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Five Things That Made Me Smile This Month

Updated: Aug 10, 2020

Well, life has been a shit storm lately. My parents decided to self-quarantine the family due to the infamous COVID-19 two weeks before the rest of the world caught up. My two additional weeks are really starting to pile up on me, I wouldn’t call it cabin fever… but an unfortunate chain of events have occurred. I mean, I don't blame my parents. I do fall in the 3% of people who could be greatly impacted by the virus. That being said, I've decided to write about five things that have made me smile this month. Not gonna lie, I am plucking flower petals here.

1.) I pulled off a vegan/vegetarian brunch

A week before the self-induced quarantine began, I got my friends together for a farewell

brunch. Let the record show, all of my friends are either vegetarian or vegan -- except for yours truly. So little old me decided to just keep it simple, I decided two days before that I was just going to buy two bottles of champagne and a liter of orange juice, order some vegan pancakes from our favorite plant-based place, Fox & Fig (Shoutout! I truly think the mac and cheese should be back on the menu though.) I made the mistake of telling my mother my lazy, carefree plan and she was not about it. She yelled out my full name, followed by, "How dare you invite people over and not have a feast!" Those weren't the actual words, but I summed up a two-hour one-sided debate in that sentence. This lead us to the supermarket where we spent a half-hour to an hour looking for vegan/vegetarian products. Every 15 minutes I had to explain to my mother what veganism is. I took a risk on some Annie's cinnamon buns because they said organic on them and for some reason I thought maybe that implied vegan? So I bought them and they were just what I needed. As I was making them, I read the label and it said maybe milk? Which made me wonder, maybe? It felt like the wrapper was giving me a choice. And I chose to believe that no animals were harmed in the making of these cinnamon buns. In other words, it was a triumph.

2.) I’m getting reaaaaaaaal close to Lily

I’m glad I did my brunch with my girls because little did I know that was going to be one of the last times I would see them for a while. I’ve been forced to reduce my staff to zero. It’s just me, my parents, and Lily. Lily is my senile 19-year-old teacup Yorkie with an attitude. She’s blind and probably deaf. The quality time that I have spent with her has been like none other. I’ve been so bored, I’ve literally counted how many times she bumps her head into walls. The number is 165 times and counting. I’ve come to the conclusion that she envisions me as a giant Roomba, but I don’t take it to heart, because I see her as a tiny Roomba. She is the epitome of perseverance because even though she’s blind, she never stops moving. This is why I took it upon myself to figure out why she never stops -- I mean I have nothing but time now. This is when I discovered Lily’s favorite game: it’s called the Pee Inside So Dad Steps On It Game. She spends 85% of her day sniffing the floor, in my mind (and I know I’m right) she is tracking dad’s scent in order to strategically pee on his most frequent route. Dad is started catching on, but she’s too far ahead in the game. I’m rooting for Lily.

3.) I’ve been playing board games with my parents

I’ve realized that both me and my dad are really competitive. We’ve never really been a board game type of family, unless we were visiting our grandmother in which case, Monopoly and Clue have officially been banned from that household. Nonetheless, Mom has decided that a good way to detach from social media is by playing board games. Obviously, my mom spends the previous nights memorizing all of the instructions to board games that she picked on Amazon herself. So if you ask me, she always has a leg up. Meanwhile, my dad and I try to keep up and for some reason, we simultaneously try to pick up on Mom’s explanation of the rules thinking she’s already cheating. This leads to my dad and I playing the game as two professional skeptics, always accusing each other of cheating. We are so infatuated with throwing each other off that Mom always wins.

4.) My self-imposed rules have been flying out the window

I’ve always been a very put together person: simplicity is not one of my qualities. Even if I have nothing to do and nowhere to go, I always try putting a cute outfit together and/or do my hair. I’m never barefoot, mainly because I like shoes and my feet hurt when I’m barefoot sometimes. Even on lazy Sundays, I don’t look lazy. However, this quarantine experience has given me a sense of frustration that I have chosen to consciously describe as freedom in hopes that my brain might actually believe me. This led to me experimenting with wearing my pjs as daytime wear. I know most of you are not mind-blown by this, but you gotta understand that only happens on Christmas morning. Since my Mickey Mouse lounge slippers are still in boxes (surprise surprise, I didn’t get to move) I only have two pairs of combat boots and one pair of high heels, so I’ve decided to go barefoot. Will this affect my emotional state? Only if I think about it. If I don’t, then I’m just a carefree woman on an uncalled-for vacation for an unknown period of time...I know most of you probably aren’t smiling at this one, but it’s all about perspective. I’m seeing this as my own challenge in breaking down my own boundaries. Getting the stick out of my ass if you will. Things don’t have to be perfect, which, if you’re a faithful follower, you already know I have a problem with. So maybe, after this is over, I might choose to fully commit to a lazy Sunday.



5.) Figuring out that virtual dictation is an option

I’m a workaholic, I’m always doing something that I will somehow benefit from even if it’s not for me. Thus, the idea of not having any assistants and not being able to write my blog was painful to think about. For those that don’t know this, I dictate to my assistants and they type it down on my laptop. So everything you are reading right now is being typed by Julia Ernst, she’s a lovely, lovely girl. ;-) I’ve tried using dictation programs but in truth they never recognize my voice and I take more time correcting the machine than I do actually writing. In addition to that, I’ve trained my brain to write in a certain type of way. I like to talk to the person I’m dictating to. I rant, we have a conversation, I ask about her day, I bitch about my day, and that’s how the ideas start to flow. I tried dictating to my mother and even though she vowed not to do the motherly thing and give opinions, I felt like that was a good temporary solution but not a permanent one. Between you and me, the strong opinion gene comes from my mother. This is when I get an email from my publisher, yes that is right, I said publisher. I’m publishing my first memoir. Surprise! I digress. I had to answer the email and it was gonna be a long-ass email, so I decided to try this virtual conference call trend. And here we are! I have dictated all of this blog post through a Facetime meeting. I was concerned that maybe Julia wasn’t gonna be able to understand me through bad internet connection, but no. Everything is running smoothly and we have just finished an amazing blog post.


I’m a workaholic, I’m always doing something that I will somehow benefit from even if it’s not for me. Thus, the idea of not having any assistants and not being able to write my blog was painful to think about. For those that don’t know this, I dictate to my assistants and they type it down on my laptop. So everything you are reading right now is being typed by Julia Ernst, she’s a lovely, lovely girl. ;-) I’ve tried using dictation programs but in truth, they never recognize my voice and I take more time correcting the machine than I do actually writing. In addition to that, I’ve trained my brain to write in a certain type of way. I like to talk to the person I’m dictating to. I rant, we have a conversation, I ask about her day, I bitch about my day, and that’s how the ideas start to flow. I tried dictating to my mother and even though she vowed not to do the motherly thing and give opinions, I felt like that was a good temporary solution but not a permanent one. Between you and me, the strong opinion gene comes from my mother. This is when I get an email from my publisher, yes that is right, I said publisher. I’m publishing my first memoir. Surprise! I digress. I had to answer the email and it was gonna be a long-ass email, so I decided to try this virtual conference call trend. And here we are! I have dictated all of this blog post through a Facetime meeting. I was concerned that maybe Julia wasn’t gonna be able to understand me through a bad internet connection, but no. Everything is running smoothly and we have just finished an amazing blog post.

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