JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom

Welcome to One & Done Sunday. One picture, and five links that are worth your time.

When you tell stories that are not your own, often things get lost in translation. Details may be embellished or forgotten, significant bits left out, and complete fabrications can occur.

This is not the case with the following story. You’re just going to have to trust me on that.

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless and without any identifying characteristics, is having problems with squirrels getting into her trashcan. They have chewed through the fastening mechanism on the lid to reach the contents. They are not thwarted by mothballs, bleach, or anything she can think of to secure the lid.

No one else on her street is having this issue.

She’s one of those moms who does too much, but she’s usually in the flow and pretty organized. Monday morning she woke up and was checking out her schedule and saw that she was completely booked. She always makes Monday’s dinner the night before. (I know, right? Sunday night I make something from the freezer section for the kids and then throw lunch money at them Monday morning so I don’t have to deal with making lunches on my day off).

As she remembered she made meatloaf for Monday’s dinner, she also remembered that she’d never taken it out of the oven Sunday night.

Bummer. Bye-bye, meatloaf.

She threw it away in secret, neatly avoiding a conversation with her husband about wasted meat and what’s for dinner tonight.

Some time later her husband said, “Do you know anything about a squirrel out here with a meatloaf?”

There was a squirrel, trucking across the powerline with some difficulty, carrying damn near an entire meatloaf that he had liberated from the trash can.

Here’s your picture (sadly, not of a meatloaf-carrying squirrel).

CC was out slaughtering the overgrown wisteria and mulching our dangerously raked “back yard” and the puggles were beside themselves and would not leave me alone until I put them out with him. They have 20-foot leashes that let them explore a little bit under supervision.

Casey managed to climb up on the little stone wall into the flower pots while simultaneously getting herself all tangled up and stuck. The part you can’t see are all the branches her leash is wrapped around.

Here are your links.

A beautiful, tiny essay by a great writer: Tragedies

Reminiscent of that Moe the bartender Simpsons quote I was born a snake handler, and I’ll die a snake handler: Paul Johnson at The Good Greatsby If It was a Snake It Would Have Bitten You.

On Michael Ruhlman’s excellent food blog, Anthony Bourdain So You Wanna Be A Chef.

Seinfeld Episodes That Wouldn’t Work Today – Jenny at Caffeinated & Random

Beth Howard makes pie. She also lives at the American Gothic house (yeah, that one in the Grant Wood painting. I mean, the actual one that he painted, she doesn’t live in the painting. She’s a real person). She has a hell of a story about coming back to life after her young husband died suddenly. Here’s her Real Simple article Miss American Pie.

Also you should check out her book Making Piece,  a Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie.

So technically that’s six links.

Happy Sunday. May your trees stay up where they belong and your squirrels keep their damn hands off your meatloaf.