THANKFUL FRIDAY

This happens maybe once a year. One of us will buy the wrong dish soap. We will forget that it is the wrong dish soap and bring it home. It is not the wrong dish soap because I’m allergic to it or that it doesn’t clean. It is wrong because it smells like Chris during the last two days of his life. Sunday afternoon, I opened the new bottle of soap and squeezed a dollop onto the sponge . I frowned, but continued washing dishes. Michael walked into the kitchen and I said that we bought the wrong soap again. It’s Ivory. Ivory dish soap smells like dying Chris. You know, just for future reference.

Michael asked if he needed to go get new soap and said 'no’. It just seemed so wasteful. I could get through this bottle of soap, but then Michael sent a text to his ex-wife, Erin. She was picking the Cabbage up later and he asked her if she wanted to swap dish soap. I don’t know what he told her, but I can image that it sounds like a pretty weird request. “Hey, you wanna swap dish soap with us because ours smells like a dying husband?” Erin handed over two bottles of dish soap, a Meyer lemon one and a small bottle of extra strength Dawn. I honestly don’t know if she brought both bottles over because Michael had said the why for swapping or if she didn’t want to give us a half empty bottle of soap. I don’t really care. I’m just grateful they have the kind of relationship where they are still friends enough to request such a thing as swapping dish soap.

I’m also grateful that I do not have to wash dishes while seeing Chris’s face on his last days.

This has been a good but very weird kind of week. Work was crazy with little fires popping up all over the place. Then Michael sent me a text about a truck he was interested in. We’ve been talking about upgrading his truck for years now. The three of us with the dog just don’t fit in his tiny single cab Tacoma. Long camping trips are out of the question because in order for me to drive the truck, we have to move the bench seat. Then people really don’t fit in the cab. Michael has been crunching numbers and looking at our budget. He thinks between now and December are the best times to buy, but he’s always had his heart set on another Tacoma. I think our last camping trip really sold him on the idea of just getting a truck that works for us. He called me Wednesday evening but I missed the call. He was at a dealership, had test driven a truck and was about to walk out with it. If I had returned his call, he would have. Instead, he came home and we talked about it. Then Thursday, I went with him to look at the truck.

Thursday night we came home with a new truck.

It’s probably the fanciest thing either one of has ever driven. My favorite part is the sunroof that opens all the way. I have visions of standing on the seat with my torso sticking out the window and my camera in my hands. Michael says not at highway speeds. I’m all “whatever. I just need goggles.” We did not use the camper as much as we should have this last year, but we have plans to make up for that next year. We have big camping goals. I think the Cabbage qualifies for the Every Kid in a Park pass and we want to take advantage of it. It’s time for the Grand Canyon. I can’t believe I have never been to the Grand Canyon. I haven’t left Chris’s ashes anywhere since D.C. in 2019. I’m desperate to remedy that.

This is has been the strangest, hardest, and at times spectacular, kind of year.