned home all feversish and half-delusional, so he was easy to spot, although he denied having covid. I guess his reasoning was that since he’d not gotten it thus far, he was impervious.

Despite his denials, I shooed him into the bedroom and locked him away, Rapunzel-style. Since I’d spent many 2 AM minutes What-If-ing this exact scenario, I went right into action, sliding food into the bedroom while he stood at the far end, making him wear a mask any time he left, and stuffing a towel along the bottom of the bedroom door.

Midway through the week, my husband confessed his feelings were a bit hurt. What, being sick and after not seeing me for a week prior to coming home, he’d been lonely and miserable and a little resentful I hadn’t come up to snuggle him.

Which made me suspect my husband is descendant of kings. The asshole kind of kings who had all their beloved household members euthanized upon their death so the freaking guy wouldn’t be lonely in the afterlife. I told that fucker to get back in the bedroom, I was a survivor first and foremost.

Anyway, he’s recovered quite nicely since, and the kids and I avoided covid, although both he and I have been a little grumbly since. Him because I refused to infect myself for true love, I guess? And me because I didn’t want to die.

4. Am still avidly watching the fallout of my high school’s credible sexual abuse accusations. It is quite a learning curve to revisit those memories as an adult and realize how monstrous some of the things were that went on. Back then, of course, it was something that ‘sometimes happened’ and even though it felt gross, there were no words available to me that defined it as wrong.* Also very strange is the idea that my birthplace literally burned to the ground a few years ago, and now my high school is burning to the ground metaphorically. Watch out college!

5. My little sister, Little, moved last month to live in my mother’s house. With her kids and husband.

Sometimes I get maudlin and self-pitying about this, that my whole living family is now in a six block radius without me. That my mother did, in fact, live near me and then moved away and now they are all a happy family there without me!

But then one of them will call and bitch incessantly about the others, and I am once again quite happy to be 200+ miles away.

6. Speaking of ‘family’ (please envision the most comically large air quotes) The Exes reached out via facebook with a sullen DM of, ‘sorry I’m late wishing you happy birthday, but at least I made the effort’.

As though years and years had not passed with us successfully not speaking.

As though they were DMing from an account I was friends with.

But still! Messaging like I was pissed because they’d forgot my birthday and they were sourly apologizing, not quite pointing out what an ass I was being.

I made the effort to find the ‘block’ function and found high satisfaction in using it. Also in the past month, my mother has made a point of telling me one of them has cancer. To be clear, I would not wish cancer on anyone. Also? If I didn’t want to deal with you when you were a healthy asshole, I certainly don’t want to jump back in for the agonizing taking care of you part.

7. People continue to break in and squat in the Haunted House. Husband paid to have a security system put in. The first week or so, it went off every day or night. Then we got a call that the security system had lost power. Local contact went over and found that the people breaking in had gotten pretty goddamn sick of the alarm (relatable!), ripped the system out of the wall, and presumably hocked it somewhere.

The security system told us we’d need to pay for it’s replacement.

I spent an entire week WHAT?ing that scenario. They STOLE the security system. What kind of fucking security system gets stolen? I mean, surely these are not the first squatters in the history of security systems to do this, right? How has the security system not taken care of this Huge Design Flaw? How are we paying for them to protect the house when they cannot even protect their own utilities?

My husband refused to let me handle the call while I was foaming at the mouth, and instead went into the other room and spoke very calmly to them.

They kindly gave my husband a 15% discount on the next security system panel. Whatever. I have enough stress. Anyway, my husband seemingly had fun on the phone brainstorming where they can hide the next panel so burglars can’t find it. Will it be under the crawl space of the house? In the attic? How long will it take earmuffed squatters to find it this time? Find out next week!

*I’ve read MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell since and was completely impressed with how well done it was.