Pardon the brief interruption. We now return you to our regularly-scheduled Otto Week. Sometimes I wonder if I do poke at Otto just a little too much. I mean, I love him to pieces, and I'm pretty sure he knows that, but I'm also just kind of a jerk, sometimes. And that's aside from the fact that I suspect it's hard to be married to someone who regularly tells the Internet "Hey, this totally embarrassing thing happened! Let me describe it to you in EXCRUCIATING DETAIL!" Other times, I figure it's just part of that whole we-are-totally-meant-to-be-together thing that he puts up with and maybe...
At last check, Otto was still carrying only about 17% of the vote in his favor on the cookies-and-milk issue. Honestly, I'm surprised it's that high. And as I emailed several folks as your thoughtful and gag-laden comments rolled in, I think a part of my objection on this issue is the delivery method. It's the DRINKING of the cookie sludge that offends me. Were he to eat it with a spoon, I would be less bothered. Why? I don't know. Perhaps because then you're acknowledging that it's not a liquid. Drinking chunky things is just nasty. ANYWAY. Otto is bearing up under the strain of being...
"Must you MOCK ME so?" asked Otto, in response to yesterday's entry. I considered his question for a moment. "Yes. Yes, I must. Thank you for asking." [Do you ever wonder what keeps him here? I wonder, quite often. I mean, Otto is smart, funny, charming, capable, and totally hot. All I bring to this relationship is a couple of high-maintenance children, copious amounts of mockery, repeated requests for popcorn, and a dog with periodic digestive issues. I can only conclude that I must be positively mind-blowing in bed.] Otto rolled his eyes. Naturally, I took that as a challenge. "I think...
Well, yesterday was kind of a bust. We had plans to go out to the fireworks last night, of course, but then Chickadee got one of those random fevers, the kind where I notice she's sort of red-cheeked and glassy-eyed, and when I asked if she was feeling okay she said, "Well, my head kind of hurts," and then I felt her head and took her temperature while she was very limp and tragic. Once I declared we'd have to skip the fireworks, though, she had a MIRACULOUS RECOVERY, replete with MUCH WHINING about how it wasn't fair and she wanted to go and she was PERFECTLY FINE. You know, except for the...
So we're just a few days into summer vacation, here, and so far it's been a whole barrel of fun. If by "a whole barrel of fun" you mean "multiple trips to the pharmacy." Remember last year when Otto got poison ivy and then it got really, really bad and then he got MRSA? That was fun. Except not really. And so when he mysteriously got poison ivy again last week he was all, "Huh. I think I have poison ivy again. I wonder where that came from? Well, I guess I'll use some of this cream I have left over from last time." Meanwhile I was throwing myself prostrate on the bathroom floor in front of...
My skin-flint-ed-ness (totally a word) is so legendary, that back over the holidays when we sprang for a new television set, everyone I told thought it was a joke (including my own children). Because I don't spend money like that. Ever. So when Otto's mom gave us her car three years ago, I (predictably) said "Oh! Free car! YAY!" and gave up any thoughts of replacing the car I'd sold before I moved down here. Because free is my very favorite price, and my favorite kind of car is the kind with four wheels and a steering mechanism and a working engine. Now, I'm not a car person. Otto IS a car...
Over 20 years ago I sat down next to this cute guy I didn't know during what turned out to be kind of a boring class at Syracuse University. Before long we were passing the time by writing notes back and forth in his spiral notebook. If you ask ME, those notes mostly consisted of him flirting madly with me; if you ask HIM, those notes mostly consisted of me suggesting he break up with his girlfriend and run off to the mountains with me. (I was a shy, retiring flower, even back then.) The class ended, but the friendship endured. He moved all over the east coast; I moved to California. I got...
I've often pointed out that Otto is, in many ways, a far superior wife to me. He is romantic; I am pragmatic. He puts away laundry; I prefer to wash it and then wonder why it's still in the basket a week later. He is nice; I'm kind of a jerk. You get the idea. And so, with our third anniversary looming, last night I made a special dinner (if by "special" you mean "ingredients thrown in the crock pot on a wing and a prayer," and I do), and as we lounged at the table after the meal concluded---discussing our upcoming summer travel, dreaming of vacation---I mercilessly mocked something Otto...
The university is in the process of doing an eligibility audit for their benefits, which means that Otto and I have had to prove (again) that we're married, and yesterday we received some paperwork demanding that we prove the children are actually eligible dependents on Otto's health insurance. (This is all part of the university's new plan to start paying its employees in wampum and Double Bubble, by the way.) We were talking about it at dinner, and Chickadee asked why it matters. Otto told her that without this paperwork, she can't have health insurance. "Fine by me," she said. "Great,...
