I was driving up my street one late afternoon with my daughter in the car. She could easily walk home from school but I pick her up one street over so she doesn’t have to trudge uphill to our house.  I hope she remembers my compassion and generosity when she looks back on her life some day.

Anyway, we were a couple of houses from our own house and I noticed a man walking a dog.  I noticed mainly because the dog looked like my dog, a Bernese Mountain dog.  I said to my daughter, “Hey, that looks like my dog!” and she said after a pause, “Um, Mom.  That’s Dad!”  (Frankly, she sounded kind of judgmental, as if she’s never mistaken her loved one for a total stranger.  Whatevs, man. Fourteen year olds think they know it all.)

And sure enough, I gaped as I drove past the man and the dog and it WAS my husband (of almost 30 years) and it was my dog.

I kind of recognized my dog but I did not recognize my husband.  At all.  I guess I forgot he’s mostly bald and gray.  That’s not how I see him.

*

Today we ran out of toilet paper.  Completely.  We have three bathrooms in our house and when I used the last of the toilet paper in my master bathroom, I checked the closet where I keep the extra rolls.  There were no extra rolls, much to my surprise.  This was shocking because I have toilet paper automatically delivered to my house by Amazon.  It’s the best thing ever.  But my system went awry, somehow.

So I thought I’d check the main (kids’) bathroom upstairs.  Last I knew, I stacked six rolls in there.  Today, there was a ROLL OF PAPER TOWELS sitting on the counter next to the toilet.

I . . . just . . . what?  So I took that away and came back with a box of tissues because we are not barbarians!  Then I checked the downstairs bathroom and . . . well, I already spoiled this story by telling you we completely ran out of toilet paper today.

The weird thing here is twofold:  1)  No one mentioned that we had no toilet paper; and 2) Someone thought a roll of paper towels was a good solution.

Please do not worry about us.  I drove right to Target and bought 48 rolls of toilet paper.

*

I continually buy hairbands.  Because I have ridiculous hair and also, hello, menopause?  So I’m hot.  No, I’m cold . . . wait, now I’m sweaty.  But I’m cold, I mean hot.  So, I constantly put my hair up, then take it down, then put it up, ET CETERA.  All day long.  And occasionally–like right now–I look in my desk drawer and all around my office and find no hairbands.  And I’m hot.  But I have inadvertently transferred all the hairbands to my bedroom and my car.  This would be why I have a pen stuck in my hair, holding it off my neck.

Does this happen to anyone else?

*

Finally, I had a bit of a busy morning today.  I had to take my car to get an oil change and when I came back home, I had a couple of hours and decided to putter.  At some point, I remembered that I wanted to put peanut butter in the mousetraps I put in the garage a awhile back.  I’d found evidence of a mouse and so I bought traps and put them behind the garage couch.  Weeks and weeks had passed, but my traps remained empty.

So I came armed with a knife full of peanut butter and shoved the couch out of the way to access the traps and found . . . two empty traps and one trap with a dead mouse.

I immediately turned squeamish and went upstairs to ask my 18-year old if he’d like to practice “being a man” and he said, “Sure!”and then when I told him why, he pulled a blanket over his head and said, “Oh no!  I thought you wanted me to do taxes or something!”

I ended up fishing the mousetrap from behind the couch with a long metal thing and put it in a trash bag and into the trash.  And then I filled the remaining traps with peanut butter because you never know.  (At least I didn’t use glue traps again.)

The problem is that I don’t want to let go.

She’s all too eager to move on while I’m clinging to memories.  Remember four years ago when we went whale watching?  Remember when you lost your first tooth?  Remember that pink hat you loved?  Remember when we bought these clothes?  Remember?

She doesn’t want to dwell in the past.  She wants to get her driver’s license and her freedom and long acrylic nails.  She’s 14 and has no patience for my questions or memories.

Nothing like this concerned me when my boys were growing up and growing older.  Maybe because I always had her, my little cohort, the one who was always ready to go to the beach or to the store or anywhere, really.  Now, she just wants a ride to her friend’s house or she wants to stay home and watch Netflix while I go alone.

However, I am no idiot.  It’s absolutely developmentally appropriate that she ventures farther and farther away from me, that she separates from me.

But it’s hard for me.

And last night, her guinea pig–which had become my guinea pig–died.  So not only do I have a giant basket of her cast-off clothes here in my office, ready to be discarded somehow, I also have the empty guinea pig cage, another sign of the times.

*

Last week, I took her to Barnes & Noble to buy a book she wanted. While we waited to pay, I sniffed the candles displayed for sale.  I found one that smelled amazing: gardenia, tuberose and jasmine and thought I would buy it for myself as a belated birthday gift.  But it cost $19.99 and I just couldn’t do it.

When we got home, I emptied the curbside mailbox–I am terrible about remembering to get the mail each day–and found a package from my mom.  She’d mentioned she was sending something for my birthday.

I opened it and unwound the tissue paper from a wrapped item to reveal a metal tin containing a candle . . . a candle scented with the fragrance of gardenia, tuberose, and jasmine.  It was in a metal tin instead of the round glass contained I’d seen at the store, but it was the exact same brand and the exact same scent that I wanted at the bookstore.

This little candle felt like a small miracle, a little reminder of love and family and dreams come true.

*

I just read (for the first time) Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.  I wish I’d read it before.  If you haven’t read it, you should.