Get on That Pig and Hold on Tight

Not too long ago, Darren cheered me up during a stressful morning by showing me this video:

How awesomely ridiculous is that? Singer-songwriter Parry Gripp writes soundtracks to Internet memes and makes up names for them that include “Spaghetti Cat (I Weep for You).”

The Baby Monkey video was pretty much custom made for me. Seriously. Before I saw this video, I told Darren that my favorite animal in the world would be a baby monkey riding on the back of a baby goat. (You can tell that Darren and I get a little silly when we spend all day, every day, in the house by ourselves.) This video is the closest thing I’ve seen to my dream pet.

This morning, knowing I was stressed out, Darren looked me in the eye with a straight face and said, “I’ve been thinking, and I have some advice for you: Get on that pig and hold on tight.”

And this is why I love Darren. He finds a way to make a life lesson out of things like Baby Monkey going backwards on a pig.

The full lyric goes like this:

the world has gone insane
and you don’t know what is right
you got to keep on keepin’ on
get on that pig and hold on tight

Things are all over the place right now, so I could really use a dose of that wisdom.

Exhibit A: Our adopted boy cat that gave birth to kittens.

About a month ago, Darren and I adopted a stray black cat that was living under our porch. Neither of us has had pets before. The vet told me it was a boy, and we named it Benny.

Exactly one week later, I woke up in the morning to find that the cat had delivered three kittens. Into the litter box. How bizarre, right? It was just like an episode of the reality show “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.”

All at the same time, I wanted to throttle the vet for being so dense, laugh hysterically, and send a prayer of thanks to the Universe for bringing Benny — now spelled “Bennie” — to Darren and me at the right time. We probably saved her life and the lives of her kittens, because there’s no way they would have all survived under that junky old porch. Most likely, Darren and I will keep one kitten in addition to Bennie and give the other two to a good friend.

Exhibit B: The myriad details of wedding planning.

Um, I’m getting married in just about four months. What?! Seems like just yesterday that I had a whole year. People are starting to ask about booking their travel plans and hotel rooms and transportation. Those are reasonable requests. It just means that Darren and I actually have to arrange these details instead of brainstorming dreamily about possibilities. There are hundreds of small actions that go into planning a 150-guest wedding, and I keep having to remind myself that this wedding is a stress-free zone. But come on, Jackson – no airport shuttle and hardly any public transportation? You’re not making this easy on me.

Exhibit C: The ovarian cyst. Or whatever it is.

My OB-GYN informed me last week that my left ovary, which is supposed to be the size of a walnut, has swollen to the size of a softball. You would have thought that I’d notice something like this, but there’s currently no pain or “protuberance,” as Larry David would say on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The doc is confident that it’s not cancerous, but he can’t say for sure until he removes it and does a biopsy. He says it’s probably either a common cyst or an “endometrioma.”

I watch “Grey’s Anatomy,” and the only words I’ve heard that end in -oma are melanoma, lymphoma, and sarcoma. I’m no doctor, but I know that those are cancers. So I’d rather use the term “endometriosis,” even though that would threaten my fertility. If that ends up being the case, the doc would suggest that Darren and I try to have kids not too long after getting married. This is not currently our plan. It’s been challenging enough to raise newborn kittens, and I’m not the one having to breastfeed them.

We will all know more after the surgery. I’ve scheduled it for Thanksgiving week so I can take time to recover. Cross your fingers that a laparoscopy, a minimally invasive outpatient surgery, works so the doc doesn’t need to cut me open. On the upside, I’ll probably be lying around either way with more time to blog.

You’ve got to keep on keepin’ on. Get on that pig and hold on tight.

Silly as that line is, I’ve said it to myself repeatedly today, and it genuinely helps. I love how Baby Monkey falls off the pig in the middle of the video, but he runs after the pig and hops back on. Baby Monkey doesn’t quite know where that pig is going, but he trusts that it’s a journey worth taking. He trusts that everything will turn out all right in the end. Ah, the wisdom of Baby Monkey.

Get on that pig and hold on tight.