Monday, Monday, So Good To Me??

Every once in a while I get a big head, and I think I can pull it all off pretty well. I may even gloat a little. Usually about halfway through thinking like this, though, I do something stupid like spill on myself or say something really gullable, and all my classy-worldly-coolness is shot to pieces in one fell swoop. Today is definitely one of those days.

It all started off with a pretty sweater, the fact that my pants aren’t as tight as they were last week (no Cranberry Bliss Bars or Soy Gingerbread Lattes in three days though), a great hair day and some rockin’ awesome Chicken Tortilla Soup. Oh, and a kitten. I guess what’s interesting about the above mentioned list is that it doesn’t take much to make me feel good. Seriously, some soup and a cat? I’m easy to please.

Anyways, you could start this great and self assured mood off on Saturday, when my new kitten Liesl came home. Making a date of it, I took the faux-niece & faux-nephew to pick her up, and then to McDonalds for dinner. Nothin’ says quality time like encouraging responsible pet ownership and irresponsible dietary habits. We had a great time, and even J, who was in a snit when we left the house, softened up as soon as we saw the kittens. His usual ear to ear grin and machine gun style of laughter were confirmation enough for me that we were having a really good auntie/kiddos date. Matter of fact, on the way home, as A kept talking to the kitten, saying “We’re your cousins. Do you love your cousins? We’re gonna go meet your Uncle J & Auntie M now, little cousin kitty.”, I knew J was back to his old self as he said “Aunt Trinette, if Liesl is your daughter”, (umm, sidenote, she’s not – she’s my pet, but try getting a 7 year old to comprehend the difference between parenthood and pet ownership), “if Lisel is your daughter, and you’re not married, then you’re a single mom. You can’t have a daughter if you’re not married. You better ask Santa for a husband this Christmas.” Another sidenote – my singleness seems to be quite the popular topic of conversation for these two, but especially him. He brought it up three times on Saturday, and if I had a dollar for every time he suggested I marry a good friend of ours, based on the fact that we both prefer Honey Mustard on our Chicken McNuggets, well then I’d be a rich, rich woman. If only it were that easy.

Anyways, I digress.

So, I took these two to pick up the kitten, and we had a rockin’ good time. There was no better way to spend my Saturday afternoon then with these two, and bringing home my darling kitten. Still riding the high of spending time with them, and enjoying every waking moment (and the ones where we’re asleep together) with my kitten was a huge contributing factor to my joyful outlook this morning.

Also on Saturday, in addition to picking up a kitten, I picked up some new hair products. And. I. LOVE. Them!!! I had tried the Living Proof line this summer, when I wanted to try and keep my normally wavy hair frizz-free. I was kind of impressed with their No Frizz line but it still didn’t address my number one hair concern, which is that I have significantly less of it than I used to years ago. Battling Celiac Disease for a few years has left me with hair that falls out full strand at the drop of a hat. I used to have enough hair to only be able to wrap a binder around it once, or maybe twice. These days, I’m lucky if I can claim it only wraps three times. I miss my thick, full, luscious head of hair. And yes, I’m vain about it, and I don’t care. Hair is a woman’s crowning glory, and having had everything from Katie Holmes bob short to touching my elbows long I can say that I really, really like when my hair is long, and thick, and glossy and Texas big. And for the past few years, that has not been the case. So in my quest to return to a semblance of my hair’s former glory, I decided to try a new product line from Living Proof called Full. The amazingly thick, voluminous, shiny and touchable/not stiff results were the second contributing factor to today’s great mood. Seriously it was a great hair day. Thank you Living Proof.

Fast forward to some soup I made. Last night, in a fit of domesticity (blaming the kitten for making me want to be home more), I made Chicken Tortilla Soup Of Liiiifffeeee!!!!!!!! as Jen would call it. Really, it’s the most basic, simple soup you’ll ever make, but it tastes so good, and I was craving something spicy after all the Thanksgiving leftovers. So I whipped up a batch, and I don’t know what I did right this time, but it was even better than ever before. I brought a container of it for lunch, and was sitting in my cube, quietly “MMMMMM”ing to myself, enjoying the third reason I thought I was pretty much awesome today. When…. Disaster struck.

As I was coming to the bottom of my bowl of soup, I noticed there was still some cheese left unmelted in those remaining mouthfuls and so, thinking of my darling kitten and wondering how lonely she was home alone, I absentmindedly walked over to the microwave, and popped it in for another minute. Then I, again absentmindedly, pulled the container out of the microwave when it was done and walked back to my cube, where I proceeded to tip my head back to drink it down, sans spoon, slurping up those last few bites. As soon as it hit my tongue though, I felt like my mouth had been set on fire. IT WAS SOOOO HOT!!!!! My gut instinct was not to swallow it discreetly, nor to spit it out back into the container, but to spew it out like a whale coming up for air and spewing chunky red soup out of their blowhole, while simultaneously throwing the container up in the air. Now the last action, in all honesty, had no rhyme or reason. It was my tongue that was being burnt, not my hands, but for some reason, my hands also reacted, and before I knew it, soup was in the air, and the bowl was coming hurtling down from space like a Tupperware comet, heading straight for my open bottle of Wild Cherry Diet Pepsi. Before I knew it I was covered in liquid molten tomatoey chicken goodness - Full hair, pretty sweater, well fitting pants, desk, monitor, keyboard reports and all – everything was covered in soup. What wasn’t swimming in soup was now covered in pop. It was quite the mess, as soup and pop mixed on the desk, rapidly streaming off onto the floor. I hurried to upright the pop bottle, but as I reached for my napkins to stop the flow downward onto the carpet, I took it down again with my elbow. It was at that moment that my new coworker decided to peek over the cube and ask “Are you ok? What’s going on over there?” Oh man dude, you really couldn’t have just stayed sitting down and emailed me? Really??? That’s what IM is for!

So, I stood up, threw some napkins down on the mess to both hide and abate it, and managing to avoid eye contact with him mumbled out an “I’m fine”, which with my newly scorched tongue probably sounded more like “Ahhm Paaawmmm”. Then I rushed off to the bathroom, where I caught a glimpse of myself, and wouldn’t you know it, in addition to being covered in red soup, my hair was wet and sticky, and I had a big chunk of chicken on my shirt. Chicks for the chest.

Anyways, I’m cleaned up now. My hair is greasy and flat and I’m pretty sure it smells like cumin and queso fresco now, but hey at least it’s drying. My sweater is splotchy where I’ve wiped the soup away with paper towels, leaving behind the telltale white paper towel lint trails that practically scream “Look at me, I’ve spilled something and tried to clean it up in the ladies room!”. My pants are also splotchy, with more snowy little tattle-tales, all the more obvious on black than on olive green. And my tongue may never be the same. I think it’s the size of a Porterhouse Steak right about now. My desk is wiped up, but slightly sticky and smelly, and I’m scared to talk to the IT guy and admit that all my electronics were baptized in a healthy dose of Chicken Tortilla Soup, though if I offer to bring him some tomorrow maybe he’ll show me a little mercy.

I guess it just goes to show, both to myself, and to anyone else who may suffer from the delusions that I’m a classy broad – no matter how hard I try, I will always be more Lucille Ball than Martha Stewart. I am not a graceful, debonaire, cool as a cucumber type AT ALL. Nope, you’re talking to the kind of girl you just can’t take anywhere, unless you’re in waders and really want a good laugh. Pride comes before a fall, but the fact that I have any pride left after a lifetime of mishaps, spills and blunders is either a miracle or a testament to the enduring nature of human vanity. Really, who did I think I was???

I used to be a girl with good hair, a pretty sweater and a delicious lunch. Now I’m just me again. And that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.