Greg is trying to kill me…

I think.

I bruised my wrist yesterday during tae kwon do, so Greg planned to make a gourmet dinner for me last night. We went to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients. Greg had written eggs on our list.

“Greg, we already have 11 eggs in our refrigerator,” I said. “Do you need more than 11 eggs?”
“Yeah, I know we have a lot, but I’m going to be using seven eggs,” he said.
“Seven?” I screeched in disbelief. “What are you making? You’re going to give me a heart attack.”

Whenever Greg makes dinner, the recipe invariably involves large quantities of eggs, butter, cheese, or heavy cream. Greg insists these foods are good for us. I agree that these foods can be good for us, but only in very small amounts. Greg decided that he would make a different dessert that would be healthier.

When we got home, Greg prepared a great meal. His dessert — a creme brulee sort of dish — did involve a couple eggs, but not seven. When we finished dinner, I noticed that we hadn’t eaten anything with raspberries, which were one of the ingredients we bought at the store.

“Greg, what were the raspberries for?” I asked.

“Oh, I forgot,” Greg said. “When I decided to make the new dessert, I forgot to cross the ingredients for the other dessert off the list, so I will still have to make that one tomorrow.”

So we’re finishing off the weekend with 12 fewer eggs and two fewer sticks of butter than we started it with. My poor heart is barely pumping blood through my clogged arteries. But I must go now. Greg just served up a piece of lemon tart.

I woke up to a crash on Wednesday night. I laid in bed for a few minutes wondering if the crash had been in my dream or in my house. A light came on and I heard Greg moving in the kitchen. It sounded like he was sweeping. Why was Greg sweeping at midnight? He must have broken something. That darn Greg! What was he doing up at midnight?

I walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. Greg looked up from his sweeping, and he seemed even more annoyed than me.

“I came in here and found Winston batting a piece of broken glass across the floor,” he said.

“So Winston broke the glass?” I asked.

“Yup.”

And then, as though confirming the evidence, Winston knocked an empty paper-towel roll from the counter onto the floor with a swish of his tail. We haven’t been able to figure out whether he broke the glass on purpose or accident, but I suspect it was the former.

When we first brought Winston home, we chose his name because we thought he acted regal, like a king, or a British prime minister, as the case may be. Clearly, we were wrong. Just call him Trouble.

Every night before bed, Abe has a job to do. His job is to go out the back door, down the stairs, and water the lawn. If he fails, he has to wake me up at 3:30 a.m. to let him outside, and that is not a pleasant thing. It’s not a job that Abe enjoys. He usually goes on a walk just hours before, and it’s a challenge to drink enough water and eat enough food to go the bathroom again in such short time.

Last night, Abe was out on assignment, and it was taking him a long time. After ten minutes I started peaking out the windows to see what he was up to. Then I saw that the gate was still open from when I was doing yard work earlier in the day. Abe was on the loose. I cursed.

Without me saying another word, Sarah knew exactly what the problem was, set down her cereal bowl, and headed for her flip-flops with the pink pigs on them. I grabbed some milk-bone brand biscuits from the cupboard and then my sandals. I tossed one of the biscuits to Sarah as she headed to the front door and I started jogging to the back door. I didn’t make it all the way to the back door.

Sarah had opened the front door to find Abe waiting patiently, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to go out one door and come in the other. He rushed into the house and, smelling the treats, began to bark for them.

He was out there for a while and we don’t know what adventures he had, but it’s comforting to know that we must be doing something right for him to come back so quickly.