It Ain't All Gravy, Baby

 

It's a new year...and we’re off….

 

This morning at 6AM, one of my furry house guests woke up vomiting. Just grass…but a rude awakening and several spots to work on. She’s fine, no worries. We all went back to sleep for a bit longer.

Upon awakening, I remembered I had  several pounds of chicken breast that I unthawed yesterday and needed to cook, so before breakfast, I cut them into strips and commenced to frying chicken strips.

And with all the drippings, chicken gravy was a must…but all I had was almond milk, vanilla almond milk. And I wanted to blog about it…More on that later.

Just as I got the dishes ready for the dishwasher, the chicken resting….baha! And the kitchen area wiped off, Daisy came to the door, hanging her head.

Oh, please, no…Daisy. But no such luck…she had rolled in poo poo…and with a big blob of the “stuff” stuck on her neck, very close to her jingle bell collar, stood there hanging her head…”oops, I did it again,” seemed to ooze from her psyche.  

I let her in, of course, scolding her in my most loving voice. I’m not sure why I do that. I didn’t do that for my children as they blundered through childhood. My scolding voice for Daisy seems like a little ole grandma fussing. It’s weird.

 

She went straight to the bathroom. I remembered I had finally cleaned BOTH bathrooms last night.  I was so irritated I called her back out to the front yard and told her she was going to have to deal with the water hose and the cold water. We went outside I hooked up the hose only to find the water inside the hose was frozen and wouldn’t go through. I struggle with trying to unhook it from the spigot, with no success. I have to remember to go back. It was just too chilly in a t-shirt and pj bottoms to be out there wrestling with the hose. I turn toward Daisy and say, “We’re gonna have to do this in the bathroom,” and she gives me a sad, “please make up your mind, Moma; I have this “stuff” hanging off of me.”

So again, I let her in, she heads to the bathroom. (Oh, yeah, the resting chicken…I actually thought to go put it to roost on the frig cause, Lexie can reach just about anything when you aren’t looking).  I tell Daisy to get into the tub. She says, “Please, Moma, no” I commanded again and she complied. It’s such a sad sight to see her climb so slowly into the tub with such dread.

 

By the way, Bishop thought the whole time he wanted in on it, but I’m sure he was confused.

 

 

After all was cleaned up, a load of wet towels started, I sat down to blog…you know from the inspired moments with the almond milk. All the dogs were placed outside, Bishop on his cable… Lexie opted to stay in. Daisy just likes to sun after a bath. As I sat beginning to expand on my thoughts, Lexie decided she wanted out. I let her out Bishop in. Then I sit back down. I see Daisy jump up from sunning. I jump up to make sure she doesn’t run after whatever she barking at and WHALA! Bishop runs out the door like it was planned. Bishop was born to run. He knows no boundaries. He has no limits. Just a few short hours before his masters arrive…he manages to escape.

I put more clothes on, as my Pajama Day is not working out and grabbed a leash. This time I was able to catch him within ten minutes of his escape. He got on the other side of the fence and flipped out. With Lexie, Daisy and me on the other side of the fence, he came to me…surprisingly came to me…I reached through the fence, put the leash on his collar and walked him along the fence, me on one side, Bishop on the other, to the gate…and promptly placed him in his comfy cozy crate. He may stay there until his Moma arrives…but then again the howling is not as easy to tolerate as my strong side thinks.

It’s 1 o’clock …and this and more has transpired. I’m not sure how it happens. I was supposed to have Grace today, too. I hate that she’s sick. But she was better off not being at Mimi’s today. When Ariel told me last night that Grace wouldn’t be coming today cause she wanted to look out for me being that Grace was sick….look out for me…she just had no idea at the time…how Gracie not being here today had really been a good decision.

And now…the real meat of this blog posting (thanks for allowing me to whine about my morning)….

I didn’t want to waste the fried chicken drippings remember? With no milk, I used Almond Milk. Oh, right “vanilla” Almond Milk. It was the smoothest, prettiest chicken gravy. It was screaming for biscuits. I knew the “vanilla” might have been a problem, but I proceeded. I proceeded with the same mindset that I usually do thinking, “This is probably not gonna turn out like I want it to.” I do it in so many life situations. Convincing myself that, “I’ll make it work.”  I continue on a course, even when my gut tells me, the odds are against me. You know, they say, “Your strength is your weakness.” I can attest to this. Tenacious to a fault.

There are some things a person cannot change…no matter how strong they believe they can. This was something I wanted to jot down so I can review later…as well as share. I know I’m not the only one. What looks like gravy, smells like gravy, even shows consistency like gravy might not taste like gravy. In this life lesson, it ain’t “all gravy baby.” And it would be good for me to sink my teeth into this…for this year and the rest of my crazy days.