Let me tell you about the last hour.

Swear to God, I am not making any of this up. I'm blogging to keep from screaming.

At 10:05 p.m., I suggested that Joel and I watch an episode of the West Wing. But first, we had to find the remote. We couldn't find the remote. It was an incredibly frustrating search. We tore the couch apart, looked over, under and in everything in the living room.

And then, we couldn't find the disk. SAY IT WITH ME- We tore the couch apart, looked over, under and in everything in the living room. We checked every laptop, and I'm started to go a little nutty with irritation. It was in the DVD player last night. I personally saw it when I took it out of the DVD player to test DVDs of Lucy's baptism. It's nowhere.

Joel is laughing helplessly at me, because I'm storming around, so I redirect my rage at the fact that he's wearing his big, clompy shoes 1.) in the house that I just cleaned 2.) late at night, which I'm sure the downstairs neighbors love and 3.) near my fragile delicate bare feet, which he steps on. Frequently.

10:12 p.m.
Me: "Please. Please! PLEASE!.... please... Take. Off. Your. Shoes. In about five seconds, I am going to start playing with my eyebrows.... 5, 4-
Him: (helpless laughter)
Me: (playing with eyebrows)
Him: You only got to four!
Me: I want. to find. this disk. WHY ARE WE LIKE THIS?!?

10:17 p.m.
How on Earth did we get rid of the couch that spits people out on the floor, only to get the Couch That Eats DVDs?

Then I remember that last night when I was burning disks of the baptism, I had a few duds. And I threw them away. With the cat litter. And some other stuff. Joel hands me a flashlight.

10:35 p.m. I find the West Wing DVD in the trash.

10:37 p.m. Joel asks me if I'm feeling better now that we found the disk. I tell him, calmer now, that I *really* don't like losing my cool over the small stuff, but with the two of us, there is so much small stuff. So many keys broken while trying to open the door (current count: 3 in four years), so many mugs broken, so many cell phones dropped, lost or otherwise decommissioned. All I wanted was to pop in a DVD and snuggle on the couch with my boyfriend.

10:38 p.m. We get comfy and joke about the fact that something that takes other people 45 seconds takes us more than half an hour.

10:40 p.m. The DVD? Is stuck on French.

Me: What about being in close proximity to dirty kitty litter and a few dud DVDs of a baby's baptism could possibly MAKE THE WEST WING FRENCH?!?
Him: (helpless laughter, pushing buttons on the remote)

The French is turned off! Hooray! Time for snuggling!

10:42 p.m. We've already seen this episode. But the remote is stuck or something. We can't fast forward, go to the main disc menu, nothing. None of it. Nada. I am nearly apopletic with frustration.

10:44 p.m. We're on the right episode! We're watching! We're snuggling!

Quick aside: On the day we got back from vacation, we bought groceries. We got distracted by the fact that our Internet connection crapped out when we were away, and we forgot to put away a bag of food. Bella ate a loaf of bread and nine raw eggs while and I desperately tried to access my assignments for the next day and Joel argued with a customer service woman from our internet service provider in Bombay. She turned into a blast-ended skrewt for a while- shooting fire out of both ends- (Bella, not the cusotmer service woman in Bombay) and in that time period, she puked in her crate. Joel soaked the crate cushion cover to remove most of the filth, but it's sitting in a wash basket, ready to be washed.


10:52 p.m. Fred is sitting in the wash basket with the crate cushion cover. NO! He's PEEING on the crate cushion cover! I literally stand over him, shouting, "WHY? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? You have to stop! You have to stop peeing. You HAVE to stop peeing. STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

10:53 p.m. The pee, she is flowing.

I pick up the wash basket, peeing cat and all, and carry it into the bathroom. "You have a litter box! You have a litter box right here!" He finishes, then returns to the place in the living room where the basket was sitting, and starts pawing at the hardwood floor, just pawing at the invisible kitty litter? I think? Who the fuck knows.

Joel, lovely man, says, "We've got to wash this right now." It's true, if we waited until morning, the cat pee smell would take hold and overwhelm the house. Fuck.

I dump the pee out of the wash basket directly into the toilet. Joel carries the pukey, pissy crate cover to the washer. He leaves the door open. Fred runs down the stairs to rub his head on his mistress, the Bike. Fair thee well, demon from Hell.

10:54 p.m. Joel, love of my life, accidentally got a strong whiff of the cat pee smell. He runs back upstairs, gagging, and vomits. He does not make it to the toilet in time. There's puke on the floor, the toilet, and my personal favorite, the clean white bath rug.

Did I mention I just cleaned yesterday?

10: 55 p.m. He apologizes, so sincerely and sweetly, that it stops me from tearing off my own arm so I have something to beat myself with. He promises to clean it up, and using logic that mystifies me, grabs a dozen dinner napkins, wipes up the puke and tosses them all in the toilet. Our rickety, charming old plumbing isn't going to flush that shit (metaphorically), so WE HAVE TO FISH THE PUKEY DINNER NAPKINS BACK OUT OF THE TOILET.

I find myself longing for the part of this hour when the TV was merely stuck on French.

11:05 p.m. Exactly one hour after we started this Greek tragedy, this Oresteia of TV watching and attempted snuggling, we have achieved our goal. I hear.. slurpiness. But Bella's water bowl was empty. I know it was. I almost tripped over it carrying Fred the Peeing Whackjob to the bathroom.

Joel jumps up and finds that the slurpiness is Bella drinking out of the toilet.

Him: I think I want to kill myself.
Me: I'm so blogging this. You know that, right?