It Ain't Me, Babe

I was going to write all about stress and boundaries, but I think Johnny Cash summed it up a bit better:

Go away from my window.
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I'm not the one you want, babe.
I'm not the one you need.

You say you're looking for someone
Who's never weak, but always strong
To protect you and defend you
Whether you are right or wrong.
Someone to open each and every door...

But it ain't me, babe, no, no, no
It ain't me, babe, it ain't me you're looking for
Babe.

Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'll only let you down.

You say you're looking for someone
Who'll promise never to part.
Someone who'll close his eyes to you
Someone who'll close his heart.
Someone to die for you and more...

But it ain't me, babe, no, no, no
It ain't me, babe, it ain't me you're looking for
Babe.

You say you're looking for someone
To pick you up each time you fall
To gather flowers constantly
And to come each time you call.
And to love you for your life and nothin' more...

But it ain't me, babe, no, no, no
It ain't me, babe, it ain't me you're looking for

Babe.

World's Worst Wife

I forgot my husband's birthday.

I remembered it up to the day, but the day of his actual birthday, we were both working 16 hours and focused on a huge event the next day, and then, at 11:30 that night, I was lying in bed, waiting for him to get ready, and he said something about it being a sucky birthday.

I sat bolt upright, started bawling, and said, "Happy Birthday" between sobs (As I'd been crying all day getting things together for the event, it wasn't actually that dramatic...it was more like I just resumed crying.)

To my defense, he had forgotten it was his own birthday until mid-afternoon but still...

I also came to the difficult decision that something's gotta give. I enjoy being a part of helping other people build their families through adoption, but the job's not worth it if it's going to have this negative impact on me and my own family.

So here I sit, looking at the birthday card that his nephew sent him. It has a frog on the front and a crayon picture of some random lines inside with the caption, "Happy Birthday Uncle Billy Marching Happy Dance" written out by Bill's sister. And I'm just thankful for something that will get me to smile.

Library

Well, it may mean that I am immature or infantile, but my favorite section of the library is the children's section. I always feel so judged and looked-down-upon in the adult section. I only check out fluffy chick-lit, and the reference desk staff always looks down their nose at me when I do.

But, oh, the children's section! I was going specifically to check out Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island (my life has been pretty cheerless as of late, and sometimes, when I'm in the "depths of despair", only Anne will help).

It was so nice to not feel judged. Granted, I was 3 times the size of any other person in that section, but they didn't care. They all just looked up from their books and smiled and went straight back to reading. They didn't try to peer at the title or the thickness of the book. No! They were just glad that they got their hands on "Olivia" before I did.

Fat Dog in a Little Boat

Well, Sunny has gone on his first official kayak ride. It was quite the sight to behold. He did fairly well...much better than I was expecting and braced for. Bill paddled him around the cove. And you will note as our realtor did upon first meeting him, "Well, there's a dog that hasn't missed a meal." Unfortunately, I am a bad doggy-mother, and he has missed many a walk. You will also note that he doesn't make eye contact with the camera. The vast majority of pictures that I have of him are either of him looking away from the camera or of his heiny.

Riverboat Queen

Bill and I both took yesterday off and took advantage of the beautiful weather to take our two-person kayak for her maiden river voyage. It was beautiful scenery, and there was not another soul on the river, so that was nice. But it wasn't how I envisioned it would be.

When Bill first proposed the "playing hooky" plan (don't get too jealous--we're both working this afternoon), I saw it all in my mind...I would be basking in the warm sun, wearing my little bikini working on my tan. We'd stop every hour or so and eat yummy yet healthy snacks that I'd prepared beforehand and brought along. We'd both take right to paddling and be expert river navigators right off the bat.

The reality:
-The night before, I remembered that I'd left my favorite bathing suit in Florida, and my mother-in-law hasn't sent it back to me yet. So I ended up having to wear my other suit that leaves me a bit nippy unless it's like tropical warm out (which it ended up not being because...)

-Bill decided we needed to leave early to beat the work traffic--big broo-ha-ha in which we were both trying in vain to get the other person to see our side of when we should wake up and leave the house (me--"whenever we wake up", him--"earlier than is natural or normal"). We ended up getting up at 5:00 A!M! and leaving the house at 6:45. (yes, Bill won that one) We did indeed beat the work traffic, but it ended up being a bit chillier than I was planning on. It did finally warm up, though.

-Also due to the aforementioned departure time, those healthy yet yummy snacks ended up being soggy sandwiches and some stale chex mix.

-Steering was pretty much the opposite of intuitive, and we kept flipping the kayak around, and of course, every time we did, in my mind I was thinking, "This is all Bill's fault." And I know that he was thinking the same thing. We finally got more of the hang of it and decided by the end that he would do the paddling in the front and I would just stick to steering in the back so that we didn't end up overcompensating for the current.

It ended up being a fun day, all in all. Bill and I both agree that every couple that is considering marriage should be sent down a river in a tandem kayak and debriefed afterwards. The guy who shuttled our car said that the worst he's seen is a couple that they had to call separate cabs for afterwards. He said that for a first river tandem kayak experience, if the couple is still talking to each other when they reach the pick-up point, they can consider the day a success.

Oh, and I saw a wild turkey for the first time, AND I saw a dog standing on the cab of a truck that was driving down the road. He looked like he was king of the mountain (the dog, not the turkey).

Then, Bill took me out to eat sushi.

All in all, a good day.

World's Least Effective Guard Dog

It's official. My dog serves no useful purpose whatsoever other than looking cute and playing well with small children. He has spent the entire morning barking incessantly at ??? (a bird? the trees? grass? absolutely nothing?). He is convinced that he's a watch dog but the only complication is that we live in one of the world's safest neighborhoods so there's nothing to watch. It's mostly retired people, and they'll shake their fist at you if you go so much as a mile over the 15 mph speed limit. So Sunny is doomed to spend his days barking at the air and getting upset when he can't find his binky toy (usually because he's dragged his upstairs binky downstairs or vice versa).

There was some excitement for a few weeks when he would go to the back window and growl his head off (he doesn't usually growl), but just until I finally spotted the family of deer he was seeing (and that was eating patches of our grass). So now, it's a big joke whenever he sees them: "Hurry Sunny! The deer are attacking! They're going to get into the house! They're going to kill us all!" And then he'll lose interest after about 3 minutes.

I swear, he is such a three year-old.

desk explosion

There's something about cleaning up your own mess that's just extremely difficult. I can remember growing up, I would enjoy going into my sisters' rooms and helping them clean up their stuff, rummage through their junk and be painfully, brutally honest about it being crap. But somehow, that micro-chip is missing in my brain for my own stuff. If I were at someone else's house today, and they said, "Hey, let's go through this pile of stuff and you can help me organize", I would think, "Ohhhh, fun, fun!" But looking at the several piles on my desk and hearing the voice in my head say, "Hey, you should go through this pile of stuff and get it organized", all I can think back is "shut up! shut up!"

And the ironic thing is that I feel sooooo much better after getting organized and throwing stuff away. I feel like my life is just a little more under control and I can breathe easier. But does that mean that I'm tackling one little pile rather than blogging about how much I hate doing it? Nope.

back to the 7th grade

Where are all these pimples coming from???? I thought I'd finally outgrown it. I'd get a few little pimples on my chin right before my period (which I had grown to accept), and that was it. And I was at a good point of acceptance...okay, i'll have a few little pimples once a month for the rest of my days. I can handle that.

Then this month, out of nowhere, blemishes blemishes everywhere! I feel like I'm stuck in a Judy Blume book.

Sweet Angel of Heaven and Light

Such is my new volunteer at work. I literally had reached the end of my rope trying to serve birthparents and prospective adoptive parents, provide outreach, plan a tennis tournament, and coordinate a booth and sports team for an upcoming event that we have.

Oh, yeah, and somewhere in there, I was supposed to be a wife, sister, daughter, friend, and Sunday School teacher. In short, on Monday, after a poor showing at an event for my organization (feeling like a complete loser), I was in hysterical tears and getting ready to just call it quits the next day.

Then, out of the blessed blue, a woman from a local corporation called and said that she had been researching area organizations to volunteer with, and she wanted to volunteer for ours. Her skills are organization and planning, how can she help? I almost broke out into (happy) tears. She has taken all the players' prizes and goody bags for the tennis tournament off my plate. Hooray, hoorah for my new volunteer, purveyor of many things good and pure!

bad dog part infinity

And he did it again today. 20 minutes by himself. There he was, perfectly non-plussed on the pillows. Sigh...if he weren't so cute...

Random thing that happened the other day. Have you ever wondered why more people don't get hit with dead birds falling out of the sky? Well, I have. And I needn't wonder any longer. I was driving along the highway at 70 mph, and THUNK, a bird falls out of the air (not flew into my car, mind you, it came straight down) and onto my (newly washed) car.

Needless to say, it was not a pretty picture. There were fluids. Oh, yes, there were fluids. Sweet, sweet husband was following me in his car, and when I called him in a slight panic over said bird, he offered to switch cars with me and get it washed. I took him up on it, and I am so glad I did because...well...I actually don't want to talk further about the fluids. Let's just say that this must have been a massive bird from (a) the THUNK and (b) I'm not even going to say it.

Bad Dog part...what is this part 5?

So I was working away in my ol' home office this morning, and I realized that things were a little too quiet upstairs, so I headed up to see what Santino Bambino was up to. I was expecting him to be curled up on his doggy bed or sprawled out on a sunspot on the tile, but no. No, my 85 pound lab "mix" (light on the lab, heavy on the mix) was just happy as a clam sitting on the sofa. He is SO not allowed on the furniture.

So I stared at him with a look of shock thinking, "surely he'll jump down now that he sees me." No. He CLOSES HIS EYES to continue his nap. So I walk over to the sofa and say, "Sunny, down." No response. He finally got down with a "Down!" and a finger pointing.

At that point, he knew he was in trouble, and his tail was tucked down so far it looked like a soup ladle, so I gave him a little pat on the head and explained in the sweetest terms possible that he is an extremely untrustworthy dog and this is why he isn't allowed free reign of the house while no one's here.

I'm not sure but I think he was whispering doggy expletives under his breath at me.

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.