Hello and happy Monday! I am at home where there are exactly zero trains running next door to where I’m trying to sleep on the ground, which is an improvement over last week. And while Ryan would probably be happy to never camp again, we are going to camp again in a couple of weeks. This time we are going to a state park, which, in addition to NOT being in Indiana (sorry, not sorry, Indiana—it was definitely you and not us), it only costs $10 per night. And while there is no pool, there will also be no trailer park and this, my friends, is always a vast improvement. We will be taking a friend for Ryan. This friend is apparently a camping pro and while she will probably judge the shit out of me for everything I’m about to do wrong vis a vis camping, she will also be the reason Ryan gets in the car with me at all. #winning Hopefully she can light a fire.
One thing I left out of the story last week due to extreme irrelevance was when Scott texted me to tell me he loved the pool! Lacking anything to do on Father’s Day, he got in it and floated around and declared it awesome. This is great because the pool is a lot of work. It is, however, the perfect work for him—if there’s anything Scott likes it’s a fiddly project, and this thing is most assuredly that. He’s out there with his water testing strips, adjusting the chlorine, running the filter. He even bought a skimmer and a pool vacuum, which he plans to use tonight. The cheerfulness with which he has greeted the pool is quite the relief, as I’m almost 100% sure if I was in charge the pool would look like this:
Refreshing!
1.) Speaking of which, enjoy these haunting pictures of abandoned pools!
I would particularly like to call out the University of Rochester for this genius fucking idea, wherein they filled an unused swimming pool with old desks and chairs and then just...walked away. This is both bafflingly lazy and some how also very American.
If you went here, you should request your money back. Or a free chair.
2.) And speaking of Scott, he told me he doesn’t read my blog because he’s not on Facebook much anymore. My first instinct was, Oh! I can write about you! But! I have always had a hard and fast rule about that, which is that you can have a blog or you can have a marriage, but you can’t have a blog about your marriage. But I will share with you that of the two of us, Scott is the more fastidious about his possessions and keeping things in their places.
Scott's closet vs. mine, which isn't all that bad for me, tbh. That's a pile of moldering work out clothes, approximately 600 purses that are empty of everything but old receipts and half full packs of mints.
When he used to travel, I’d always have to spend a few hours making our place Scott-ready again, having left all the cabinet doors open and the dishes in the sink while he was gone. Anyway, I came across this list that came across my desk of bad roommate behavior. I will admit to being guilty of doing a few of these things, including leaving my clothes laying around everywhere, abandoning water bottles in various levels of consumption around the house, and just last week he had to fix the tin foil. I sent him the list with a note that said, “I do some of these things!” I did not, however, apologize.
3.) And speaking of nothing (squirrel!) , I was getting ready to leave for work the other day. Scott had the news on and they were talking about this ADHD app, named Endeavor, which is approved by the FDA to as a digital device to improve attention function in children. If there’s anything I learned during quarantine with my kids, it’s that one of them needs a lot of help with her executive function skills. She’d get off a zoom all and I would be like, what do you need to do now? And she’d be all, I forgot, and that was 4th grade. I downloaded it, and will report back.
4.) This week I’m looking forward to watching HBO’s documentary “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” about late author Michelle MacNamara and her hunt for the identity of the Golden State Killer. Piece of Human Garbage Joseph James DeAngelo is apparently going to plead guilty TODAY (June 29) to 13 counts of being an all around shitty human being who terrorized the citizens of California during the 70s and 80s, admittedly a very scary time to be a Californian. Or to be a contestant on the Dating Game.
Also: hot choccy wine.
5.) The other thing I’m excited about is that Furious Spoon has a new virtual cooking class out, and I made reservations. For our add-on alcohol enhancer, this time I chose Mystery Beer Pong, which is like six beers, some solo cups and some ping pong balls! I don’t know how to play beer pong, but here is yet another chance during 2020 to try something new.
beer·pong: noun 1. a drinking game played at house parties where someone always says “I’m usually way better than this.”
Beer pong doesn't seem very sanitary, which is how you know I'm living through a pandemic. Or how you know I'm old.
Have a good week, people. And for Heaven's sake wear a mask!
Starting "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" as we speak. Thanks for the links, the thoughts, and the entertainment you always provide.
Posted by: MARNA HOPKINS | 06/29/2020 at 10:42 PM