On my 1.75 mile trek home (carrying a backpack containing a good 12 lbs. of makeup, a heavy laptop, and “gym” clothes), I had a million great ideas for what I was going to write about tonight. I imagined walking in, cuddling with my dog, putting on sweat pants and getting down to blog writing business. However, Dad had other plans.

Typically, Jeff gets home before I do at night. Upon his immediate arrival he is usually bombarded with questions and requests from my dad. I always tell him “he’s lonely, he’s been by himself all day, he looks forward to some human interaction”. This, of course, is easy to say because it’s not being directed at me upon finishing up a 12 hour day. Tonight, Jeff is working late and I arrived first. How dare I ??!! Me, the homeowner, person whose name is on the deed, dare to enter my own home before my husband and without notifying Dad of this change in routine. For my great crime, I was greeted with a look of shock and very concerned yell of “Jilly, are you home?” I glanced at him through fogged up glasses and a face full of sweat and said “no, I’m at work, go back to sleep, this is a dream”.  It took him a full minute to ponder this and wonder, hmm, am I ?

Now before you think that I’m an abuser of the elderly, and all around sack of shit, allow me to share a little backstory.  I’m not. He’s 73 and of soundish mind and questionable body.

Before I could descend the stairs to the paradise known as the place his cords can’t reach (oh yeah, he is on oxygen, stairs are not his friend), he stopped me in my tracks to tell me had a few things for me to do. One might think wow, she just got home, let her put on her sweat pants for crying out loud. But you see he has a different mindset. He thinks it’s best to strike while the iron is hot, if he gives us a chance to relax, we may not get back up. He’s a bit of an evil genius.

His chores for me were to show him how to use the oven, and to try to teach him to use the tablet. One, you know what should never be near a stove? Free flowing, highly flammable, pure, filtered oxygen. Two, know how many times we’ve shown him how to use the stove? 6,352,965,453,897.  This is not an actual request to learn something new, no this is a round about way of asking me to put his Encore frozen salisbury steak in the oven for him. Instead, I drew him a picture of the stove, and made a beautiful hand crafted diagram complete with illustrations and numbered instructions for how to turn it both off, and on. Joke’s on you sucker, it’s a 4 step process and archaic stove, press bake, temperature arrow, bake again, and off when it’s done.  Have at it. Just don’t burn the house down.

I told him we could have the tablet lesson on a day where I have more time, energy, and wine. I am currently short on all three. He seemed fine with this. Apparently he was not, however, ready to try out his new oven skills. He instead proceeded to make a bologna sandwich. The ingredients for this are simple: Wonder bread, and Old Neighborhood German bologna.

Why is she telling us the brand of bologna? (Sidenote, for the rest of this recap, I will be spelling it “baloney”, because it just makes more sense this way. You’ll see why).  Sunday afernoon we began our usual task of doing his grocery shopping. His list included the usual 4 tubs of pudding, whipped cream, bread, 2 cans of chicken ala king, and German baloney. He wrote on two lines in very large print, underlined in all caps “OLD NEIGHBORHOOD”. When he hands over the note, he tells me “now on the baloney, I want the German baloney, but only Old Neighborhood. If they try to give you any other kind, make sure it’s American, I don’t want that “doochy hammer” stuff. He of course is referring to Deutschmacher. So I ask him “ok, so just to clarify, you want German baloney, but not German, German, like, American German baloney?” “Yes exactly, that doochy hammer is rubbery and smells awful”. Really? Weird, as that’s the text book definition of cold cut meat made from God knows what parts of  pig / cow / and probably pigeon. Apparently he prefers a more tender, aromatic slab of good old American German meat product.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with what I originally planned to write about tonight, which is fitting, hence the title of this entire blog “Where Was I Going With This?” A line that I typically find myself asking mid sentence as I tend to get off track pretty regularly… come back tomorrow for my original post idea, it involves more Patrick Swayze and less luncheon meat.

Well, hello there reader(s)! If you’ve found yourself here by way of my Facebook or Instagram posts, then you are no stranger to my wacky recaps of things that only happen to me. Perhaps you’ve read or heard about my dad, the curious creature that wakes up each day with a plethora of new questions to annoy, amaze, and confuse me with. Today, I informed I would be taking an Uber to the Derby Street Shops. I should have just said “cab to the mall” and saved myself the interrogation, but as a truth speaker and glutton for punishment, I set myself up for a flurry of questions.

“So, why don’t cabs just do things the same way? Can you pick your driver? Who checks their cars to make sure they’re clean? How are their prices set? “How do they get hired, do you have to have a special car?” By the time he asked what had to be question number 64, I was fastening my seatbelt and being whisked away by Khwang. Khwang was a lovely, friendly young man who upon dropping me off at the outdoor mall asked what store I was going to. “Khwang my good man, it’s a beautiful day to be outside enjoying nature, so probably all of them!”

My original plan for today was to decorate my kitchen and dining room for fall; but much like my train of thought, that idea eluded me. I suddenly found myself thinking today was the day I would start this blog. I thought the only way to do this would be to go to a cafe or restaurant so I wouldn’t be interrupted by you know who. I decided the Derby Street shops would be the perfect place to go! I could start by going to Barnes and Noble to pick up some “you can do it boss bitch!” type of self help books to give me some motivation.

I dressed myself like a typical Derby Street shopper, all of my recent Nordstrom sale item clothes, my  laptop bag that came in my Fall Fab Fit Fun box, and told myself I was a grown, successful-ish, basic as hell, woman who could sit at Legal Seafood alone and start a blog whilst eating crab cakes and having a glass of wine. This all makes me so sound so classy and put together doesn’t it? I was really pulling it off in my mind!

Well, upon entering Barnes and Noble I was greeted by two women who wanted to talk to me about the lord and invite me to their bible study group. Now if you watch the news or read the overly shared click bait posts on Facebook, you know these women are just trying to lure you into some sort of sex trafficking cult. I politely told them I was “super Jewish” and kept it moving. While this may not be true , and probably a little racist, it’s much easier than saying I’m an atheist or a Christian and allowing the conversion / kidnapping attempt to continue. After escaping from them, I spent the next hour reading the backs of close to one hundred books, I chose three, and then proceeded to Legals to start my writing career. I got to the door and quickly remembered I have paralyzing social anxiety and this shit was NOT happening. Eating alone?  As Whitney Houston so eloquently put it “aw helll to the no!” So I fled to the one place that I knew could make everything better and I could talk myself off the ledge, and also grab some eyeliner, Sephora.

After six or seventeen laps around my personal heaven, I took my green eyeliner and various perfume samples up to the register and was told by the flawlessly made up boy at the register that I was “slaying” my makeup game. I took this new Beyonce style confidence and went back to Legals. This time I opened the door, walked in, put on my fakest smile and asked for a table for one.  Since nobody pointed, stared, or dumped pigs blood on me for daring to dine alone, I propped open my laptop and started googling “how to write a blog”. One glass of Riesling, a few rolls, and some crabcakes later, here I am, one post in the books!

So what did I learn today? Uber saves my sanity by getting me away from my beloved father, lying is wrong but sometimes necessary for survival, anxiety sucks donkey balls, Sephora is and always will be a magical land where boys with flawless makeup complete me, and I can and will dine alone, #noregrets #babysteps #ilovecrabcakes

If you’re still reading, I love you! Come back soon for tales from the T, and what I hope will be a long series of quirky, shorter posts that will make you laugh, relate, and hopefully want to read more!