SAY CHEESE

My theme for my weekend at Heather’s was Cheese. We made a ridiculous recreation of the Milk Bar Bakery’s Cheesy Puffs cake. We ate fancy grilled cheese sandwiches at Cheese Bar and then bought cheese at the store that owns the restaurant. Their pimento and cheese is my mother’s and I ate the last of it when I got home in the same way I’d eat it as a kid, sandwiched between two pieces of Wonder Bread. With the first bite, I started singing “Let’s do the time warp again!” After I left Heather’s, she and a friend attended a cheesecake class and were in the middle of baking as I passed a Sargento cheese truck.

I’m planning a cleansing diet for the month of May.

This trip to Des Moines was my second trip to the city and my first trip on solo with Josephine. Here’s what I learned. It takes no time to get from Kansas City to Des Moines. If you’re lucky, along the way you will spot bald eagles. I saw two! There’s an opportunity to see covered bridges and shop at an Amish store filled with homemade canned goods and crafts. You know you are leaving (or entering) the state of Missouri when you see all the giant firework warehouses next to the highway. I-35 is very much like the section of I-35 that runs through Oklahoma, meaning it needs some work. The cheese shop with the most wonderful cheese is right next to a French bakery that sells all the best flakey pastries and baguettes for the cheese you just bought at the fancy cheese shop.

There will be many trips to Heather’s in the future; one of which will be for the State Fair.

This trip was also a test of how well Josephine will do in the car without being able to sit in my lap for most of the ride. I fixed her bed in the front seat with a towel in the floor. There was a little bit of a dance in the beginning, but she very quickly settled into her bed. Then she split her time between the floor and the bed. She was the perfect copilot. She let me listen to whatever I wanted and didn’t talk while This American Life was playing. We made one stop for potty breaks for both of us and she didn’t request anything from inside the gas station. She never acted nervous or anxious. This is all very important because I have some solo camping adventures I want to do and it feels safe to have Josephine with me for those. She’s a little dog, but she’s got a big bark.

There was a particular song that kept popping up on the radio last year, This Year by Emily King. It’s catchy and felt like a good morning theme song. It’s the song that played in my head when I was writing out my plan/flow chart for 2024. It’s not a self absorption or a ‘you’re so vain’ thing. I don’t listen to the song and think ‘yeah, the world needs to revolve around me!’. I hear that song and see it as a reminder to take care of my own happiness. I have also spent too much time making space for someone else both physically and mentally. In my efforts to make room, I have made myself smaller and a little numb. So all the things I’ve put on my chart for the year have been activities I want to do for myself. I’m becoming less numb and less tolerant of being talked at as opposed to being talked to or with. I’m working at being less small. Making space for myself is involving a number of solo trips this year because planned trips force me to carve out the time for me. If I put it on the calendar and book the room, I’m going and that’s that.

I guess the next adventure will be solo camping. I’ve built the kitchen box and organized my camp gear. All that’s left is to throw a dart at the map and go.