Hurry Up Friday Round-Up

Tomorrow, unless something goes awry, I’m going to meet Michael Douglas. Meeting a movie star is a bit out of the ordinary for me so I’m puzzled as to what to wear, my wardrobe mainly consisting of skinny jeans, big sweaters, and my LL Bean boots. But I will figure it out. He will be at a meet and greet at someone’s house to promote Mike Bloomberg. Wild, hey? I will post pictures.

Our beloved Swirl has taken his weird behavior to new heights. Gentle, always happy, and beautifully behaved, Swirl can, in the space of an hour, chew the knob off a drawer, pull the drawer out and disperse its contents on the floor, bite a hole in a big bottle of lotion so it spills all over the floor, pull a tray of earrings off another dresser, strewing them everywhere, and chew the edge off a rug. Oh, and destroy a wicker basket holding shirts to go to the cleaners. When he is caught, he wags his tail. His sidekick, Punchy, does nothing to restrain him.

On Tuesday, I’m going to WUWM, our local NPR affiliate, to record one of my essays for broadcast. The essay is about an encounter with a man in a wheelchair at the breakfast bar of a hotel in Duluth. It has in it the phrase “a cup of hot coffee” which I keep reading as a “hot cup of coffee,” not knowing which sounds right. But it is the coffee that’s hot, not the cup. I guess.

My husband has left his job of 37 years and there is going to be a big party for him early in March. Other people are doing the big planning – it’s going to be held in part of the stadium where the Milwaukee Brewers play which makes it both extremely cool for him and extremely anxiety-producing for me. My big worry, per usual, is about turnout. I want the room to be packed, I want people to have to elbow their way to the bar, have to stand on their tiptoes to see the speakers, that’s how packed I want it to be. So, as he would say, “I’m workin’ on it.”

My younger son turned 33 today. I made him dinner and because I was rushing there were giant lumps in the mashed potatoes and the roast needed a few more minutes, continuing the imperfection on which he was raised. And then we watched the debate, continuing the constant diet of politics and opining that is our family’s favorite past time. We gave him a microwave for his birthday so he could heat up his leftovers. Exciting stuff.