After selling her house last spring, Jamie’s sister Lisa has has the utmost privilege of intermittently residing with our family. Upon her return from Europe, we anticipated she’d be with us for a while as she looked for a job but last month, she announced she had found a new condo and would be moving out in January. Renting a place before getting a job? Isn’t that like the chicken before the egg or the egg before the chicken?
I know she wants her space but it’s been nice to have her here, particularly because she does the dishes and Jamie does not. There was full disclosure about this before we got married and there are plenty of other things he does around the house but dishes and toilet-cleaning are not among them.
Spoken from the woman who has not paid bills or taxes since the day we married.
Thursday is my crazy day driving kids to piano and then leading Cub Scouts so she offered to take on dinner duty that night and it’s been a treat. For her final Thursday dinner, she went all out as a way of saying thanks: high-quality grilled Costco steaks, fresh shrimp, corn on the cob, mushrooms, and two different kinds of French fries with fry sauce. We were overwhelmed and over-filled from our feast.
As we wobbled upstairs, we heard Lisa’s outburst.
“Ohhhh noooooo!”
“What?”
“Fat Kitty pooped on my bed.”
Fat Kitty is pretty much the perfect cat–non-destructive, cuddly and easy going. But his Achilles heel is he occasionally poops out of his kitty littler box when he’s 1) ticked we’re leaving him on vacation. 2) mad about being stuck indoors all winter. 3) PMSing or 4) just because. His target is usually a blanket or towel left on the ground but to poop on someone’s bed? A rarity and it was obvious he was making a statement. He was mad she’s leaving.
Over these past months, she has turned into his most trusted buddy. He monopolized her snuggly blanket so much that she had to bequeath it to him. And during our extended trip to Canada and frequent vacations, she was always there comforting him that it’s OK to be ditched. Lisa is his mother from another mother.
Regardless of the pain he is feeling over her inevitable departure, we felt badly, especially since she had just cooked up this amazing meal. We demanded a Fat Kitty apology and he reluctantly gave one.
I don’t see steak in our future anytime soon.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 