The other day, it only cost me a thousand dollars to confirm what I had already assumed to be the case (if only because I had no reason to assume otherwise) -- that Manny, my obese, blind, and ridiculously lovable Puggle, did not have a malignant tumor behind his eye. Sometimes crusty ooze and green discharge indicates nothing more than a bad cold. (I'm not a doctor, but the sneezing was my first clue.) A thousand dollars seemed a rather steep price to pay to confirm the obvious, but I convinced myself that it was money well spent, if only to allow myself the luxury of devoting my worn out tear ducts to more important things, like, say, the outrageous sums matrimonial attorneys charge to get you to a place where you can finally make the deal you should have a long time ago, only with a much smaller pot.
Note to self: next time I feel like getting divorced, hire my veterinarian. Though he stopped short of admitting the diagnosis of a brain tumor was unfounded, based solely as it was on a similar presentation several weeks earlier of a goopy, bulging eye by a cat (different species from Manny), presumably not even a blind one, he admitted that maybe he should have discussed options and outcomes and price with me in advance and refunded what I thought to be an exorbitant charge.
The weird thing was I felt guilty. Not for allowing thoughts of a future filled with fewer pee stains on the carpet to interrupt my tears, certainly not for fantasizing about life without being tied down by a disabled and gluttonous dog. My relief and, then, euphoria upon hearing the news that Manny would live to torment me and soil my house for a few more years was as good an indication as any that I was not placing a secret curse on him.
My daughter, who heard the good news and the bad news about Manny in a single sentence and therefore never even had time to grieve, took the confirmation that Manny did not have a malignant tumor -- not that we ever thought he did -- as a sign that things are lookin' up. We have both been struggling to recover from various ailments for over a week now, feeling like complete crap and resenting each other for not being healthy enough to be doting. I had started to wonder whether I would ever again know how it feels to not wish somebody would simply remove my aching, throbbing head from my body and put me out of my misery. She, I think, had begun to wonder whether she would ever again know how it feels to not wish her mother would get hit by a truck and stop all her damn whining. My friend suggested that maybe this was the new normal for us. Yipes. Where's the potassium cyanide when you need it?
Could this be the onset of chapter four. All these months of blogging I had thought chapter three was to be a long and final one. Chapter three: life after raising kids and slogging through a broken marriage behind a deceptive picket fence. Could it be that chapter three was only a way station, the penultimate piece of the puzzle? Could it be that the often promised but strangely elusive light at the end of the tunnel would not arrive until I closed it out, moved onto a new phase that was not just post-picket fence but post-official divorce decree? Gosh, could there be even more chapters in my future, new normals and paranormals and abnormals around every corner? For better or for worse or for worse still?
What the heck; I'm always up for a new adventure. Last week, a rakish young Italian sent me a message on Google Plus, one of those networking things that I signed on for a while ago, not really knowing what it was. I'm still not sure what it is, but I'm a blogging whore, and anything that offers me the promise of broader dissemination in exchange for a little check mark from me (as opposed to a check) gets my attention. As I understand it, now that Francesco from Milano (yes, I am talking real Italian, not the Saturday Night Fever variety I grew up with) has discovered my musings, he'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, until every model on every Milano catwalk will be wearing a copy on her sleeve, and every haute couture design house will be advertising its collections in my cyber margins.
Truth be told, Francesco was quite honest about his reaction to my writing, noting that when he has happened upon an entry from time to time it has offered him a good ten minutes of pleasant distraction. Faint praise, to be sure, but, when I happened upon Francesco’s profile picture, I considered offering him a read aloud and way more than ten minutes of pleasant distraction.
Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain: it has arrived. Maybe Francesco and I will ride off into the sunset in his Ferrari. Maybe I'll get around to writing that book. Maybe my divorce attorney will hear me out and give me a break on fees that defy logic and common decency. (I'll have to tweak the letter I wrote to the vet, edit out the first line that says something like "I'm an attorney, not a veterinarian." Hey, I never said I'm above playing dirty.)
All right, I'm feelin' lucky, but I'm still a realist. Chapter four may not see any rakish Italians in Ferraris or fantastic book deals or a sudden outbreak of charity and righteousness in the matrimonial bar. But it will definitely be filled with more of Manny's pee stains on the carpet and an occasional stroke of good luck and good cheer just when things appear to be hitting rock bottom. And lots of new and unfamiliar normals.
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