If you've been keeping up with my blogs you know I'm about to venture out on my own and drop the little one from my grocery list. That's right, I had to MOVE OUT OF THE APARTMENT to get rid of my clingy kid. She's OK with it, she's had six and a half years (who am I kidding, she's had 32 years) to get used to me, and to fully accept and understand me. This not being the case, it's time to move forward and leave her redheaded mess-making self to the wolves. I say the wolves. Hopefully, she hasn't actually adopted or rescued any actual timber canine; but I haven't checked in a day or so. She did pick up a Mediterranean Gecko this past week. We have a new cage now. Scratch that; because she rescued the gecko she felt it needed a buddy and bought a bearded dragon (plus the cage, lights, basking rock, bedding, food, etc., etc., etc., ) and now they're both living in her room. This is what I'm leaving. I'm going to go away, breathe quietly, and do so without dozens of fuzzy and/or scaly faces staring at me.
I woke up this morning and decided to pretend I was already living on my own. I purposely didn't say good morning to my daughter who was still sleeping. I purposely made my own coffee without putting on her tea. I purposely didn't feed her dog, but took my own dog for a walk. Then I promptly felt absolutely too guilty about that, and fed her dog. You know I'm not that big of an asshat. I can't take it. He just too sweet to ignore. He did that head tilt thing - not understanding my actions. I had to break character and feed him. I sat in my chair and when my daughter woke up and asked me if I had set her tea I didn't answer her right away. I pretended she had called me on the phone so I answered her with my phone up to me ear and said "No, I'm sorry, I'm in my new apartment you know. I don't have your tea pot over here. You'll have to make it yourself, but I did feed your dog." Deciding to play along with me, my daughter pretended to hang up on me, and made herself tea. Then she told her dog what kind of an asshat she thinks I am, but I know he totally disagreed with her. I could see it in his eyes.
Staying in my groove, I decided to head off to the stores, the post office, and the grocery store by myself. I barely got to the car when I realized she was behind me. I acted as if she was on the radio, and turned the knob down so I didn't have to hear her. It didn't work. She goosed me in the side and made me scream! FINE! I told her she could pretend with me, but she couldn't make any suggestions I was shopping for one, not two. She agreed to pretend not to make suggestions and she allowed me to think I was buying food for myself only. It didn't work out that way at the check out counter, but I had fun thinking I was buying just my stuff. When we did make it to the check out she was kind enough to buy her own food, and let me buy my own as well. She insisted on bagging them separately so I could keep my dream going - - good plan. When we got home I had more things to carry upstairs, and I had to move things around in the kitchen to accommodate my new food, but it worked out for the best. She doesn't like my stuffed mushrooms, my Italian sausage, or my steel cut oats. She doesn't like most of what I bought, and when she asked what this was, or that was, I told her it was FOOD. It was REAL food, and adults ate it. She laughed. She said "Well, this one eats ramen." Yes...yes, I know.
The fantasy extended to my bedroom later today when she walked into it and asked what the hell that god-awful smell was. Well, Laura dear, it's a candle. The scent is Himalayan Bamboo and I made it. I like it. She made a sniff-cough noise and closed my door. Just think, if all I had to do was burn a bamboo candle to get her to leave my room when I'm typing, I would have done that six years ago. Who knew? I poked my head around the corner of my room and gazed into her room for a second to see what she was doing. I could hear her talking about me. She was on her computer, headsets on, eyes glued to the images of her four international friends as they zoom and/or do the Facebook Live thing. She was explaining to them what I was doing and why I was doing it. They all, without exception, all four of them, told her it was time I left the apartment and she should grow up. LOL...I laughed. I punched her in the gut first, but I laughed. She laughed too, but couldn't turn around fast enough to get me. I was out the door!
Glancing over my cupboards just a few minutes ago I found so many wonderful things I will be making for myself (and her if she wants it) for the next foreseeable future. I can Pinterest the daylights out of dinner ideas. I can go on for weeks on end. I can literally turn a few ingredients into a masterpiece of culinary surprise; if she would only stop interrupting my mojo with her need to boil water to cook an egg or microwave a boxed mac and cheese. I am over there cutting up cilantro, pressing olives, and fileting cod while she's tearing off the paper protective cover of something in a plastic sort of paper sort of cup thing. I stand and wait while she adds unfiltered water to it. I blink with confusion. Did I really give birth and raise this one? Did an alien come by years ago and maybe slink its way inside the skin of 2nd born without me realizing it? Who gives up roasted herb cod for preprocessed powdered cheese and hard noodles in a box? My kid. That's the answer. My kid.
I scoured the internet for recipes and wrote down the ingredients I would need to create them. I did the math, the calculations in order to only buy as much as I would need plus maybe a little more in case her tastebuds could beg her head to try something good for once. I bought the food, I put it away, I never actually have to label it or write notes to say "don't eat my food" because this woman is a Taurus and she will never eat anything other than the same old grass in her pasture. NEVER. It will not happen. I could count on it and set my clock to it. Now, that being said, if I buy food that she likes it won't be in the cupboard when I think I want it. Nope, that's a given. She'll lay claim to anything and everything that has become standard, or ordinarily routine. She's a rut eater. If she's eaten it for the past 32 years she'll continue to scarf it without asking. I needed a strategy and it was rather easy to accomplish. I just had to buy food she hadn't seen or heard of.
It won't be long before my phone is blowing up with texts and voice messages about whether or not I have an extra box of noodles in my new apartment. She'll ask if I bought Lactose Free milk and if it was HER brand. I will intentionally buy 2% regular milk so I can keep my dairy supply. She'll write to me and ask me I have any hot dogs, Lil Smokies, Vienna sausages in a can, or if I bought any cheap cookies that, to me, taste like cardboard. No Laura. No, will be my answer. I have beef Wellington. I have orange marmalade, I have fresh organic salsa made by some woman you've never met. I have rich chocolate cakes that I made and froze to keep fresh. I have marinating butter steak strips to make surf and turf kabobs tomorrow -- but there's nothing in my house that has preservatives or comes in a MSG filled form; sorry. She'll come over reluctantly, and allow me to feed her. I know my kid. She'll bitch about the sandalwood incense and she'll likely collapse for hours in my papasan chair. I know she'll miss me. She'll pretend she doesn't, but she'll bring her little dog with her so he won't be eye-balled by her new pet snake. Just sayin'. There will be one the second I leave the place. Mark my words.
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