Not so eagle eyes

Well, I've always prided myself on my excellent long-range vision, but i sincerely missed the mark on this one. Bill and I drove to Dallas for the weekend (it was really just one day, but we both desperately needed to get away from the area and recharge the ol' batteries).

So anyway, as we're driving through the deeps of South Oklahoma, I got all excited because I realized we were going to pass the "Penn & Teller" casino. The last time I was driving through Oklahoma (with Shelli, Justin, and my little sis Sara), I saw this sign from a distance, and thought it was Penn & Teller. They all thought I was crazy, but Bill saw the resemblence from a distance. Of course, he is also in need of LASIK. So let's take a vote. Am I crazy/blind OR do the Chief and Vice Chief of the Choctaw tribe look a smidge like Penn & Teller? (Actually, upon closer inspection, I think that the Vice Chief looks like John Candy.

Imagine it from a distance...maybe squint your eyes a little.

Presumptive Conversation Starter

Which Rod Stewart song do you least loathe?

bad me

I got off the phone with Bill about 20 minutes ago. He has to go to happy hour with his work associates. I said I would stay home and clean the house and pack for a little weekend getaway we're going on.

Then Shelli called to see if I wanted to go out for Mexican food and margaritas.

Yes, please.

clean, shmean. pack, shmack.

letdown

I always have a big letdown the weekend before the Olympics end because I realize that it's half over. I'm excited to have two of my girlfriends over on Saturday for a fun girls' night, so I think that will take some of the sting off. :)

I'm fairly pleased at how these Olympics are shaping up. Underdog Ligety (just fun to say!) getting the gold. That punk Johnny Weir getting the boot from the medal stand (if I had to see his smug little look of disdain one more time, I was going to hurl a shoe at the T.V.). Cutie Emily Hughes getting to compete, and all the Kwan drama (or "Kwama" as I like to call it) finally being over. And yummy "Cucina" vignettes every morning on the Today show. Today, it was about cheese.

The one problem that I've had with these Olympics is a horrible inability to stay awake. I missed Plushenko's "Godfather" free program last night because I couldn't keep my eyes open past 8:30. Very disappointed! The two nights before, I kept dozing off as well. It's like I just completely lose the ability to will my body to stay in an upright position starting at 8:15, and from there, it's over. Plus, Bill keeps bringing me my green snuggly blanket, and how am I supposed to stay awake wrapped in the green snuggly blanket???

Ahh, sweet Olympics

That's right. I'm officially addicted to the Olympics. And so I give you: my favorite Olympic athletes (most are from the Winter games because I don't get into the Summer ones as much, and you'll probably notice something of a skating motif):

1.) Paul Wylie (Albertville, 1992)--I sigh just thinking about him. His JFK routine and Miss Saigon routines still set my heart a twitter. Silver medalist, but always gold in my heart.

2.) Ekaterina Gordeyeva and Sergei Grinkov (Calgary-Lillehammer)--Followed them from her being a flirtatious little teen through their marriage and his death. I have no other words for their final Olympic performance other than "breathtaking."

3.) Dan Jansen (Calgary, 1988; Albertville, 1992; Lillehammer, 1994)--From underdog to triumph, I followed him the whole way. I remember hearing his story: his sister died the day he was to compete in Calgary and he was obviously overcome with grief when he was skating, then he had a slight bobble in Albertville costing him the podium, in Lillehammer, he had a small mistake in his best event and thought that he was out. But he went on to win in his next event where he was a long shot, setting a new world record at the same time! Wow. And apparently, he's a nice guy to boot.

4.) Midori Ito (Calgary, 1988; Albertville, 1992)--Who? Ah, my sweet little Midori. I actually don't remember her from Calgary, but what drama in Albertville! Here are the juicy details:
At the Olympics, during final practice at the Olympic rink, Surya Bonaly peformed an illegal back-flip right beside a startled Midori, disrupting her practice and possibly causing her to miss her next jump. This drew the wrath of Katarina Witt who accused Bonaly of "almost cheating." ISU officials forbade Bonaly from doing anymore back-flips during practice. Midori and her coach decided to replace the triple Axel combination with an easier triple Lutz combination. Her coach said she had never seen Midori fall on this jump. However, during the short program, she did fall on the Lutz, placing her in fourth. In the long program she fell on her first triple Axel, landed her second (the first landed by a woman at an Olympics). She ended up winning the Silver Medal. Even though she won the Silver and the team coach, Noriko Shirota, told her she didn't have to be sorry, she publicly apologized to her country for not winning the Gold.

And she's just the sweetest little thing you ever saw. I remember in her exhibitions, she put together this montage of "rain" songs (singin' in the rain, somewhere over the rainbow, etc.) and was just so...SWEET about it. Contrast that with Michelle Kwan's tearful little fit in '98 and skating to Fields of Gold (stealing Sarah Hughes limelight) at the '02 exhibitions. Oh, and Surya Bonaly is mean and her back-flips were ugly anyway.

5.) Torville & Dean (Sarajevo, 1984; Lillehammer, 1994)--I love their Bolero routine, and that is some kind of moxie returning to the Olympics after 10 years. Plus, let's face it, Great Britain isn't exactly swimming in skating glory through anybody else. Hip Hip Huzzah for them.

Biger

Creepiness, thou hast a name, and they name is "Biger".

For those of you who I do not frequently chat with in the "real world", Biger is the newest addition to our family. And apparently, he is not actually Biger, but rather Biger II. Biger I was accidentally dropped out of a moving vehicle in Atlanta traffic circa 1980.

No, Biger II is my husband's much-loved (replacement) stuffed tiger from when he was a child. Biger is much like the Velveteen Rabbit only uglier. He has a crooked nose, and one set of his whiskers goes up and the other goes down. Biger came home with us after Christmas along with Bill's other childhood memoribilia (comic books, drum major hat & trumpet, a few books). Bill's mom was loathe to part with Biger as (a) he reminds her of Bill's childhood (back when Bill was "Billy") and (b) I think she wanted to use him to decorate Bill's nephew's room (she calls it the "grandchildren's room" to seem equitable, but there is only one grandchild).

Biger creeps me out. It is partly my own fault. On the drive home from Atlanta after Christmas, to keep myself entertained I gave him a creepy voice and would perch him on Bill's shoulder and say, "Billy, if you love me you'll kill your family and I'll have you all to myself...Billy!" Bill did not especially appreciate me giving his favorite childhood toy a creepy stalker personality.

Then when we got home, Sunny thought Biger was a new toy and I found him happily chewing on one of Biger's legs. Biger now leaves little pellets wherever he goes. And since I turned Biger into a creepy stalker, Bill now has him follow me around the house--sitting on my pillow when I come to bed, hiding in my underwear drawer when I'm getting ready in the morning.

Creepy.

the big rebuke

it's official...i've gotten the big rebuke from my friend melissa for not writing in my blog.

in my defense, work has reached new heights of crazy busy-ness. i've been working a bunch of 10-12 hour days and i've worked the past 3 saturdays, so, quite frankly, the last thing i want to do when i get home is turn the computer back on.

which is unfortunate as i've had many interesting and fun observations with such hecticity going on around me, but now they're all forgotten.

oh, this is fun...bill and i got a kayak. it's actually more a cross between a canoe and a kayak, so it's kind of a canayak. or a kayoe. bill insisted on taking it out on our lake last weekend in the chilly cold, and he intends to take it out again this weekend in the frigid cold. i am looking forward to the boating...IN THE SUMMER. where it belongs. but i respect and support his boating. when i didn't know how steady the boat was and was worrying about him falling in all weekend, my little sister sara tried to comfort me by saying that studies have shown that people who participate in icy polar-bear swims have no ill effects, and if anything, there is a positive effect on the heart as it gets the blood pumping. unfortunately, it didn't make me feel much better as i envisioned my husband plummeting to the depths of the murky cold water. but it IS a very steady boat, and it's brought him a lot of joy, so que sera sera.

bizarro day

Yesterday was so odd...in a good way. Somedays, I just need to take a little step out of the ordinary.

Bill and I decided to go watch Walk the Line at the local (small, old, decrepit, but cheap! movie theater). Bill got in line, bought tickets to the "Walk the Line 4:00 showing". I put that in quotes as that is exactly what he said. Then, bought an overpriced Coke, took ticket to the stub guy who proceeded to say, "That movie's to your left, and oh, yeah, they changed the 4:00 show to Rumor Has It." Thought I misheard him and said, "No, we just bought this ticket, and it is to the 4:00 showing of Walk the Line." He looks through some papers, and indeed they have just arbitrarily changed one showing to Rumor Has It. Well, rumor has it that I have no desire to watch that movie, so we asked for our money back and left. To top the bizarreness of it, absolutely NO ONE was apologetic. They kept looking at us as if we were crazy/demented/picky because we didn't want to sit through a romantic comedy that has gotten consistently awful reviews rather than the movie we had JUST PURCHASED TICKETS to watch, a delightful biopic of the life of Johnny Cash. Bizarre, bizarre!

So left said movie theater and entered into a rousing round of "Waddya wanna do? I don't know. Wadda YOU wanna do?"

Then, Bill remembered interesting news story I had seen about local turn of the century town, Monte Ne, that was submerged under water in the 1940's when man-made lake was created, and due to the very low water levels because of recent drought, the ruins of this city are now visible and you can go look at them. But will only be visible for short amount of time as water levels will inevitably rise and cover these ruins.

They made it sound like Atlantis!!

So we hop into the car and drive in general direction of where ruins would probably be. After much wandering around, finally find it (actually in most obvious place, just past current sad, sad town of Monte Ne). Bizarre, bizarre!!!

Floods of people were there. There must have been at least 100 cars. I expected to see a couple people, mostly elderly (who could remember initial existence of town) but instead it was mostly teenagers, young hip college students, and families. Half the people were pointing excitedly to a truck submerged in mud (couldn't have been more than 20 year-old model and not rusty at all, so perhaps just recently swallowed up by mud??) Rest of people were walking around and looking and pointing to old stone hotel. In news story, they had filmed it from quite a distance so it looked like a stately old Victorian hotel. The structure in front of my eyes, though, was covered in years upon years worth of vulgar graffiti, and teenage boys were guffawing and taking their picture next to the building, pointing at different savory phrases and making vulgar remarks.

From a distance, I saw some sort of interesting stone monument that had presumably actually been underwater, but at that point, Bill was too weirded out by whole situation and asked to leave.

On the way home, he said, "Walked the Golden Gate Bridge, Stood at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, Touched the Ruins of Monte Ne", and I got very sad and said, "All I've ever done is touch the ruins of Monte Ne." To which he replied, "We'll go to New York sometime...although I don't think you can actually go right up to the Statue of Liberty anymore, and I don't think you'd want to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. It sways a lot and it would probably be scary for you."

So poop on that. Maybe my husband will take me to Atlantis in the Bahamas for our 10 year anniversary.

hot diggity dog

I had one of those nights last night in which I had very vivid dreams (not unusual) and remembered almost all of them upon waking (rather unusual) because I had been kicked awake so frequently during the night by my dog who was allowed to sleep on top of our bed as a treat (highly unusual). The reason he was allowed to sleep on top of the bed was because he got scared by the thunderstorm and consequently peed behind the couch. Bill and I then yelled at him very loudly and put him in his cage, and when I let him out of said cage to go to the bathroom one more time before bed, he was very sulky and sullen, so Bill decided to let him sleep on top of our bed to reassure him of our love. Of course, Bill wasn't the one that he was intermittently nuzzling up against and kicking the entire night, was he?

But to be honest, I wasn't feeling very loving towards that dog, having just spent half an hour soaking up Lake Urine.

I have also resolved to not read In Touch Weekly before bed. One of my dreams was that I was at the doctor's office and received terrible news, and I wanted Bill to comfort me, but he was on the other side of a big glass window so I could see him but not the other way around. Finally, he saw me and motioned that he was going to come in to the room, but then he turned into Nick Lachey and left to go watch a sports game. Very upsetting.


Interesting fact about me: I was the 9th grade typing champion of our school and in 10th grade, I placed 2nd in the state competition. I peaked in ninth grade typing 120 words per minute. Sometimes, when I get bored in a movie, I mentally type out the script in my mind as they're talking. But I've never learned 10 key.

mea culpa

Okay, first off, I am ever so sorry for staying away for so long. First Christmas. Then New Year's. And sick with yucky upper-respiratory junk the whole time.

Still have the upper-respiratory junk. I keep wondering, "HOW can this still be coming out of me?? How? How?"

Bill and I have recently put together an official household budget (something that was done informally since we got married but needed to be solidified so I didn't feel like I was nailing jell-o to the wall everytime I went to Wal-Mart). The thing that has been so shocking is how many "mandatory" expenses we have. When did everything that is closely remoted to our lives start having to be insured? Why is basic cable so expensive? How can we eat out THAT much in a month?

I know that in a few months, it will feel old-hat and normal, but right now, I am secretly trying to cut back in small ways hoping that they'll add up to an extra mortgage payment between now and the end of the year...turn off all the lights behind me when I leave a room (even if Bill's still in it), feed Sunny a half-packet less a day (he is extremely portly and it probably should be done anyway), and freezing chicken in 3 separate freezer baggies so we won't be tempted to use the whole package in one sitting for just the two of us.

ho ho ho

Christmas cannot come quickly enough this year. I don't know why, but I am just counting down the seconds! Really, I am probably counting down the seconds every year, but I just forget year to year what the wait is like.

I have discovered that you can make just about any adjective into a humorous nickname by following this formula:

_________y Mc________ster.

Example from last night:
I don't want to be a Judgey McJudgester, but keep your teenage kids quiet in the movie theater while I'm trying to enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia.

Example from right now:
Ughh, Sunny! You smell awful, Stinky McStinkster! (He just hasn't been smelling frishy-fresh lately at all.)

Especially funny if you add "Mr. or Miss" to the beginning. (i.e. Sunny's official title is Mr. Stinky McStinkster)


Go ahead, give it a try! It's fun!

need help

I work for a non-profit adoption agency. In an ongoing effort to keep fees down, serve more kids, etc., I am in the process of organizing a tennis tournament.

But here's the thing. Not that many people play tennis. The tournament's been around for 10 years, so it practically runs itself, but I want to add a non-tennis component this year. Here is what I have so far:

1. a catchy name: "Raise a Racquet! (even if you never have)"

2. it needs to be a side event specifically for NON-tennis players (i.e. me and most of the people I know who are like me--want to help birthparents but can't swing a racquet to save their life)

3. a general set-up idea, somewhat like a race sponsorship (different people pledge to sponsor you, and when you raise $x, you get a free shirt or whatever). If you are familiar with the Komen Race for the Cure, it will be like that, only like their "Sleep in for the Cure" for non-runner/walkers.

Here is what I lack:
1. what activity should it be? or perhaps not an activity, but a commitment that on the day of the tournament, you will NOT pick up a tennis racquet, but will instead spend the day with your family...something like that.

2. time to organize it.

3. a bank or large corporation that would like to sponsor said event.


Help!!! I need ideas! You're a creative lot, I know you are.

bad sushi

In case the title is not "enough said."

Mistake #1: I bought it at the mall

Mistake #2: My first thought was "a California roll's not supposed to be sweet."

Mistake #3: After third piece, I thought, "This does not taste good to me. I should stop eating it." But I didn't.

Mistake #4: The third to last piece, I realized that there was mayonaise in it, yet I kept eating. (Please, Lord, let it have been mayo and not something worse.)

Mistake #5: A half hour later, I still have the yucky taste in my mouth, yet I haven't run upstairs to wash my mouth out with something trustworthy, say, a vanilla coke (soon to be discontinued, by the way).


I had nothing else to eat for lunch and I was very hungry. Now, I'm just experiencing some gastro-intestinal distress and regret. To quote Earl's ex-mother-in-law from last night's, "My Name is Earl": Don't you judge me!!

not so bad a doggy mother

Well, Sunny seems to be fine now. On Saturday, Bill got up early to take him to the vet just in case, but he was jumping around so much in the car that Bill realized that (a) if he was only minorly injured, the car ride would probably just make it worse, (b) if he was only minorly injured, the $120 vet and x-ray bill would make BILL feel worse, and (c) Sunny truly wasn't limping as bad.

And now the limp is gone. The only thing I did to help it heal was attempt to keep Sunny from running around on it. Maybe that's all he needed.

I was beginning to fear that I would be a horrible mother after our recent visit to our friends in CO. It was one of those "3 strikes, you're out" weekends.

Strike 1: Bill and I were watching the youngest and middle child, and in a moment of kid chaos (there were 8 or so other kids there as well) their 18 month-old started climbing up the (rather tall) slide on his own...and might I say he was doing a fabulous job of it.

Strike 2: Bill and I were watching the oldest and middle child during dinner at a Mongolian grill, and we miscommunicated about who was picking up the middle child's plate. She just sat right on down without it and went half of dinner before anyone realized she didn't have food.

Strike 3: (at this point, it was a joke) Sitting in back of car with youngest child, he strips off his shoes and socks and we all had to wait for me to put them back on when we got to destination. V. minor.

Oh, yeah, and Strike 4: Bill almost left youngest child in his car seat at one point.


Good lessons learned, though. Communication is KEY in taking care of children.

Who is watching youngest child like a hawk?
Who is making sure middle child gets fed?
Who is triple tying children's shoes so they can't be removed?
Who is making sure all children are accounted for?


And I felt a bit better after eating dinner with two seemingly great parents last night when I realized (after it had just happened) that the little 11 month old ingested one of her mom's earring backs while the mother was holding her. It can happen to the best of us.

bad doggy mother

Well, it's official...I am a bad doggy mother.

Bill and I got back from CO on late Monday night, and I went to go pick up Sunny at the dog farm on Tuesday after work. He was exceedingly happy to see me even though it's a fabulous place with radiant floor heating, large indoor/outdoor runs, and daily playtime. But he just seemed out of sorts when he got home. Not unusual. He gets in a huff when he he has to be away from home.

Wednesday...still out of sorts, but I was working from home, so he pretty much just laid around. I thought, "oh, how sweet. He's just exhausted from his stay at the dog farm."

Thursday...still out of sorts. "Is he sick? Is it just the colder weather??"

Thursday night, right before bedtime...I realize he's limping. That's right! It took me 2 days to realize that my dog is strongly favoring one of his back legs.

And that's where I am right now--I'm just observing him (not much to observe as he's just laid around most of the day today). If he isn't doing better by Monday, he'll take a trip to the vet.

I don't think that it's broken because he's still able to run on it, jump up and stand on just his back legs, and get up and down the stairs and bend it somewhat. But maybe it's a stress fracture? Or just a sprain or strain? Should I put ice on it or try to keep him from running around and going up and down the stairs? I don't know anything about dog physiology...can anyone help??

ouch.

Bill and I went to Colorado to celebrate Thanksgiving with some close family friends and their 3 kiddos. (By the very grace of God we managed to get back with all those blizzard conditions surrounding the state, but that is a completely different tale).

A fun time was had by all, and we spent a good amount of time with various families and individuals from their church. It's a very young church, composed almost exclusively of college students, young single adults, young married couples, and young married couples with children. Lots and lots of children. One night, there was a big get-together, and it was all families with young children, ranging from a couple with 1 baby to a family with 5 kids. They were all very friendly and nice, but the dad of 5 made a comment that really got to me. He said, "Boy, spending the evening here with 12 children running around must be great birth control for you."

Now, I know he meant it as a joke, but here is the information that he had about my husband and I:

We're a young couple in our late 20's/early 30's.
We're friends with young couples who have children (i.e. the friends we were with).

He didn't know if we were trying to get pregnant or for how long we may have been trying to get pregnant or if we already knew of an inability to get pregnant or, well, anything past us being a young couple who does not currently have children but likes them well enough to travel halfway across the country to see our friends and their kids.

And the fact is that, no, we are not struggling with infertility. But I just get sick of the, "you want kids? here take mine!" comments that I hear. People assume fertility--their own and others. I guess that in the field of adoption in which I work, I usually just assume infertility.

Anyway, the family of 7 was a very nice family, and I know that he just made automatic assumptions, but it was a good reminder to me to mind my tongue.

Much like when I accidentally yelled "CRAP!" while playing a game with all their kids in the next room. I felt horrible, but at least Bill lightened the mood by fake-gasping and saying, "That's not a word we say in this house!"

I probably do need to work a little on getting rid of my vulgar exclamations before we do start thinking about having kids. But again, that's neither here nor there.

Saga of the XBox

Okay, so let me start by saying that, contrary to Ellen's blog entry from two days ago, neither I nor my husband are crazy or obsessed with video games. I like to play tetris, and he plays the occasional round of Tiger Woods golf or snowboarding race. BUT we are going to see his best friend from college and his family over Thanksgiving (whom I haven't seen in over a year), and Bill wanted to be able to play the XBox with him. So Bill sold back his PS2 and all the games and accessories to buy the XBox, believing Microsoft that it would be the best system ever...more on that later.

He drove to the nearest Wal-Mart, and the line was already 3 rows long, so he said, "forget that" and drove up to the next nearest Wal-Mart about half an hour away. The line there was much shorter, and the person standing in front of him said, "Hey! If they have the number of XBoxes available that they said they would, you'll get the last one!" Neat.

What was NOT neat was the horrible, horrible woman at the front of the line who brought along all her (many) children and her sister and her (many) children to each "buy" their own XBox. The manager informed the woman that Wal-Mart was allowing one XBox per household, and she started yelling at him and throwing a fit about how she would sue them for "age discrimination". (She's lucky I wasn't there because I would have called Child Protective Services about her having her 6 & 7 year-olds in Wal-Mart until 1:00 a.m. on a school night and using them as slave labor to buy XBoxes that she was almost certainly going to scalp on E-Bay.)

Long story short, Bill did indeed get his XBox. The people in front of him were counting the horrible, horrible woman and her 9 children/nieces/nephews. Brought it home, excited as can be. Woo-hoo! Opens it up last night, gets everything plugged in and put together...

And it sucks.

No way around it. It's jerky and slow and, yes, the graphics are good, but the only games that it ran well were the "tetris" like games (that I thoroughly enjoyed).

So to make a long story longer, Bill packed it up, took it back to Wal-Mart, and we'll buy a new stereo receiver with that $$$ because ours is shot. I'm sad that he sold back his PS2, but he said that he'll just wait for the PS3 to come out and get that. Probably won't be waiting in any lines, though. And some kid will get an XBox for Christmas that wouldn't have otherwise.

Bill Gates releasing an inferior product to get quick, easy sales over Christmas? NO! Surely not!!

Wal-Mart Trivia Answer

The answer is: PLUNGERS!

Isn't that gross?

Wal-Mart Trivia

What is the #1 selling item in Wal-Mart's Hardware dept. the day after Thanksgiving? (Answer tomorrow)

Shelli's question revisited

So Shelli asked this question on her blog a couple days ago, and I asked it on my blog a few months ago (fyi: I received more comments on this post than any other post, EVER--albeit most of the comments were between my sister Ellen and our friend Melissa about the ABBA CD that Ellen had stolen). So I pose this question yet again (the only thing changed is that now we've been married over a year):

So here’s the question of the day (and maybe this will inspire some comments): how do you know it’s the right time to start trying to have children? Notice I do not say “the right time to get pregnant”. I work in the adoption field. I know that when you start trying and when a baby shows up are often two VERY different times. It boggles my mind when women think they can choose the month they want their baby born in…of course, some fertile myrtles can.

My husband and I have been married for almost a year, and I’m constantly haunted (as most women in America are) by the TIME article a few years ago with the depressing nose-dive fertility/age chart. We’re financially stable, healthy, love kids, blah, blah, blah. And then there’s the cons—only time in our life to be carefree, big chunk of disposable income, time away from each other, blah, blah, blah. So I guess my question is, “how do you know when the scales have tipped?” Is it an earth-shattering moment? A quiet peace? Of course, there’s the couples that have oopsies and God answers the question for them. And then, there are the delusional/stupid on pregnancy boards: “my fiancé and I have started trying…does anyone know of a good empire waist wedding dress company?”

And granted, I am surrounded ALL THE TIME by babies and baby-related topics. Tends to color my thinking light pink and baby blue, but I don't consider myself to be baby crazy. So just curious…how did you know?