THANKFUL FRIDAY

I had an 8 AM dentist appointment this week and it was probably one of the highlights of my week. My dental hygienist only sees me twice a year, but every time she leans back my chair to get to work, she asks me about something I told her I was going to do at my previous visit. This week was “how did grown-up camp go?” She remembered from my last visit in February that I was going to go to Camp Wildling. She’s fantastic. She always tells me that I’m doing a great job at flossing. At the end, the dentist comes over and he also asks me follow up questions from my last visit. On this visit, he told me that my teeth are a ten out of ten. I left the dentist’s office with clean teeth and a hop in my step. All of that nightly flossing and taking care of my teeth stuff seems to be paying off.

Then I opened my email to see a new email from Macy’s furniture department and I yelled out “We’re getting our new couch!”

We are not getting our new couch. Once I actually read the email, I found out that we have a new estimated delivery date of 11/30/2021. Yes, that says November thirtieth. I think what really rubbed me the wrong way was in the email, they said “Thank you for your recent furniture order.” as if we bought the couch last week and not six months ago. No one likes the current seating situation in the living room. The animals walk over to where I’m sitting in the chair I bought to go with my desk and they just stare up. The cat was so desperate to lay on some part of my body the other day that he flopped down on my feet. Josephine just sighs heavily before stretching out on the floor next to me. The Cabbage was on vacation with their mom last week and the first thing they asked when we picked them up was if the new couch had arrived. They didn’t even really sit that much on the old couch and they are tired of this seating situation.

We have a futon in the basement that (on top of the futon mattress) Michael has placed an actual mattress. That’s where he sleeps when the Cabbage is with us. I bought a simple fold up bed frame to put the mattress on so that we can haul the futon up to the living room. My friend Sarah asked me if I wanted to borrow her son’s bean bag chairs. I am not, but I told her that I might as well because we’ll already be sitting on a futon like it’s 1996. All I need now is a stinky bong for the coffee table and a lava lamp. I know that 90s fashion is making a comeback. Anthropologie just sent me an advertisement for sweater vests, but recreating my college day living room decor is too much.

I know what you’re thinking. Where is the gratitude in this story?

Three days a week, I walk Josephine up to Tower Park (also known as Snack Park because that’s where she finds all the good snacks) where we walk the whole loop of the park. There are regulars who walk there that know the two of us by name and we greet each other every morning. There are also regulars who sleep in this park. In the last few months, I have noticed the number of homeless sleeping in this park has increased. One man has even attempted to build a cardboard house in the baseball stands. I’ve taken to carrying granola bars with me to leave discretely next to a sleeping person. One morning a few weeks ago, Josephine and I arrived at the park just as a city park’s ranger was clearing people out. One by one, they filled up their carts or bags with their belongings while Josephine and I walked the park. At the end of this, Josephine and I had a place to go. The park people did not, though I believe that they should be allowed to sleep in that park because they have very little options. Their homelessness is not about being unable to find a job. It is about mental instability and addictions. It is about once having a stable life and then losing a job and or having huge medical bills and then finding themselves suddenly homeless without any know how to pull themselves out of homelessness.

So my couch problem is a problem of privilege and in the wake of what I just told you about the homeless in the park, a bit of a disgusting problem to complain about. I am grateful for my current uncomfortable seating situation.