Today has not been a good day. At all.
It started with the Horrifying “Bug” Incident of 2009, of Which We Shall Not Speak Again, Yea God. This is best summarized by a series of text messages with my friend Amanda, while I walked the dog through the park.
J: OMG! OMG! Flaming heebie-jeebs from hell!
A: Spider??
J: Maggots. Maggots everywhere. Trashcan was apparently crawly and we discovered them this a.m. inching across the kitchen floor.
J: Have removed skin and am now setting self on fire.
A: Dancing, squealing, retching, poking out of eyes?
J: All of that, yes.
A: I have the squidgies now.
J: House will be disinfected with blowtorch and then nuclear bomb dropped on it.
A: And acid?
J: Hair is mad from clawing at it with heebie-jeebs, and park walkers think I have the heroin withdrawal twitches.
A: Did dog eat any? Do you have to boil her?
J: Am dropping her off at 10 to have her shaved, just in case she touched one. Have so much work to do and will never be able to concentrate now.
J: And to culminate, just walked through gigantic spiderweb.
After bleaching the house and crying all morning, I dropped Beulah off at the groomer’s to be nudified. But I was too mortified to tell them why she needed “Paranoia Shaving,” so I spent all morning terrified that she’d have one on her fur, and the SPCA was going to show up with handcuffs for neglecting our dog. I did warn the nice groomer lady not to attempt to shave her paws without a muzzle, because she turns into a chupacabra the instant someone messes with her feet. Seriously, it’s like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr Hyde on meth. I found out later that they did muzzle her, but she flipped out so badly during the nail trimming (I didn’t know they were doing that or I’d have recommended an Iron Maiden), that she fell off the table, and while being hoisted back on, she escaped from the muzzle like a Satanic Houdini and mangled the groomer’s assistant. I have the remedial kid.
And to really ice it, Simons and I are looking for a church and had set up a meeting with the minister of one of them to learn more. Only he had already decided we were a bunch of commie pinkos, because we lived in San Francisco, and the meeting ended up being two and a half hours of terrific discomfort. I’m telling you…childbirth is going to be a breeze compared to this lunch. South Carolina is going through some ridiculous schism in the Episcopal Church, which generally smacks of shot putting in glass houses to me. And apparently this church and its minister were embracing the party line of not accepting gay ministers or gay congregants or what have you, and at one point the man mentioned a gay couple by name as an example of how he would not accept gay partnerships in the church. Well, in fairness, the minister couldn’t have known that one of the men whose personal business he was bandying around is a good friend of Simons’ and a pretty awesome human being in general; but perhaps it’s not his business or in good taste to talk about people by name. Simons nearly leapt across the table at him. I think that even could I convince Simons to step foot in the door again, it’s not a very good fit for us. We prefer to bring our child up in a loving church that welcomes all kinds of sinners, not just perfect ones.**
So, in short, I’m tired and afraid to go home and my dog is a vampire and God hates me. I wonder if the cupcake store is closed.
**Afterthought: Not that the church would want an unhygienic bug-infested bunch of commie pinkos anyway. Clearly, we are no great loss. And the minister did pay for lunch, which was very thoughtful.
Yucky day - I’m so sorry! Maggots wig me out - even though they’re only fly larva. But where they choose to live puts them in a whole different category of gross grubs!
Church shopping is hard. We kind of fell into ours and love it…but it’s Episcopalian and I don’t even dare ask if that was my pastor (seriously - I don’t want to know).
Good luck with everything. I hope the groomer’s assistant wasn’t hurt too horribly. Bad, Beaulah - Bad.
We have maggots writhing about on the corpse in our dining room walls; I can just sense it. Also, I know of their presence from experience, as last year we had a similar carcass-in-wall episode, which culminated in maggots dropping out of the sky/ceiling and onto our kitchen countertops (which are wood and thus cannot be bleached). Three weeks later, there began a plague of flies which has lasted unto this very day.
Come to our church. It’s episcopal, but probably not the one to which you refer, especially if the one to which you refer is the one attended by my grandmother. We left that church in May (shh! don’t tell mame!) and now attend The Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul on Coming St. Its congregation is small (intimate! community! fellowship!), and its 9:15 service has a band instead of an organ.
Glad you are blogging again! Let me know if you eed any baby gear. Or insecticide.
It’s a sign of the apocalypse! We have maggots too. Going away on vacation was a terrible idea, I would have canceled the honeymoon if I’d known the cats were going to slosh water into their food and grow a maggot farm. Also, I am pretty sure Max’s face-cancer-tumor thing is really maggots in his face. No, really, I’m googling it right now. I AM ON TO THEIR GAME.
I am just putting the finishing touches on my insurance scam and then I’m burning this bitch to the ground.
Omg… your post is hilarious, completely enjoyed reading it, esp about your dog. :-)
I hope I don’t sound presumptuous here, and I’m really not meaning to be forward, but I think you and I might be long lost sisters, based solely on this post.
ew. i had maggots in my outdoor trashcan once, due to hot weather and watermelon rind. i will never forget. And I totally approve of your reaction! Good thing no baby is crawling the floor!!!!!!!!!!!! As for the church thing, go fishing maybe instead? Heh.
Wow. First there were the maggots, then the sad church thing. Take heart in the numbers my dear. That “schism” of which they speak is hilariously one-sided. About 1% of Episcopalian churches are breaking off. The rest are throwing the doors wide open and saying, Come all.
Shake the dust off the old sandals and say, Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Regarding the bugs: Ew. But very fixable.
Regarding the church: My husband and I are pagans, and so finding a pastor/minister/celebrant/officiant for our wedding (held in the belly of the Bible belt among a crowd of Baptists) was a challenge. However, we succeeded smashingly with a Unitarian Universalist minister. The Unitarians are fantastically accepting of any and all religions and lifestyles. The pastor that performed our wedding ceremony was happy to incorporate our Scottish handfasting, our Shakespeare and Kahlil Gibran poetry, and our chosen vows, and he blended it into a wonderfully touching ceremony that never mentioned religion, but somehow left the Baptists satisfied that it was a “real wedding”.
I know you’ll find someone right for you, just thought I’d share my experience in case it helps.
Cheers!
- M
Ugh, I dealt with some maggots just a couple of weeks ago so I feel your pain.
Welcome back, oh traveller to distant provinces! Though I’ve left the Holier Than Thou City for a spell, I feel I can highly recommend St. Stephens. It’s just lovely - physically and theologically. As concerns cupcakes - I do hope you’ve tried Sugar Bakeshop on Cannon St. The fellow there prepare a far superior to Cupcake; he actually uses his grandmother’s recipes. Really.
No matter what church you choose, the maggots will still come for you when you die. Moohahahaha! ;~)
Did I tell you about the spider that jumped in bed with me a few days ago? When I told someone I was tempted to get a hotel, he said, “Well, why didn’t you just get rid of it?” YOU CAN ONLY GET RID OF IT IF YOU CAN FIND IT. Ew.
I think you should bring The Tyrant up as a Shaker. Or whatever sect speaks in tongues.