Many people make New Year's resolutions and I guess I am no different. I have been planning to start a blog for quite some time since I love to express my opinion on topics that take hold in my brain (and those ramblings are usually quite snarky). I feel like I have plenty of potential content between my partner of 20 years (we'll call him Big Guy), my two daughters (we'll call them Mini-Me the Elder and Mini-me the Younger since I can't think of any good fake names), my assorted pets (two cats and a bearded dragon), my daily commute to the big city and my traveling companions (none of whom I know personally but all of whom I know their type and they will pop up here now and again) and my job. Plus did I mention that I like to express my opinion on things? I tend to do it in texts, emails and random conversations - so a blog seemed the logical next step. Which I never seemed to take.
Then a series of incidents began to occur which I refer to as my dark cloud. It began with my bike being stolen from the train station (monumental at the time and now a minor blip on the radar screen), peaked with the entire first floor of my home being flooded (by salt water and an oil spill) and destroyed by Hurricane Sandy (my home which I had just completely renovated just four years ago so it was essentially brand new), and then had salt poured on the wound when I moved into a one bedroom apartment (graciously loaned by my sister) with my four person family, my brother, my Mother (no we don't get along and I have since shipped her out to stay with another brother - yeah that's harsh, if you lived it you would have done the same), the dragon (the cats have been left to survive in our bedroom in the house - don't worry, we visit and feed them) and my brother's dog (we'll call her Mookie since that's her name and I don't care if someone tracks her down). The insufferable indignity of this seems never ending as my contractor moves at a glacial pace (but he did my house the first time and I trust him in all his slowness) and other assorted calamaties (among other things we also had an oil spill in the loaner apartment - no I'm not kidding and no we didn't do it - and I had a work mailing that was delayed because paper stock was delivered water damaged - WTF is it with oil and water?) But I keep trying to laugh and keep forging forward. And thought again about starting the blog.
So we come to New Year's Eve. We had a relatively decent holiday (although I missed doing it in my beautiful home as I usually do) and then spent New Year's Eve with a close friend of mine, sleeping at her house. The big guy was ambivalent (he will never win the award for most social being, although once he gets somewhere he is friendly and personable) and both mini-me's were excited beyond belief - staying up late for New Years *and* a sleepover at their pseudo-aunt's? Totally awesome. The evening went well - good company, good wine and totally relaxing - the kids were having a grand old time and even Big Guy seemed to be having fun. This was going to be the turning point at which I got rid of the dark cloud. It was the New Year and at Midnight there would be a fresh start. My friend and I even held a mini-exorcism as a symbol of it going away. Hope was in the air. Mini-me the Younger stayed up til 1:00 AM! Mini-me the Elder till 2! We went to sleep confident that this was it - the start of bigger and better things. And woke up three hours later at 5 AM to Mini-me the Elder throwing up in the corner of my friend's guest room. On her beige carpet. She didn't make it to the bathroom (hell I don't know if she even knew where it was). Let me repeat this for those thinking "no. no way that happened on top of everything." Three hours into the bright new year in which things would start going better for me my kid puked on my friend's spotless beige carpet (for those who need details it was indeed a reddish/orange color, the worst color possible) and we had to clean it up. It was, um, extensive. She did make it to the bathroom for the second round of vomiting and that too was extensive. Big guy did the inital clean-up (is it gross to call it chunk duty?) and I had detail. I embarked on a quest to find cleaning supplies in the dark house without waking anyone (including the poor teenage girl sleeping on the couch in the living room open to the kitchen). With the flashlight on my new Iphone 5 I looked through all of her cabinets (finally! a good thing! If I didn't have the iphone I wouldn't have a flashlight to rifle through my best friend's home at 5 in the morning). I hoped the teenager would not wake up and freak out and scream thinking there was an intruder (actually just scream - she would clearly think someone in the dark with just a flashlight was an intruder). Also, at a time like this you realize you never asked said friend if her husband had a gun. As protection. Against intruders who rifle through their house in the middle of the night. Then you simply hope that the dark cloud could not be quite that dark... You find most everything you need except carpet cleaner and do a damn good job of cleaning up and never wake anyone. Of course not. Everyone except you is sleeping deeply after going to bed so late and mostly drunk. As a matter of fact you feel pretty sure that no one else in the country and perhaps the world is cleaning up an 8 year old's puke after a wild New Year's Eve. WTF is it with this dark cloud?
In the morning I of course explained to my friend what happened. Friend's husband insists the exorcism couldn't work because it was done by a Jew and a half Jew whose other half is Christian but not Catholic. How could we possibly have expected it to work? Big Guy insists he should have been there because despite being a very lapsed Catholic (like total non-believer) his 12 years of Catholic School would have counted in making him eligible to perfom an exorcism (apparently Catholics hold the patent on exorcisms and only they can do them. Or only they actually believe in demonic possessions. Feel free to accept whichever explanation you want). I cannot argue against this because it would only mean arguing against my own lack of exorcism credentials as half Jew and half lapsed Lutheran. However, Big Guy does finally come up with something acceptable- the exorcism did work and the vomiting was symbolic. Mini-me the Elder took one for the team and dispelled all of the darkness in that one act, aided by the endless amounts of food and (non-alcoholic) drink she imbibed throughout the evening (in hindsight I don't know why I didn't expect the vomit after everything she put away through the course of the evening).
Hell I don't care if it makes no sense - I'm going to cling to that symbolic story like Kate Winslet to the floating wood at the end of Titantic. I need something, anything here to think the cloud will finally leave. If it needs to be on a river of vomit so be it (and is it so wrong to think that if someone had to do the puking better anyone than me? Including poor Mini-Me the Elder? I would have probably made it to the bathroom, but still. I really don't like to vomit).
And so with that story I have started my blog, My Snarky Self. Thanks for sitting through this first long post (actually I don't know if it is long or short? I don't know how long a blog should be). The snark will likely ebb and flow in amount, but rest assured it is always there ready to make an appearance. As the home renovation, the living conditions and the usual and customary actions of my day-to-day life and cast of characters continue on, I think I will need to vent and this seems like a good place to do it (and I will try to be kind of regular about it). Please feel free to comment and please come back.
Happy F-ing New Year!
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