Feed Me. (Please.)

I was not raised to be a woman who raises her voice. So I was none too proud of myself when I found myself yelling across a parking lot yesterday. "Mike! Miiiiiiiiiike! Mike: do you have a couple convicts I can use to move a fridge?!"

"Whaaaaaaat?"

"A Refrigerator! I need to use your convicts. To Move One," I screamed back. (Like a goddamn fishwife you might say, and you'd be right.)

Mike's one of my office neighbors, and he is always rushing somewhere. I don't know his number or anything; I just have to run him down where ever I find him. Sometimes that means chasing him down the street screaming. He is the source of anything and anyone worth knowing -- particularly, how to get convict labor to pick up heavy things and carry them. For not very much money. (I don't even know where they keep the convicts, but Mike does.) The conversation ended with him saying he'd find some of them, and then they'd come find me, and then they'd come move the fridge.

It's the spare Fridge that currently lives in the basement and needs to go live in the utility room at the new house. I could just leave it behind, but it's shocking how much and how often I use it for overflow cooking and freezing. The idea of having two kitchens in full-blown transition for two full weeks is crippling for my inner Rainman. Worse, I realized the contents of both fridges had severely deteriorated during "The Month I Took Nothing But Broth," and currently adds up to half a jar of XoChitl (so-cheel) salsa, a bottle of Sriracha, two limes, gorgonzola cheese, and three pounds of Amish butter (I'm not an animal) -- in short, stuff that I could put on food, if I ever got any food. I'm too paralyzed to re-stock, because which kitchen should I go to? Civilization as I knew it was clearly collapsing.

That's around the point that I came home, curled up in a ball, and began rocking myself while singing "Tis a Gift to be Simple." (Perhaps I was gently weaving a broom. I can't be sure.)

And then, I abdicated and delegated. I realized there's no reason for me to run my life when there are so many people close by who could do a much better job at it. So I put the word out that I was putting myself in their capable hands til after The Move (it took on capitalization this weekend). My BFF called this morning and asked for clarification. She thought (not without some justification) that it might be a metaphor. Once she realized it was real, she got on board and began asking around about condiments (she does not typically cook, nor would I expect her to), and luckily my cousin stepped up to remind everybody "thou shalt not mention mayonnaise."  (I hate to let a date order it on a burger across the table from me, because some of it might actually get on mine.) That's about it in terms of things I don't eat: mayonnaise. And Beets.

Today I came home from a day of plumber-wrangling (one step away from installing "FannyCam" at the new house) and found an amazing quart of Aztec Chicken Soup, accompanied by a text from my Publicist and FoodGay Michael Jansen Miller "ChefTom just dropped off Banjo Broth(-ish) at Deck Formerly Known as Relevant."

I hadn't thought of that, but it's true. We now have a new Deck of Depravity (and the new one has a View... directly into the third floor of the Swanky McSwankerton house behind us).

All I know is today, the Plumber made friends with the Painter. And now I have to hope they don't ally and oust me in a bloody coup. I sort of have visions of the two of them living there together. With my dogs.

So far so good. But if things get much more chaotic, I might have to activate the Guard. (Can I do that?)