Do overs, puppies, and incredulities

I'm braising a pork shoulder. In green chiles, garlic, onion, lime juice, and chicken stock.
Later, after all the collagen in the meat has melted, I'll pull it apart with a fork and make enchiladas out of it. What began as a routine pork puddle assembly went very far south this New Year's Eve, people. It started going south yesterday morning at the grocery store, when I mindlessly selected some jalapeno peppers to put in my sofrito. I will say now that those peppers, which looked and felt like jalapenos, were not what they seemed. They were, in fact, the hottest peppers from Dick Cheney's garden plot in Hell, which is in an undisclosed location known all over hell for producing the hottest peppers ever.
I would like to add at this point that my dog is chewing on a short length of climbing rope. He is doing it ON THE COUCH right next to me. Ahem.
So this morning I browned that beautiful marbled hunk of swine goodness and then set about softening an entire head of garlic, which I had peeled with the nifty little silicone peeler that Fudge Christine gave me for my birthday this year. I mused over Fudge Christine and wondered how her Prime Rib Christmas went last weekend and noted that I sure do like that Fudge Christine. I halved the evil little jalapeno imposters from Dick Cheney's secret hell garden and seeded them. I chopped them right up and threw them in the pot with the garlic and onions. I added a can of mild green chiles. And chicken stock. And lime juice. Just as I was about to throw the the pig into the pot, I had this little urge to taste my sofrito. After it got in my mouth, I had a sensation like my tongue had just been blown into the center of the sun. Fuck! I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to cool that shit off so I started over.
While I was peeling yet another bulb of garlic, I reflected a bit over the last year. I thought a little bit about how screwed up the government is, which is one of my favorite pasttimes. I mean, really, we could all think about that for a good long while, couldn't we? So I set that aside, if only briefly. I remembered our beloved late dog, Loki. I see her sometimes, walking out in front of me, waving her tail like a feathery flag. It was heart wrenching when she got sick. We have the munchkin now, and lo, he is a pain in the ass. I am very glad for his white big dog teeth and his healthy newness. I am, however, baffled at how it came to be he is at this very moment resting his jowls on my arm as I type this.
Because I am on the couch. And we had a rule. About the couch. About the big purple overstuffed couch that is the first couch I have ever bought and the first couch I have ever bought that is not a futon. The rule was: no dogs on the couch. On Friday we took the little munchkin/fru-itt of the devil to the V-e-t in order to have his little nuts chopped off. We reckoned he'd be a bit nonplussed, maybe even kind of low energy in the days immediately following the surgery. Well. We didn't sleep at all Friday night because he had the lampshade hat on, which clearly does not work for him, and he was whining, AND he was bashing his hat on everything. In. The. World. Yesterday I lay down for a nap, leaving the VBM (who, I might add, is the big Rule Follower, even though we both heartily agree to No Dogs On The Furniture) to soothe the rugrat. We had given the whelp a benadryl in hopes it would dampen the whining. I was actually able to nap, which is almost unheard of. I dreamed about whining dogs. When I emerged from this once in 2006 nap, what did I see?
I saw the dog. On the couch. With the VBM. The VBM had this to say about it:
"He would not settle! I had to let him up here! He wore me down!"
Or something like that. He wore me down was definitely in there.
Okay. WTF.
Also in 2006, my mother retired and is now enjoying her first days as a snowbird. The VBM's lovely mother also quit going to work on a permanent basis and she seems to be consistently delighted whenever I see her. I became a part to half time mountain woman. I made new friends. I lost a good friend. My grandmother died. I bought a new car. It has heated seats! My business grew. I got snowshoes. Lots of miles were walked. And there is a dog. On my couch.
Happy New Year. May we all grow, get more flexible, eat well, love eachother, and discern more carefully the peppers.