Some people want big-screen TVs, or fancy vacations, or other extravagances for every birthday or other gift-giving occasion. My husband is not one of them. In fact, although I tease my husband about his various dreaming about things like old cars and air compressors, the things Otto likes most are usually very simple pleasures. Like weird little day trips. So when Otto's birthday rolled around a few weeks ago, we made plans to go somewhere he really wanted to visit, and then we had to postpone it for various reasons, and yesterday we finally made our pilgrimage. To the World Of Coke. Yes,...
I have a thing about birthdays. The whys and wherefores and traumas---real or imagined---therein are not important right now, but for many years, I hated birthdays. I tried to ignore my own, and my uncomfortable attempts to celebrate on others' special days were, well, less than stellar. Eventually I outgrew this. (Translation: Eventually I pulled my head out of my ass. You're welcome!) And then I began to LOVE birthdays! Yay! Let's make it awesome for you! This process was greatly accelerated once I became a mother, too. Because nothing says "and now you shall have the party I never did, as...
So. Tonight. Tonight is the big gala. It's a black-tie event, you know. Fancy schmancy. So naturally Otto and some of his other professor colleagues (please note: all males) got together and decided that they could get away with just wearing suits to this thing. Even though the non-faculty, donor-type guests will all be in tuxes. Even though I will be wearing a torture device underneath my full-length gown. Yeah. Fine. I took a couple of deep breaths and said that that was FINE if they'd all agreed they could get away with it, but that AT THE VERY LEAST he needed to buy some new shoes and a...
Dear Otto, This week, you and I have been married for a year and a half. Eighteen months! We were eighteen years old when we met, so perhaps that's why this feels like a momentous time. Next month, we'll have been married for nineteen months, which is the number of years we've known each other. You and me? We've known each other a long time. Also: We are old. But I digress. In light of our time together and also the fact that 1) I still really, really like you and 2) you are a saint and 3) you are rather adorable, I have been wracking my brain to come up with a single picture that properly...
The good news is that Chickadee seems to have made a full recovery from her... whatever it was. The bad news is that Monkey was looking a little punky (hey, that rhymes) yesterday and today... although, of course, you have to catch him either mid-puke or with a raging fever to get him to admit that yes, maybe he's feeling a mite tired. So we shall see. The worse news is that I am not feeling so fine, myself. It could just be fatigue, I suppose. Or something wholly unrelated. Or it could be my propensity to tuck a miserable child right into my bed (on my pillow) and give them lots of hugs and...
Before I get started on the many and varied tales of this past weekend, I'm going to take a moment to direct you towards my latest gig. I'm really excited about this one, both because it's a company I admire and because the writing is turning out to be loads of fun, so if you'd come by and visit me at the Iddy Biddy Blog and say hello, I would probably tell you how pretty you are. (Cliff Notes version: It's a blog about going green for those of us "regular" folks who either cannot or will not immediately give up everything less-than-ideal.) Okay. So. This weekend! Oh, how we laughed! Oh,...
There are subtle changes, here in our post-remarriage lives, that I rarely think about. The big changes are easy, of course. But the little things sort of creep up on a person. Like how I never put away laundry anymore, fully believing that the Laundry Fairy will be along to tidy up after me. Or that I can wash everything and fold it and declare, "Look! I did the laundry!" and then after it sits in our bedroom in the baskets for three days, Otto will put it away for me. Whatever. Or like how I plan certain meals and buy certain foods because I know Otto really likes them. I mean, it's not...
Although the few natives I've met 'round here have made it painfully clear that I will forever and always be a YANKEE (said with either a touch of disdain or, alternatively, a healthy dollop of incredulity, as if declaring me to have four extra toes), the time has come to admit that I have become a southerner in one very important respect: I can no longer handle Winter. The irony here is plentiful, seeing as how my hysterectomy has greatly decreased my tolerance for extreme heat and has me perpetually teetering on the edge of a hot flash. I knew this before I moved to one of the hottest...
Poor Otto had kind of A Day, yesterday, and so after dinner he settled into our comfy armchair with a magazine and I just gave him wide berth for a bit. After the kids were settled into bed I decided to do a little cleaning, because my dad and stepmom arrive tomorrow and my house is a pigsty. (I know! So weird! I mean, there was just a team of maids here last month*, so you'd think the house would still be spotless! What? Oh, THAT was my blunder, clearly. Had I only remembered to lock the children out of the house in the intervening month, I suppose the place would still be clean.) Anyway, I...
