For Christmas this past year, sometime in October Otto and I gazed lovingly into one another's eyes and decided to forego traditional gift buying for each other to instead embark upon the most romantic of journeys... replacing our family room furniture. Truly, we are an inspirational model of "keeping the flame alive" to couples everywhere. Although we have worked through our home bit by bit, making it OURS (as opposed to THEIRS---in the case of layers of wallpaper and paint left us by the previous owners---or MINE and HIS as begat by various legacies of our pre-marriage artifacts), the...
When we last spoke (I know, I know; we don't really speak so much as I type and sometimes you comment, but "when we last spoke" feels more mellifluous than "the last time I bothered to post something"), nearly a week ago, I was a few days in to the latest Germfest, which continued to permeate every corner of our family and house at an alarming rate. Yesterday I still felt like my death might be imminent, but I dragged myself around the house Cleaning Everything (again!) and washing sheets and opening doors (it was a beautiful day, not that it matters when you're busy trying not to die) and...
There's an intersection kinda-sorta-nearish to our house that was the topic of Much Earnest Discussion pretty much from the time we moved here, six and a half years ago. It was dangerous, people said. On the main road, people would peel off to another road on the left at kind of a Y and the angle of the road meant that they didn't properly account for oncoming traffic, they said. People entering the main road from the side road couldn't see the traffic well enough for a safe merge, either, they said. There were a lot of accidents there. It was dangerous, they said, and so there was voting...
I have not been sleeping particularly well these last few days. Otto was doing a work thing all weekend, which meant he was coming and going at weird hours, and we have a friend of his staying here (for said work thing), as well, and I love our dogs, you know, I love them SO MUCH, they bring such joy to my life, but they are not all that bright about guests in the house. After however many years it's been (4? 5?), we've grown used to Licorice feeling the need to bark anew EVERY SINGLE MORNING no matter how many times she's already encountered the same stranger in our house. ("You're still...
Otto and I don't get out enough as a couple. This is a subjective assessment, of course; what is "enough," really? Whatever it is, we aren't there. This is because we have jobs and other commitments and needy teenagers and a fairly comfortable couch and also because my natural inclination is to be a hermit. Otto, however, as both the extrovert and better wife in this relationship, periodically insists that we leave the house together, just the two of us. (And apparently when we go grocery shopping together, that doesn't count. Sheesh.) Last night we went to the sort of artsy-fartsy thing...
School started up again today, and this morning was pretty much a study in the different personality types in our household. I ran around at a frenetic pace, packing lunches and asking the same questions over and over ("Do you have..." "Did you remember..." "But what if you...") until Chickadee told me to "stop freaking out." (I did not, in fact, stop freaking out. I just tried to be a little less obvious.) Monkey bounced his way through the morning, communing with the dogs acting like today was no big deal at all, like he wasn't just heading off to high school for the first time or...
[This post is utter fluff with bonus terrible cell phone pictures. You've been warned.] In addition to being taken to task for my comments about the unflattering wide-angle lens Otto used in this post, there were a couple of comments about how DIDN'T YOU LET YOUR HAIR GO GRAY? and I DON'T SEE ANY GRAY AT ALL YOU LYING LIARPANTS WITH PANTS AFLAME. (I may be paraphrasing.) These comments made me laugh, and then they made me feel all warm and fuzzy, and then I sent each of you a pony as a thank-you. You may remember there was some serious trepidation about disembarking from the Hair Dye...
"DUDE I AM, LIKE, SO DRUNK." Here we have a sentence that I'm pretty sure I've never actually said in 40+ years of life, mostly because I can count the times when I've truly been inebriated on one hand with fingers left over. I don't actually like being drunk. I like occasionally being a degree or two more cheerful than I can manage on my own, but thanks to being a relatively small person and infrequent imbiber, one drink is all that takes. Perfect. I know no one wants to hear me continue to bitch and moan about The Tragedy Of Stupid Medication, but I have been off the supposed Wonder Drug...
I continue to be a giant barrel of fun wrapped up in a drooling, spontaneous nap. Perhaps I should try to enter a new line of work, such as mattress tester. (Not that I'd be all that good at it; turns out I can sleep just about anywhere.) Now I have a new thing to keep me awake, though! Woooooo! Lucky me. Have I ever mentioned (once or a hundred times) that I have terrible skin? More specifically, I have finicky, easily insulted skin, as befits a delicate flower such as myself. As a teenager I had the occasional pimple, no big deal, but my acne has continued to worsen in adulthood until it...
