LoveBeans

Sometimes life throws you a bone.

I'm sitting down across the dining room table from Inga, trying to type up this week's blog when I realize that I'm in too good a mood to convey accurately how Biblically out of sorts I was at the time of the story I'm attempting to tell. Then, outta nowhere, Inga pipes up with this little nugget:

I'm a little acorn brown
Lying on the cold, cold ground
Everyone walks over me
That why I'm cracked, you see
I'm a nut in a rut. I'm a nut in a rut
--no author listed

No, she's not a mental patient. She's a K teacher and that's the poem the book says the kids will be talking about this week. (PS Keep the kids away from sharp objects till about Friday or so.)

Sidenote - Don't you wish you job was like that? Not Inga's. The kids. How friggin great would it be to amble into work Monday morning, seat yourself down at the big table in the conference room and hear the boss say, "okay, gang... as you all know the economy's in bad shape and no one's immune. We just gotta do our best to make it through this thing and hopefully we'll all get out of this in one piece. At any rate, let's talk about this week's poem: Little Acorn Brown. Jones, any thoughts? And hand me the paste while you're at it."

But I digress.

I bring this up only because it's given a vocabulary to the vibe I had goin' on this weekend. You see, a project I've been working extremely hard to help birth for the past year or so has recently been put on life support by the very people who were supposed to be paying for its post-natal care. What's more, it looks very much like they may be pulling the plug very soon. This would be the latest artistic abortion in the string of creative failures and near misses that litter my resume. Sure, many of my projects have made money and I've carved out a nice life for myself based on that fact. But by and large, most of what I do ends up lost by the time the project hits the shelves. (I dare you to care about THAT).

Anywhom, cut back to Saturday: It's midnight and I'm moping around the house, mumbling, scowling and generally being a shallow douche of a man when Inga tells me to open the pantry. I tell her I'm not hungry, but she insists. She tells me there's s surprise there for me that I was supposed to find on my own but she says it looks like I need it now. I can't blame her after all, considering the sheer amount of douchery I was wallowing in.

I do as she asks/commands and open the pantry. Nothing.

She tells me to dig. I do.

After a few seconds of upending Spaghettios, I find a small can of baked beans with a piece of paper pinned under the lid tab (yes, I like the easy-open cans - lay off). I unfold the paper to find a handwritten note - a list - scribed on one of Inga's many, many, many personalized stationary.

It's a list of things she likes about me. She didn't make it cuz she knew I was in a bad mood. It was already there, just waiting for me to need it.

Sometimes life throws you a bone.

But sometimes, it's lovebeans.

--F