Blogged while eating Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup ice cream.

Orange Polo Shirt was located less than 10 minutes after I published that last post. I found it buried under a pile of clothing on top of the suitcase he’d taken to Nashville. Okay, I lifted exactly 4 articles of clothing – most likely the clothes he last wore – and there. it. was. I took a picture to send to him, asking if I got a reward. My reward is spending the rest of my life with him, which is a dream come true, even if I will be slowly losing my mind.

This is technically inbound day four for me, as V has been sick since Sunday and was home from school before this weather system clobbered us. I have to admit I love this weather – when everyone can be home and we don’t need to go to work. At least until last night when the brain weasels wanted me to think about what I would do if we had a real medical emergency. A small wave of anxiety washed over me, before I shut it down. It’s kind of like that same anxiety I feel in certain Italian-American chain restaurants – yes, we have – where they walk you back and back and back through this labyrinth of rooms until you feel like you’ve entered some alternate universe, Mediterranean garden-cave and there are no visible exits other than the front door –which, by the way, is so far away you’d never make it out – what if there’s a fire?

Anyway, we’ve kept busy watching Netflix, playing Fortnight (the new video game crack for teenaged boys), shopping Marketplace, and spending absolutely no time on the treadmill. Yesterday I made breakfast quinoa, bacon, and chocolate chip pancakes. I made homemade cole slaw. For dinner I made this delicious Orzo with Parmesan and Basil to go with broiled New York Strip steaks (grill was not only half-buried in snow, but out of propane).

During dinner, somehow the conversation turned dark. It all started when Todd said he smelled poop. This has been an ongoing theme in our house, between the cat and his infraction in the hall bathroom and the continuously clogged toilet. I suggested that the dog farted. There was a brief moment where we considered that she had a wayward piece of shit stuck to her ass. That’s when Opac said he doesn’t think he could ever have a dog, because he can’t stand the smell of poop and could never clean it up. Todd countered that no one likes the smell of poop; that’s why when something bad happens, we say, “shit!”

Segue into V informing O that she would take care of wiping my butt when I’m old, and he’d take care of wiping dad’s butt. Aint happening, he said. He might’ve used other words. She added dad’s wife to O’s list. No, he said. And, without missing a beat, looked squarely across the table at Todd and said, And I know what you’re thinking and you can forget it.

Anyway, the mystery of Oliver’s accident in the bathroom was solved when I went downstairs to start a load of laundry and found that somebody had closed the door to the bathroom where his box is. But nobody knows who. This is what I mean by slowly dissolving into madness. I’m headed there.

And then of course Oliver decided to add insult to injury and returned to the scene of the crime yesterday to urinate on the remaining rug. I don’t know WTF is wrong with him. He’s on a one-way highway to extinction, if he keeps this up.

And, because I love this kind of shit, you’re going to love what I got to do today. First off, V and I ventured out to run overdue errands and pick up some groceries – including toilet paper because we were down to our last two rolls in the house. Seriously people, forget milk and bread – in a real snowstorm, there is nothing, nothing, more important than TP. Being down to your last garbage bag has nothing on being down to your last roll of toilet paper in a family of four. Well, except maybe wine.

Anyhoo, we get back. We have lunch. We watch sheets of snow fall off the solar panels in front of the house. V goes to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later she comes out and tells me the toilet is clogged. No kidding, I said, what a surprise. What she said next requires a full shot of tequila to recover from. She said, what happened to all the toilet paper under my sink? I said, it’s gone, that’s why we bought more. She said, oh. Well, I thought we were out of it, so I used paper towels. PAPER TOWELS.

After I pointed to the package she was with me when I purchased not more than two hours ago, I spent the next 15 minutes fishing out seven paper towels with the toilet brush, and trying not to get any of the water on the newly washed floor (recall the urine rug of yesterday). She “didn’t know” you can’t flush anything but toilet paper in a septic system.

I won’t be redundant and mention the dog’s infractions, but I will say that we are now taking her outside from the rec room downstairs. Tuesday night I called her to follow me, and she went as far as the top step and turned and ran back to the living room where Todd was. I walked back and said firmly, Sabra, come. She moved closer to Todd. Frustrated, I walked into the living room, where Todd was sitting on the couch with one leg up on the ottoman and the other on the floor beside it. The closer I came to her, the closer she got to him, until she couldn’t get any closer. And then all of sudden she literally dove, head first, between the ottoman and the couch. It was by far the funniest thing she’s done yet.

Tomorrow life returns to normal, or as normal as it can be with us. But Spring is coming, and with it new adventures.