She's forever sending me photos: snapshots from a month-long trip to Norway, sunset photos from the boat she lives on in Hawaii, elbow-to-elbow photos of her and other authors nominated for the Orange Prize, drinking and having fun in London. All that aside, though, along with the bathtub photograph she sent yesterday, here's a brief back-and-forth of our emails to each other while we both happened to be online. You tell me. Do our lives seem even remotely similar?HER: We were in Cabo yesterday. Docked in Puerto Vallarta today. Took a bus ride up the side of a mountain and just missed a rock slide. Stopped at a tequilla factory (glug/glug) and our nutso tour guide was so out-of-this-world funny I swear I'm putting him in my next book. What's new there?
ME: Plumber showed up 5 hours late yesterday, then charged me $318 more than the original $149 quoted (glug/glug); I have a cold/flu/fever; hubby came home from Zurich but leaves for San Francisco tomorrow; my kids built a 3-story tree fort in the backyard without permission (see photo of work in progress + end result) while I was writing.
Am still trying to determine how they got the leather seats from their big brother's van up onto the top floor (see the seats in 1st photo on the ground?!!) and how much it's going to cost me to pay off the neighbors so they'll speak to us again.HER: Wow! I love tree forts. Your kids are sure creative, huh?
ME: I'm not finished... Last night a bear ripped apart our neighbor's compost bins, then got into a bag of garbage the boys left hanging from the tree fort. I also just learned it's illegal to kill skunks so I'm trying to figure out how to politely entice the one we have living under our shed to move on and find itself better digs.
HER: OMG, what a coincidence! Our maid keeps leaving towel-shaped animals on our bed each night (along with chocolates) and last night I swear it looked like a skunk!
ME: Eat a bag of dirt, Pat.
21 comments:
I can help you with the skunk, at least.
Pour human urine around the entrance to the burrow. I would just leave a jar in the bathroom with a request for the males in the family to fill it. Then I'd pour it around the entrance in the late afternoon, so that the skunk would use the night to move. Works on groundhogs too.
Think Pat might wanna swap a day or two of her cruise for some time in your animal land? ;)
That's really funny. Her life compared to yours, I mean!
GAHHHH!! I think you need one big hug (and maybe a free trip on a cruise ship to rest up?)
Giggle * Snort *
Don'tcha wanna reach thru
the internet and throttle
her? Very funny!!
Nice fort. How DID your kids
hoist those car seats up?
If it helps, I hate
cruise ships and I'm sure
you would too.
Janet -- you are such a sweetheart! And a wealth of information. Thank you for the advice. I'll see if it works.
Angie -- I think I'll talk to her and suggest it. Good idea!
Victoria -- Yup, our lives are very very different, no doubt about it.
Kyla-dale -- Exactly! Therefore the "eat dirt" comment, which Pat never takes seriously.
As she shouldn't.
Adam -- Apparently, they used a pulley system of some sort. And to be honest I don't prefer cruise ships, btw. I've been on 4 cruises and they were okay but my favorite was the 5th -- a Blue Lagoon cruise through the Yasawa Islands in Fiji.
No dressing up. Only 50-75 people per boat. A/C in every room. Good food, very casual environment.
Gorgeous spots every morning to visit. And no bathtubs in sight!
My kinda cruise-heaven.
ah, the joys of rural life ;)
Hahahaha...
Great tree fort, though! We used to have one of those, though it wasn't nearly so fancy.
ROFL!!! I love stories about your boys. I'd take the craziness with the kids and bears any day. Think of all the material you've got!
Oh, wow. All these months I've thought it would be wonderful living on a boat and now I know the truth. No bathtub? No way! Darn. Great photo of Pat. Thanks for sharing that.
I love cruises but have never been in a cabin with a bathtub. Lucky woman.
My life is more like yours.
THREE WEEKS???? She's on that cruise for three weeks? Wait. She lives on a boat. Is that a real vacation?
Me? I slipped on sh*t today. In my bedroom hallway. An autism moment. Does that help you feel a teeny bit better? LOL! A writer's life is glamour glamour glamour. And Lysol.
Can you see Alaska from your house? Are you WATCHING it????
;)
Love the blog! haha... great stuff. Love your writing style.
(and your kids are great!)
Hilarious post! I do hope you embellished your comings and goings just a bit, for the sake of a good blog? And if not -- cyber hugs. :)
What a life that Patricia leads, eh?
Your blog as usual has interesting posts. I'll have to return more often. This one was quite funny, and how did your boys get those seats up there? Did they ever admit anything?
Oh, my! You two are
quite funny when meshed
together *LOL*
Great post.
My eyes are popping -- what a fantastic tree fort!! She's right, your kids are creative.
Oh, but she should eat some dirt for rubbing your nose in her life of leisure with the maid and her turn-down and the chocolates.... giggle.
You two are hilarious!
I'm sorry, but I love that treehouse-without=permission. Other than the possible safety hazard factor, of course! I love it when kids get to work! The first photo cracks me up: one kid wearing a fuzzy hat and shorts, the other one strong-arming a ladder up into the trees. They'd get along with my boy!
I can just see them. "I'm bored."
"You ever think we could build something between those four trees?"
"Go get the hammer, I'll go looking for scrap wood."
"Hey look! VAN SEATS!"
Awesome.
Holly, you are the master of treehouses, y'know!
hey I'm just now able to comment! A bathtub yes but NO INTERNET!!!!!!
ARGGHHHH!!!!
LOL! This was a wonderfully hilarious post!
*now going back to lurking*
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