Cradling Kermit’s “Pickle”
You know how the Universe throws shit at you?
Yeah you do.
Like, you’re going along and minding your Ps and Qs and then BAM! Something happens that renders you into a quivering pile of cytoplasm.
Or maybe it was some fabulous thing like falling smack dab in love.
Or getting a tasty work promotion or adopting a new adorable kitten and finding that kitten likes to sleep wrapped around your head.
Yes, that is a good thing for some people, you head-shaking, nay-saying Cat-Hater.
This blog isn’t for you, you know it? Because cats are revered on this blog. Why, you ask, shaking your head in abject puzzlement? They are fuzzy; they are naughtier than a bad elf hopped up on cookies; and they smack shit off tables. Boo-ya.
And while destructive, that brand of naughty is cute. And if they sometimes “drop the kids off at the pool” right in front of the litter box, well you know that you aren’t coming through for them. That’s not passive aggressive exactly. It’s poo-gressive.
It’s a reminder that dogs don’t often administer. Cats remind us that we aren’t perfect AT ALL. Get your shit together, Human, the cat is saying. Once you do, I will work on mine. BECAUSE MY SHIT IS LITERAL. In the face of that cynicism, an opposable thumb is useless. They have a point. And you have to respect that.
Sometimes cats swear. They do. And please don’t blame me for their profanity. I am just the messenger.
Which brings me to pickles. I apologize for my blatant predictability because it’s one of those inherent genetic problems like Sickle Cell Anemia. (And obviously Sickle Cell Amenia is NOT funny.) You see the obvious arc of my story and it’s all “Welcome to Yawnville, with Mayor McAmbien.”
Anyway, I’ve had a rash of pickle themed stuff happen–like things happen–in twos.
First, I found this stone cottage to purchase and renovate and was all like, “That’s so English Cotswold cottage or that’s so sort of French provincial.” Because it’s all stone and exotic and English and French are both continental except the food blows in one country and is pretty good in the other, with the exception of the cold blue cow’s brain, eating slimy ground dwellers with mucus as a medium, and horses. No one should eat things encapsulated in snot. No one should eat things that are painfully beautiful and can be ridden.
That should be a food rule.
Please don’t send me hate notes.
Anyway though, I started obsessively googling stone houses for inspiration, which is what I do for a living with design. And I happened upon a blog called “The House of Lady Pickleshrub.” And I was amused on so many levels. And then the blog was beautiful, with some great interior and exterior photos and I was captivated. I stole the name for its giggle-factor. I began to call my house, “The House of Lady Pickleshrub” because plagiarism is everywhere. And I didn’t want to be excluded.
Let me see if I can articulate my appreciation of the name. It’s decidedly British, with a flavor of stiff upper lip, but the Pickleshrub bit sounds like the title of a very bad porn movie. And therein lies my adoration—an ironic combo, hold the chips.
So, most of the friends hated the name. Too bad, so sad. That means that the irony was lost on them and they focused only on porn part of the name. Whatever.
I spent hours and hours and hours working on The House of Lady Pickleshrub, painting, tiling, hanging trim, hanging woodwork, gossiping. I had my lovely and darling group of dear friends come out and help me at all hours.
Amy is a top
But my friend that helped me the very most was Amy, who put in countless hours cutting trim, learning to use a nail gun, painting, sweating her ass off with me. She also had a genetically-engineered Africanized hybrid jumbo wasp fly directly up her ass and sting her. I witnessed this. She danced and howled. I saw the wasp zip up her shorts—it was so fast I couldn’t call out. Her thigh and leg blew up and she was two beers away from being jabbed with an epi-pen. I thought she might quit then. Pack in her tools. Vamoose.
Yet still, she EMBRACED The House of Lady Pickleshrub. With only one functional leg and the other blowing out into a dirigible. She returned the next day and then the next. Because, despite her developing gangreen and shiny new wheelchair, she is what real friends are like.
And I love her just as much now as when she was totally ambulatory.
Her service dog has really enabled her to still come over and work on my house.
Her devotion didn’t stop there. No sirreee.
Pickle in Lederhosen
And here’s where the pickle theme continued. Amy (because she got it) bought me a prized, highly coveted, sought after Electronic Yodeling Pickle. Click here for the delicious reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-11761-Yodelling-Pickle/dp/B0010VS078
When she presented it, in a room filled with friends, I was horrified at first: I thought it was Kermit’s penis. Then, I thought it was an alien dildo. I was VERY perplexed by the yodeling.
I have been given this type of horrifying, mortifying, inappropriate gift in the past, so you kinda tense up for it and prepare for the mortifying laughter, as you wave it about wondering what kind of “tool” it is and wondering why lube packets sprinkle about your feet. But I won’t go there.
That was all hypothetical.
Then, I was really puzzled. Was this a fossilized cuke?
So, you can imagine my delight when I found out it was the Electronic Yodeling Pickle that I had been yearning for all my life. And the yodeling was very authentic: think The Sound of Music.
Now, I likely should NOT have put the photo of me cradling it with love on Facebook. Because if my initial reaction was that Amy had gifted me with the private member of a frog, it was going to be natural for others to jump to the same conclusions. And they did with their equally filthy minds despite me gifting everyone else with a Puritan spirit. Not so!
And I could never have prepared myself for the love that Walker gave that pickle. Or the hatred I came to have for that pickle. Because she played the yodeling pickle ad nauseaum, chuckling madly, all through the house. Repeatedly. And over and over. With redundancy. Until I nearly smashed the pickle and changed the name of the house.
But ultimately, I’m good-natured, even when it comes to the overuse and overplaying of the Electronic Yodeling Pickle.
And I learned that Electronic Yodeling Pickles, when not overplayed, do not lose their humor. If you’re in a pickle, play your pickle, and it will tickle.
I’m just glad I was able to ferret out the essence and lesson to this story. Sometimes I have to examine Kermit’s jewels to get where I need to be–that might be l’essence de vie in a nutshell.
You are so welcome and I am open to “thank you” notes.
