Just a Casual Sunday. (It Was Not Casual.)

I had one goal yesterday. One. Build a plant table, maybe get some staining done, call it a day. A productive Sunday. A focused Sunday. A Sunday where I was a person with a plan.

The plan immediately involved Dutch Bros, an Australian Shepherd Blue Heeler mix with a God-given mission to supervise everything within a half mile radius, and Cody — my ex boyfriend, current best friend, and the person I still somehow can't figure out how to quit. So you can already see how this went.

First Stop: Dutch Bros, Obviously

Every great day starts with caffeine and Powder knows this. He was in the car before I even had my keys. Powder is an Aussie Blue Heeler boy — wired, intense, deeply convinced that monitoring the situation is always his responsibility — and at our Dutch Bros he has somehow charmed every single broista into treating him like a regular. They know his name. They talk to him before they talk to me. I ordered my drink and watched three different people lean out the window to say good morning to my dog like he was holding court.

He accepted the attention with the focused energy of someone who was already thinking three stops ahead. Classic Powder.

Home Depot: A Herding Emergency

Here's the thing about building a plant table from scratch — you need actual lumber. Real wood. Which means loading a very alert Australian Shepherd Blue Heeler into the car and heading to Home Depot with a dream, some rough measurements, and absolutely zero formal woodworking experience.

Powder had thoughts about Home Depot. Many thoughts. Urgent thoughts.

First, he barked at a random employee — not aggressively, just one sharp decisive bark, the kind that says I see you and I want you to know that I see you. Then he found a man shopping for lumber and decided this man needed to be supervised immediately and thoroughly. He planted himself next to this complete stranger and watched, with absolute intensity, as the guy sorted through boards — tracking every movement like it was his personal responsibility that this stranger made good choices.

At one point the guy said "he's really into this" and I said "he's herding you" and I was not joking. Powder was herding a man in the lumber aisle of Home Depot and he was extremely good at it.

We got the lumber. Powder accepted pats from approximately six strangers on the way out. A successful mission.

Then Cody Showed Up

Here's the part I don't really know how to write, so I'm just going to write it.

Cody is my ex boyfriend. He's also my best friend. He's also — and I say this with full awareness of how complicated it is — probably one of my favorite people on earth. We dated, it didn't work the way it was supposed to, and then instead of disappearing like normal exes do, he just... stayed. And I let him stay. And now we exist in this space that doesn't have a clean label, where he shows up on a Sunday to help me build a plant table from scratch and it feels like the most natural thing in the world and also somehow the most complicated.

He showed up with the same energy he always has — easy, capable, ready to just do the thing. No drama, no weirdness, just Cody looking at my pile of lumber and saying something like "okay, what are we building" like it was already a given that he was part of the we.

And that's the thing about him that I can't quite untangle. It's always we with him. Even when it probably shouldn't be.

The Part Where We Actually Built a Table

We stained the boards first. Warm walnut, outside in the yard, each board by hand. There's something about doing a simple physical task with someone you have history with — it's comfortable in a way that's almost dangerous. You fall back into old rhythms without meaning to. He handed me things before I asked for them. I knew which decisions to make and which ones to throw his way. Powder supervised the whole operation with intense concern and we both kept redirecting him away from the wet stain.

Then we built. Measuring, cutting, figuring out angles. There was a stripped screw. There was laughter. There was a point where we were both on the floor of the yard looking at the half-assembled table and I thought — not for the first time and probably not for the last — why is this so easy and why can't the rest of it be like this.

But it came together. Levels and everything. Real wood, real stain, built from scratch by two people who apparently still make a pretty good team.

I stood back and looked at it and felt genuinely proud. Cody said something nice about it. Powder sniffed the finished table once, confirmed it met his standards, and walked away.

The Philodendron Incident

While moving my plants to their gorgeous new home, I noticed my philodendron giving me the look. Yellow leaves, sad droop, overwatered soil — root rot, classic, my fault entirely. So I pulled the whole thing out, trimmed the sad roots, dusted with cinnamon, repotted in fresh mix, and gave her a full pep talk while Cody watched from across the yard with the quiet patience of someone who has seen me talk to plants before and made his peace with it.

She's going to be fine. I've decided.

The Part I Keep Thinking About

He left in the evening, after the table was done and the plants were arranged and Powder had finally stopped circling the perimeter. Normal goodbye. Easy. Like always.

And I stood in my yard looking at this table we built together and I thought about how some people fit into your life in ways that defy the categories you try to put them in. Ex. Friend. Person I can't quite let go of. Person who shows up with no fuss and helps me build things and makes a Sunday feel like exactly what a Sunday should feel like.

I don't have a clean ending for this. I don't have it figured out. I just have a really beautiful plant table, a rescued philodendron, a herding dog who is already mentally planning his next Home Depot visit, and someone in my life who keeps showing up in the best possible way even when neither of us totally knows what to do with that.

Some Sundays you build something and you don't know yet what it means.

The laundry is still not done.