poka bean

the love of an italian mother

2007-06-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to dinner at an AMAZING Italian Villa that should be in a movie. I would attempt to describe it to you but I just wouldn't know how and anyway, it's not the point. It's the home of a VERY Italian family that my husband has become friends with. VERY ITALIAN. And while the group of 10 or so of us were all sitting down in the middle of the 2nd course of our fabulous home-cooked Italian dinner, drinking incredible Italian wines from their personal wine cellar and gazing out over their citrus grove and palatial pool, the mother walks out from the kitchen and passes her son a note at the table.

The note reads:

Young Man,
Why is there a rifle outside my laundry room door?
WHAT THE HELL?

xxoo,
Mom

I am not kidding. That is an EXACT quote. And I know that because I pocketed that note off the table the minute nobody was looking and it is now hanging on our refrigerator. I love the Italians.

(Don't be afraid - it wasn't an actual rifle. These aren't THOSE kinds of Italians. It was a spear gun the son uses for fishing that the mother isn't fond of so he leaves it around the house to piss her off.)

laura ingalls poka bean

2007-06-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Poka Bean and I'm a shameful excuse for a blogger. I feel like I should re-introduce myself but blah, blah, blah. That would be so boring.

So instead I want to catch you up on what's been happening to me in the here and now. And when I say "happening to me" I truly mean it. There is an unstoppable force taking over my life and I am powerless against it. I did not invite it in, it has simply decided to claim me and consume me and sit heavy on my heart like a bowling ball.

People, I want to live on the prairie.

I want to move to the country and sew my own clothes and grow all of our food and make jam. I want to bake things from scratch, help my neighbors with barnraising and can tomatoes. I want to join a co-op, barter my homemade goods and listen to bluegrass music. I want to attend a little country church, make quilts, read books and never watch TV.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?

I am serious when I say I cannot stop this. I haven't read or watched anything that has inspired these things in me, they are just suddenly there and I am their puppet. They are shouting "DANCE, POKA. DANCE!" and I am doing a jig to fiddle music.

If anyone has a cure for what is ailing me (or any good marmelade recipes!), please speak up. At this rate my next post could be a telegram sent from somewhere in central Wyoming.

photos. because i'm out of words and they're worth 1,000 a piece.

2007-01-25T20:04:00.000-08:00

I've been really uninspired about blogging recently but I've decided to take matters into my own hands and spice things up with a few photos from the holidays.

This is my dear husband dressed as a shepherd to help at our church's Christmas services. There was a petting zoo (I mean "Bethlehem Inn Stables") for the kids and there were plenty of shepherds helping out but go figure, there were no sheep. Instead, Jon led a pony around the parking lot all night. It had sparkly ribbons in its hair, just like in Jesus' time.

This is my nephew in the bathtub on Christmas Eve. Oh, how I love this boy.

This is view of the sunrise over Dana Point Harbor as seen from the patio of the little inn Jon and I stayed at after Christmas. It was as amazing as it looks.

Living proof of my highest scoring Scrabble game ever over New Year's weekend, the very one in which I kicked UC's ass. (Sorry, babe.)

Another little glimpse into New Year's weekend with Emily and Mark in the background. This was me trying to make it look like we're crazy party animals but let's face it, we were all in bed by 12:05am.

you people suck

2006-12-14T19:06:00.000-08:00

Harsh words, I know. But in my time of need you have NOT come through with even a SINGLE book recommendation even though I asked really nicely for your input. So now I'm not asking so nicely anymore. I'm demanding...LEAVE ME SUGGESTIONS FOR A BOOK TO PICK FOR MY BOOK CLUB. IMMEDIATELY. Time's a wastin'.

you wish you were me. minus the spinning.

2006-12-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

You're so jealous. Presently, it is 12:08pm on a Friday and I am cuddled up on the couch in my pajamas watching back to back episodes of Felicity* while drinking a huge mug of killer french press coffee with toasted milk (thanks to UC for the wicked cool Christmas present!) and eating homemade Swedish cinnamon rolls (aka BULLAR - not to be confused with the modern floor lamp sold at Ikea).

I have forgone my usual Friday morning ritual of yoga and reading a book at my favorite bagel shop in favor of this more homebody-style, pajama-friendly approach. Partly because IT ROCKS and partly because I'm experiencing some pretty awesome vertigo which would make Bird of Paradise and Dead Bug Pose challenging and because I'm not fit to operate the heavy machinery needed to GET me to my favorite bagel shop.

Okay, but completely off that subject, I really need your help. I have to pick the next book for our book club and I am cracking under the weight of this responsibility. Good grief, the pressure! Need help. Please leave me your suggestions. I'm thinking fiction would be cool since we've been reading a lot of memoirs recently. Bearca, I'm considering Paint It Black but I'm not sure if it's something everyone would like or if it's just for big Janet Fitch lovers like us. Ideas??

*Felicity: It's been over a year since I've watched this series. Why have I let so much time go by? I freaking love this show. But to change things up and not get bored on my couch day, I'm now switching to Grey's Anatomy for an episode or two because my homegirl Malin gifted me with season one last night at the 3rd Annual Christmas Cookie Decorating Contest which I'm proud to say I won**.

**Okay, so we sort of all won. We are stupid, wimpy girls and were unable to choose a winner this year without any outside, objective judges. But I think my snowman/santa/gingerbread man was the clear choice.

i kind of want to call this one "spores = whores"

2006-11-28T18:57:00.000-08:00

Wet carpet = lame. Finding out you have a leak in your wall and that your home is a thriving and productive mold factory = even lamer. Discovering that your mold problem has ruined part of the only material posession you truly treasure = the MOST LAMEST EST of ALL.

So in case you haven't picked up on this already, POKA BEAN = NOT HAPPY.

The good news, however, is that the chunk of our wall that had to be torn to bits today in order to correct the problem is considerably smaller than I had anticipated. And the smell is getting better. And the most IMPORTANT part of the beloved material posession is in great shape. My mom's old guitar. I'm not entirely sure but I'd guess it hails from 1965 or so. The guitar itself is fine, I think. The case, however, is toast. Or I guess I should say it's MOLD which sort of works better anyway since toast becomes mold after it sits unnoticed in a damp, dark corner for several weeks too. But whatever. However you slice it (geez, enough with the bread inuendo) that baby is ruined. With a capital R. And it's not just any guitar case. It's dear to me because it belonged to my musical genius mother (don't worry guys, she's still alive, it's not the last thing I have to remember her by or anything tragic like that) and it's lined with the most ridiculous, fuzzy, flourescent red material, material I am certain they stopped manufacturing after the world's disco boots cooled off.

Tears were shed. Scrubbing and drying and fanning and airing and disinfecting were attempted but it was all in vain. I fought the mold and the mold won. The guitar case is still sitting outside my front door because I just don't have the heart to put it in the trash yet. I feel like I should bury it or something. Give a eulogy. But I should really just be grateful the guitar itself is fine because that is treasure enough.

Anywho, I suppose this unravels the mystery of why I've been an allergic maniac for the last several weeks. The mold zone is about 5 feet from where I sleep. Well actually, it's in about a 5-foot radius of pretty much anywhere you can possibly go in our apartment which is the beauty of living in a cubby hole. But finally figuring out what the heck the problem was is a friggin' miracle so I guess I oughta count my blessings and give mad props to our bomby landlord (meaning our landlord who is THE BOMB) who figured out what was wrong and is fixing it for us even though his wife just birthed their first born child. Mad props, yo. (And extra mad props to our bomby landlord for having given his first born child the middle name of "Sodapop." Do you see now why he is so bomby?)

training for the big day

2006-11-06T19:37:00.000-08:00

Every time I go to yoga, I fear THIS will be the time I get kicked out of class. It is humanly impossible for me to control my giggling at the mention of the words "yoga practice." As in, "Take a deep breath and focus in on today's yoga practice." What exactly are we practicing for...the big game? A recital? A yogathon? The yogalympics?

It strikes me as funny everytime. It ruins my concentration and prevents me from being able to honor my body and clear my mind of all thoughts and all that crap because all I can think is why not just call it a CLASS. Like normal people.

he came back

2006-11-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Getting out of bed in the morning is getting harder and harder as the year wears on. Jon and I have been hitting snooze a lot longer and suffering the consequences of getting a later start to our day for the past couple of months.

One day last week, after having been quite late to work already three days in a row, Jon was rushing around the house mumbling under his breath about how late he was again, obviously stressed. After he finally got out the door, I noticed his wedding ring sitting in the bathrom. He had forgotten to put it back on after applying his hair goop. I moved it to safer place and went about my own rushing around, my own mumbling.

Several minutes later, I heard his truck pulling into the driveway. I figured he had forgotten his lunch or his coaching clothes or some such necessity he couldn't get through his day without. And indeed he had, but it was none of those things. He came back to get his ring. He was really late and he came back to get his ring.

I kissed him goodbye a second time and then shut the door behind him and cried. I am married to a great man.

proof that men are from mars

2006-10-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

Over a quiet and romantic candlelit dinner the other night, Jon looked at me with stars in his eyes and said, "You know what I haven't seen in awhile? A movie set in space."

Ah, yes. Exactly what I was thinking.

He must be missing home.

the buffer

2006-10-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

My dad called me up last week and asked if he could take me to lunch on Friday. How lovely! Little did I know it was all a big scheme. He was meeting his sort-of estranged step-sister for lunch and he invited me along to be the buffer. I'm such a sucker.

I knew so little about this woman that I hounded my dad with questions about her the whole way there. To put the distance between them in perspective for you, his answer to the question "When's the last time you saw each other?" was, "Uh, hmmm. Maybe 1969?"

Anyway, lunch went just fine. We all got along famoulsy and had plenty to chat about, including but not limited to our assorted midwestern relatives with names like Pansy, Royce, Ludie, Melba and Kippy. But my favorite topic of conversation was the startling revelation that I am related to country music superstars, The Kendalls, known the world over for their smash single "Heaven's Just A Sin Away." Wow. Intense! Take a look at their pictures and I'm just SURE you'll be able to see the family resemblance. If I've got the family tree down correctly then they're my dad's step-sister's cousins and that means I'm only 3 degrees away. Dude. That's HALF the degrees I am to Kevin Bacon. That has GOT to count for something.

my faith in mankind has been restored

2006-08-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was out walking my poor, sick puppy when she needed to make a pit-stop on the side of the road. Now that she is taking prednisone, she has to pee A LOT and when she does, it takes quite awhile. As I stood there waiting, holding her leash in one hand and two poop bags in the other, I sensed a car pulling up behind us and waiting for us to move. I thought perhaps we were standing in their parking space or something so as Lucy finished and we began on our way I looked back to nod and wave an apology for her taking so long.

Unfortunately, I was not met with a gracious reply. The dude in the 4Runner pulled right up next to me, leaned out his window and said loudly and accusingly, "DO YOU HAVE A BAG TO PICK THAT UP?"

In total confusion, and because I can never think of good, biting comebacks until 24 hours later, I offered up the eloquent response:

"IT'S PEE!"

Nice job there, Bean. That'll teach him.

I looked at him with utter confusion, my very soul crushed at the insinuation that I am an irresponsible wretch who doesn't clean up after her dog, and he returned my gaze with an evil, accusing stare. He shook his head in disgust and drove off. Turns out we were not in his way or in his parking spot. He lives a little further down the road and was just stopping to play Poop Police.

Two days later, after having fumed over this incident way more than it merited and having schemed all manner of evil payback scenarios including but not limited to lighting a bag of dog poop on fire on his front door step or asking him if he had any bags to clean up his yard, his hideous, hideous yard, we encountered him again. This time, Jon was with me. Lucy stopped to pee in the same place and I sensed a vehicle approaching from behind again. I turned to look and there was 4Runner dude hanging out his window with his mouth open to speak. But this time, he said "Hey, I just wanted to apologize for the other day." I told him it was okay, I was just so confused because she was just peeing and I hope he knows we always pick up after our dog. He said there's some dog that's always leaving messes in their yard and in their neighbor's yard and he was sorry he wrongly accused me.

After he drove off, Jon and I went on and on about how big that was of him. He went out of his way to apologize and make things right. Who does that these days? I am now relieved of having to regard all humans as loathesome, hateful beings on account of apologetic neighbor. We should all be like him.

the foxtail and the hound

2006-08-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am a grieved dog mother. Lucy has been in the saddest state since Saturday morning. At first we thought she had some kind of eye infection because her eyes were cloudy and red and swollen. But then we noticed her becoming incredibly lethargic. She moped around the house as though she were drugged all weekend. And then she began twitching her head. My God, the twitching! It was unbearable to watch. By Monday morning, she hadn't eaten anything or had a single sip to drink since the Friday before.

So I took her to the vet. The entire staff puzzled over her for almost an hour. After poking and prodding her all over, the vet took a second glance in her ears and found foxtails in both of them. Ah ha! At last! She yelped when he pulled them out but they sent us on our merry way with antibotics and ear/eye drops and said to come back in 24 hours if she wasn't better. I fretted all night about what a terrible dog mother I am. How could I let this happen?

Well, 24 hours later, she was no better so we went back to the vet. I'm telling you she was the saddest, most heartbreaking dog you have ever seen in your life. She didn't want to walk or move, she just wanted to lie still in one position. Her eyes were swollen and droopy and her posture and the expression on her face made it look as though we had put her under heavy sedation. And the twitching continued. So upon another long, laborious examination and a blood test, it turns out foxtails weren't the problem. Lucy has a sad condition. Masticular Muscle Myositis. It's some kind of auto-immune disease. Apparently the muscles in dog's jaws are made up of different muscle protiens than the rest of their bodies so for whatever reason, her own immune system has begun attacking her jaw muscles! No wonder she doesn't want to eat. And their jaw muscles wrap pretty much all the way around their heads and behind the eyes so that explains the swelling and irritation. Poor baby! It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right there in the vet's office. When I have real, human babies, I am going to be A. TOTAL. DISASTER.

So Lucy's on antibotics and prednisone for 20 days now and the vet thinks we caught it early enough to help her but some dogs never fully recover and have to be on some form of steroids for the rest of their lives. I cannot bear the thought of this. I am grieved, I tell you. GRIEVED.

the one with all the hate mail

2006-08-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I returned home from a lovely, relaxing camping trip with my hubby to find several angry comments awaiting me on very old posts. You might think this upset me, but it had quite the opposite effect. I had a good long chuckle and then began celebrating finally having something fun to write about! Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes...

Hate Mail #1
Posted by rationalvoice23 on 8/10/06 at 11:57 PM on this post dated 3/16/05.

The reason Terri-Rae Elmer's on the air is because she's good. Face it, if
she wasn't, she would probably be bagging my groceries for a living, just like you.

Instead of asking yourself questions just to hear yourself talk,
why not actually try to rationally answer your own verbal upchuck...

"why, why, WHY do they let her do that repeatedly on air?" Because more
people like her as opposed to people who don't. Was that so hard to comprehend ass master?

Btw, i made an acct just to burn ur ass. Suka.

Now to begin, I would like to make a public apology to Terri Rae for having carelessly and hurtfully made negative comments about the way she gives the closing line to all of her news reports on the radio. I didn't realize my post would come up as the 3rd item listed on Google when one searches for her name but after getting this random comment on a post that's over one year old, the thought occured to me to check. What do you know, there it is. So shame on me. I'm very sorry. It was wrong of me to do that and truly rude and unkind. It was not my intention to defame anyone in the public eye. I will leave that old post up only briefly and then I will delete it altogether.

Now to rationalvoice23, I must ask...where did you get the idea that I bag groceries for a living? I have in fact never been employed by a grocery store, as a bagger or in any other capacity. Nonetheless, thank you for the new nickname! "Ass Master." I like the sound of that. And thank you for making an account just to burn my ass. It feels downright scorched! Hot as blazes! Charred, singed, seared! For a minute there I had to STOP, DROP, and ROLL.

Oh yes, and for those of you who couldn't crack the code, "suka" is my clever hate-mailer's way of calling me a "sucker" in truly cool hip-hop jargon. The correct pronunciation isn't SUE-kah as you might think. It's "sucka."

Hate Mail #2
Posted by rationalvoice23 on 8/11/06 at 12:06 AM on this post dated 2/16/05.

I just realized you have no talent as a writer...

Fortunatley, i'm not one to rain on anyone's parade without offering an umbrella:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0935166076/sr=8-3/qid=1155279406/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-8526384-6270269?ie=UTF8

There u go; a link to a book that could possibly help you redeem a
fraction of your adult audience.

Thank you for the book recommendation! I love books. I will definitely check it out. And hey, catchy line there with the raining on the parade and the umbrella thing. I'll have to remember to use that.

I'm really grateful for the writing advice. It carries a lot of weight coming from someone as obviously intelligent and eloquent as you, and someone with such excellent spelling and grammar skills to boot! By the way, what do you mean by "redeem a fraction of your adult audience?" Redemption's not the goal of this blog. In fact, I believe only Jesus can redeem people. I would never pretend to be able to do it myself! Did you maybe mean the book could help me redeem my writing? My horrible, horrible writing?

Hate Mail #3 and #4
Posted by rationalvoice23 on 8/11/06 at 12:10 AM on this post dated 2/10/05.

Okay, I officially vow to never read another word of this (lame ass) blog so
long as i live...
Punctuation man; punctuation.
Sheeeit.

And then posted at 12:11 AM, one minute later...

Hrm, hrm... Woman.

Sheeeit.

Okay, easy there, partner! This is a family show. Let's watch our potty talk! (Although kudos to you for the phonetical spelling of the potty word as pronounced in a southern drawl. Nice effect!) Hopefully that book you recommended previously will help me with all those punctuation problems I seem to be having. Gosh, how I hate to see readers go down based on punctuation. Such a shame! But "Hrm, hrm...Woman???" You've got me on that one. Is it secret code? Or a foreign language perhaps? Lord knows I've just barely mastered English, you can't go busting out with stuff that's so far over my head like that!

just spread it

2006-07-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have a bone to pick with Einstein Bros. Bagels.

Every time I order up my scrumptious, carby delight, I hold out hope that the cream cheese will be adequately spread across both the top and bottom slices of my bagel, as cream cheese unquestionably should be. But instead, I always find a firm ball of cream cheese, freshly ejected from an ice cream scooper, lumped smack dab in the middle of my bagel without the slightest hint of knife marks or, God forbid, effort. The goobers behind the counter seem to think that squishing the two bagels halves together around the ball oozes it far enough outward to feign the spreading action, but clearly, maintaining the level of intelligence of the store's namesake is not a pre-requisite for its employees. What, if not to properly spread cream cheese onto bagels, is the company paying them $9 an hour for?

i beg of you

2006-05-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE SEND SOMEONE MONK-E-MAIL. you will thank me.
http://www.careerbuilder.com/monk-e-mail/

help me help you

2006-05-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days I've sat down several times to post something only to discover I have absolutely nothing to say. I have a great desire to write but nothing to write about. I hate being in this place. Things are kind of blah for me right now...not bad, just not noteworthy.

I will say, however, that paying $3.69 per gallon for gas is quite possibly giving me an ulcer. It's enough to make me want to wave a giant middle finger at everyone in the world, including babies and grandmas and priests and bunnies. No one is exempt from my gas-price fury! MIDDLE FINGERS EVERYWHERE!!

On the contrary, there are a number of things in my life that are bringing me tremendous joy these days. Take, for example, the new roundabout that was recently installed at the nearest cross-street to our home. I love it. I love the tree planted in the middle of it, I love the landscaping all around it and most of all, I love mocking the idiots who don't know how to drive through it. It's like our neighborhood's very own circular circus. WHAT PART OF "YIELD TO TRAFFIC IN CIRCLE" IS NOT EXPLICITLY CLEAR? It's not rocket science. Just go to your right and don't hit anyone, okay?

Also bringing me great joy these days is my garden, flourishing under the tender loving care of my total ignorance and my hose. Honestly, I am so clueless but it's the craziest thing...if you water stuff, it actually grows! Nothing in my garden is dying! Okay, well there are a few things that don't really appear to be GROWING but they aren't exactly DEAD so I think this counts. At this rate, we will surely be enjoying a lovely summer harvest. You will all be invited over for dinner. (BYOC...Bring Your Own Chair.)

Well sure enough, I was right. I really didn't have anything to write about after all. I told you so! Well, to those of you who have waded through the meaningless fodder thus far and are still reading this post, I give you a job: leave me a comment with suggestions on something to write about to help get me out of my blogging slump. Consider it inspiration for me and an investment in your future...a real win-win.

because it's true what they say: sex sells

2006-05-08T15:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend Jon and I were driving to my parents' house IN SUBURBIA when suddenly we noticed two busty, bikini-clad women on the street corner IN SUBURBIA holding up fluorescent posters advertising a car wash IN SUBURBIA. Did I mention this was IN SUBURBIA? On a chilly, overcast day?

I laughed out loud. Must be some local fundraiser for Hooters, I thought. Or the sleazy sports bar down the street.

But no.

As the light changed and we got close enough to read the signs we learned the truth:

CAR WASH TO BENEFIT
THE LEUKEMIA SOCIETY

Now I ask you, are the scandalous bikini ladies really necessary for this? I repeat, this is IN SUBURBIA. Last I checked, bikini-clad models aren't exactly a part of the tug-at-the-leukemia-heartstrings equation. But hey, what do I know. I just work at a church.

a month in retrospect: do's & don'ts learned in april '06

2006-05-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

DO take the dog to the beach more.
DONT' let the dog drink large amounts of salt water so that she later becomes violently ill with diarrhea all over the house.

DO take your gym bag to work with you and change before you leave the office, thus tricking yourself into always going on your way home.
DON'T leave your gym bag in the back seat of your car in front of your house overnight where some hoodlum might spot it and think it is a purse and therefore smash in your back window in order to steal it.

DO hire a professional to do your taxes and give you tax advice.
DON'T hire a first-class a$$hole who insults you in your own home and then mails a note to your husband who wasn't home during the tax appointment that says, "Jon, I explained to your wife why you owe so much money but sometimes this tax business gets confusing so please call me if you have any questions." thus insinuating that you are a royal blond idiot who doesn't understand English and cannot possibly have intelligently explained everything to your husband yourself.

DO stew over the first-class a$$hole tax guy for a few weeks and mutter curses at him under your breath because he deserves it.
DON'T forget to stew over the first-class a$$hole tax guy for a few weeks and mutter curses at him under your breath because he deserves it.

DO take a week off with your husband over his Spring Break and enjoy long days at the beach during the random stint of hot, sunny weather in the middle of April.
DON'T get sunburned.

DO watch an entire season of The O.C. on dvd in one week's time.
DON'T underestimate your husband's viewing capacity for cheesy, smutty teen dramas and assume he will roll his eyes and make gagging noises whenever you turn it on. Shortly you will come home to find him watching an episode without you.

only in california

2006-04-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

his eye is on the sparrow...and my belly

2006-04-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

We had a little visit from the tax fairy last week and it wasn't pretty. We got raped by Uncle Sam, and that's putting it gently.

I spent last Friday, my one luxurious day off which I typically spend taking long walks and doing yoga and meeting my friend Mary for bagels, creating a massive spreadsheet in order to balance our every penny and determine just exactly how were are going to pay The Man on April 17th and still be able to pay our other bills and eat more than 2 meals this month. I stressed, I muttered, I cursed, I almost cried.

And then I stopped.

Who am I to say I believe in a big God, a faithful God who knows my every need and always provides for me when I fall apart with doubt the moment I am challenged? And who am I to complain about the abundant, richly blessed life that I live? I am blessed beyond measure yet I seem to have tunnel vision for the one thing that is missing. The one thing that is wrong or hard.

So me and my attitude, we had a pep talk. And then we played the game of thinking up all the fun FREE things we could stretch ourselves to do in lieu of spending money on unnecessary things and activities during one tight month. Take more walks with Jon. Read. Play with the dog at the park. Rearrange the bedroom furniture. Work in the yard. Journal. Call friends. Go by Mom and Dad's for more visits. Write letters. Do my yoga tapes. Watch old movies that we already own.

Me and my attitude, we liked this list. And then the funniest things started to happen.

We went to Jon's school play and the mom of one of his favorite students came up to us and said, "So when can we bring you dinner?" "What?" "Didn't you hear about the new adopt-a-teacher thing? We adopted you and would like to make you guys dinner one night this week." Then last night friends called and invited us over for dinner completely out of the blue. 2 free meals back to back. Then my fellow garden-loving co-worker brought in a bunch of seedlings for me so I can start my vegetable garden this month, free of charge.

Maybe these sound like silly things to you, but to me each one is God tapping me on the shoulder and whispering that he's paying attention. That he knows that status of our bank account and our credit card debt and the sum we owe on our taxes. That he has better, more creative ways to take care of us than simply throwing money at our problems. That he can USE our problems to make us better, to teach us, to stretch us, and to remind us he's in charge. I'm so thankful that he is. I would make a royal mess of things.

lucy sits for her portrait

2006-03-27T19:17:00.000-08:00

:: the intense, irresistable puppy stare ::

:: playing hard to get ::

:: mysterious & aloof ::

:: puppy in the wild. also, the dog equivalent of "runs with scissors." ::

i've been tagged

2006-03-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

Thanks to my lovely sister Bearca, I've been tagged.

3 things you wish for (just for you)
1. To have lots of kids and be able to be a stay-at-home mom.
2. An endless supply of money to shop for gardening stuff, kitchen goods, books, cute jeans and shoes.
3. To be able to eat all the ice cream I want without ever gaining any weight.

3 things you would do to/for yourself if there was no one to judge you (or if you had the guts to do it!)
1. Quit my job and work at a flower stand or plant nursery.
2. Go to nursing school (this one falls under the "guts to do it" category).
3. Tell rude people off.

3 habits you have
1. Feeling guilty about everything (my sister and I are a lot alike).
2. Picking at my cuticles. UGH!
3. Falling asleep during movies. Ones I watch at home and at the theater too. I suck.

3 insecurities you feel
1. That people don't really like me, they are just pretending.
2. That I'm not the wife Jon deserves.
3. That I don't kick butt at my job.

3 talents/skills you wish you had
1. Surfing.
2. Gourmet cooking.
3. Shutting off things that bother me, hurt me or stress me out.

3 things you would do if you had more time
1. Read more.
2. Garden more.
3. Do more yoga.

3 things that bring you peace/relaxation
1. The crock pot.
2. Fridays - my only full day off of work.
3. Going for long walks with Jon and Lucy in our neighborhood.

3 things that spark your creativity
1. Books.
2. My awesomely artistic and green thumby neighbors.
3. Trying out new foods and figuring out how to make them.

Okay, now it's your turn Eliza and Undercover Celebrity unless of course I've been out of the blogging world so long I'm clueless that you actually STARTED this and have therefore already answered these questions - a likely scenario. (And sorry I can't link to your blogs but I'm doing this on Jon's Mac and I don't have the same options as when I blog on my PC. Am I just retarded? That's an even MORE likely scenario.)

d is for DUDE, this alphabet thing is boring

2006-03-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, change in plans. I'm not quite ready to roll out the alphabetized chronicles of my life in a way that is worthy of the concept or actually interesting enough to read so I'm pulling the plug on this project. Temporarily, at least. I feel too boxed in, too confined. I need to spread my wings and feel free enough to write about really meaningless crap like in the good old days. Heck, I'm feeling better already.

Alright, so meaningless crap. Here goes:

1. We got a puppy. Lucy. She's a lot of fun although I found her to be considerably MORE fun before she began shedding half her body weight in dog hair every day.

Lucy's favorite activity is to pick up assorted items on our walks to carry along in her mouth. Not to chew on or to eat, just to carry. For the most part she picks up sticks or pinecones which I deem acceptable but now and again she goes for something gross and I have to intervene. This morning she picked up what appeared to be a flat, brownish stick/leaf/dirt bundle that seemed harmless so I let her trot along with it in tow. Half a mile later, however, I discovered she was actually sucking on a dead rat that had been flattened by a car, stiffened by its state of rigor mortis and coated in dirt. Sometimes I think it's odd we call these creatures "domesticated."

2. San Diego is on the brink of a big winter storm which is to say that it might actually drop down to 50 degrees and rain for half an hour. I'm on the edge of my seat. Perhaps it will get cold enough that I'll need to knit myself a cozy sweater out of the collection of dog hair I'm harvesting. Bring it on, I'm prepared.

3. I joined a book club. The first meeting was a flop since no one had finished the book but in our defense it was a bit of a toughie and very hard to follow. So it's on to the next read and I remain optimistic.

4. I'm taking Jon on a surprise date tonight to a place called Jimmie Red Hots, alleged home of the world's best burgers and polish dogs although I've not yet been there to corroborate this claim. Tonight we test the theory and I'm really hoping my co-workers haven't hyped it up for nothing. Stay tuned for the full report and of course, a bunch more meaningless crap.

c is for comb, as in honey...or for CRAP, there's a bee hive in our yard

2006-03-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

The "bee man" paid us a visit last weekend. He came to take care of the small swarm of bees that had been hovering around the front step to our landlord's art shack in the backyard for the last few months. Little did we know he would uncover this...

:: the bee man at work ::

:: THAT was underneath the front step all this time? ::

:: close up of the honeycomb ::

:: see those little white bits? that's bee larva. ::

:: itty bitty baby bees forming in the honeycomb ::

:: the fruits of their labor. lucky me! ::

b is for babysitting and beef

2005-12-04T15:28:00.000-08:00

Surprise! I'm not dead. Let's get back on the alphabet train, shall we?

Babysitting
I began my babysitting career early on, age 12 or so. It carried me well through college and even beyond. As a kid, I passed out fliers around my neighborhood to promote my service. I wasn't just the cheap, convenient childcare next door, I was a booming industry. Mothers fought over me. They wept when I moved away to college and in turn the families I babysat for through school mourned when I moved back. Too bad it took me that long to figure out my service was worth far more than what I was paid all that time (with the exception of one family, my most beloved, whose kids went on to be in our wedding and who always treated me like gold).

Okay, so babysitting stories. Where to begin? I could write the book. Nanny Diaries ain't got nothing on me.

Let's see...there was the projectile vomitting episode, the time I flooded my neighbors garage while attempting to wash sheets after a mid-night bed-wetting (not mine, the kid's), and the late night blackout due to the ridiculous glow of Christmas lights on the front lawn of a particularly wonderful (allbethem Griswold-like) family during which episode their three-year old nonchalantly told me I needed to "hit the circuit breaker" as though this were a regular household occurence.

There was the genius idea to let the kids play in the sprinklers turned Soak-The-Babysitter madness that landed me in the master of the house's bathrobe for the better part of the day while my clothes dried. There was the kid who growled and barked at me, the 6th grade boy who pissed me off so much I almost left him on the side of the road, and The Day of All The Poop, the daycare debacle where I was left to care for 8 kids under the age of 3 for a morning while their uppity mom's gathered for their weekly bookclub.

And of course, my personal favorite...the potty-training toddler who was "afraid" of of the toilet thus her (retarded, hippy, doting) parents encouraged her to poop on the lawn. And that she did, before my very unbelieving eyes. Afterwards, I took her inside to clean her up and came back to take care of her...um...droppings only to find no mess and the two family dogs sheepishly licking their chops.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen it all. And what have I learned from this? 90% OF ALL ADULTS ARE IDIOTS. The percentage of well-raised, well-mannered kids in this world is slim. Parents don't know how to be PARENTS. I'm not suggesting raising kids is EASY, but mastering the concept that YOU ARE THE BOSS, YOUR 2-YEAR OLD ISN'T should be.

And with that I shall climb down off my soapbox.

Beef
Delicious, satisfying and fulfilling, I agree it's what's for dinner. But for some reason, I am horrible at making that a reality in our household and my husband is suffering for it.

Bottom line: I am bad a cooking meat. All meat. Beef, poultry, you name it. On the whole I am a decent cook but meat is my glorious downfall. No matter what I do, it is always tough. How come I can't make it turn out like mom's? Or the scrumptious meat of restuarants? I need tutoring.

Henceforth, I tend to avoid preparing meat whenever possible. It's expensive, it always seems like more work and the outcome is always disappointing so I figure, why bother?

Well not so long ago dear Emily came down to visit and attend one of Jon's football games with me. We got to the field and she asked where he was so I pointed him out across the way. She gasped. "THAT'S Jon?!? It couldn't be. He's a SHADOW of a man. What on earth are you feeding him??"

"Um, a lot of salad?"

"Woman! He's wasting away! That boy needs PROTEIN."

Upon recounting this story to my mother, she promptly went out and bought us an early Christmas present...a Crock Pot...so that I would no longer have any excuse to malnourish my handsome groom. Two great things about my mom: 1. She knows the proper remedy to nearly any situation, and 2. She loves her son-in-law.

So the Crock Pot thing is working out okay so far but nonetheless, I am opening up my comments as a forum for anyone who would like to contribute recipes or secret tips on how to not suck at preparing meat. Beef, poultry, really meat of any kind. But no fish recipes, please. I love the stuff but Jon doesn't so any tantalizing fish recipes will just make me really depressed.

a is for alphabet

2005-11-10T18:34:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this is one part rip off of Sue Grafton novel titles and one part complete highway robbery of the book I hate myself for not having written first but with my current allocation of free time for writing (read: none) and corresponding lack of inspiration due to stress and exhaustion, this is my new game plan.

(At least until I learn to cope with the state of my wacko schedule and/or I completely bore you all to tears with useless information about myself and you beg me to stop. The latter is likely to happen first. Trust me.)

So without further adieu, I would like to share the first of 26 alphabetized installments on the chronicles of my life. Annecdotes, stories, factoids. All the really dumb and unimportant things I can think of to share with you for why else do you come here but to read mindless mush about a total stranger?

So heck, let's just start with the subject at hand. The alphabet. When I learned the alphabet as a child, I got it a little mixed up. Oh, come on. You did too. Probably worse than I did in which case I would like to hear your version. I think most kids get tripped up somewhere in the middle. My version went a little something like this...

A B C D
E F G
H I J K
LEMON AND A PEA

Pretty cute, huh? Well, I got over that childhood mix up rather quickly but what I never grew out of is this weird thing I have about numbers and letters. Specifically what COLOR they are. It wasn't until college that I learned this is NOT normal. I thought everyone saw their numbers and letters as different colors but, um, apparently not?

Let me break it down for you. Numbers are really my strong suit I'll use them to try to explain. Every single digit number is a different color to me. Thus I either like or dislike COMPOUND numbers based upon their color combination. Similarly, I can remember virtually anything if it's in a numbered list because I associate each item listed with the "color" it is in its number order. Do you follow?

My numbers look like this...
1 = white with a black outline (zero's like this too)
2 = pink
3 = yellow
4 = red
5 = blue
6 = salmony orange
7 = green
8 = turquoise or green (8 is fickle, depends on the colors it's next to)
9 = maroon

So the number 654, for example, just isn't a very good color combination so it kind of bugs me. But something like 753 is quite excellent and therefore very memorable in my mind. Have I completely lost you because this is the dumbest thing you've ever heard?

Well turns out this is a bonafide psychological phenomenon. Here that, folks? I'm a PHENOMENON. Apparently about 1 in 2,000 people have this little oddball mental condition called synesthesia. My sister discovered this while reading a very popular medical journal called Rolling Stone magazine. Apparently John Mayer has it and legend has it that Mozart was "synesthetic" too. It has something to do your mind blending your senses. Something like when one sense is evoked, two respond. Whatever. All I know is that I felt so VALIDATED when I found out I'm not a total freak. I'm only a freak 1,999 times out of 2,000 but 1/2,000 of the time, I'm stone cold NORMAL.

That is a serious relief.

fall in my neighborhood

2005-10-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

the truth revealed

2005-10-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

I was given the strangest compliment of all time yesterday. Whilst reaching out to sign my name on a receipt at the grocery store, the young adolescent male behind the check stand gasped and proclaimed "WOW, you have BEAUTIFUL fingers!" with such unbridled enthusiasm I thought he might just don lederhosen and begin frolicking about the Austrian hillside singing The Hills Are Alive.

Now, this compliment was odd for two reasons. First of all because what teenage boy thinks to say that to a woman he doesn't know, and with such glee? And secondly because it's categorically untrue.

See, my fingers aren't beautiful, friends. They're freakish. My fingernails grow upwards instead of down. I keep them nice and short in hopes their true nature won't be revealed and scare away all the nice people. And I have a horrible habit of picking at my cuticles. Badly. Viciously. Daily and nightly and ever-so-rightly. So much so that they are often bloody and scabbed over and torn to pieces. So much so that Emily gave me regular lectures in the days of our roommate-hood and regularly hid my cuticle clippers because I abuse them as though they are an addictive drug. I am a helpless junkie in desperate need of rehab.

But the real kicker is not my fingernails nor my cuticles. Not at all. The real issue here is my actual fingers and their abnormal bendy-ness. It's the fact that my thumbs look like this:

See that top picture? When I give Jon backrubs, I use the part of my thumbs that's pointing UP to dig into his knots, not the tip of my thumb like you "normal" people might. I'm much more effective that way.

My other fingers are also ridiculously stretchy and bendy but my thumbs are definitely the most notable. They're just a little special something I inherited from my dad and while I'm not ashamed of them - nay, I'm down right PROUD - I'm not so dilusional as to think they are "beautiful" by normal-people standards.

Apparently passing an eye exam is not required for employment at the grocery store and that's fine by me. I'll take the compliment cause it's the one and only time I'm going to get it.

get happy

2005-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

If this face doesn't melt your heart, then you don't have one.
A heart, that is. Not a face.

My nephew is the coolest kid on the planet. Props to my sis for birthing such a stud.

home sweet home

2005-10-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's SO good to be home. Staying in a really pretty house with all the lavish amenities we do not enjoy in our own place was nice and all but by Day 2 we were already ready to move back into our own space.

It's amazing how quickly we've adjusted to living on top of each other in our tiny place. The first morning we woke up in our friends' house this past week I was stricken with the saddest puppydog face you can imagine and instantly said to Jon, WHERE WERE YOU ALL NIGHT? Their bed was HUGE in comparison to ours and he was so far away from me that quite frankly I'm not entirely sure he was even in the bed at all. Cuddling is BY FAR the best part of marriage and the California King does not lend itself well to The Cuddle. We are sticking with the queen-size bed for awhile. For sure.

Later that morning we realized we were both really grouchy not only because we had been geographically separated for so long but because it had taken us so much longer to get ready. On account of all THE WALKING. There is so much walking BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH, BACK AND FORTH when you don't live in a tiny space. In our studio, I have but to pivot on one foot to have every article of clothing, toiletry, cleaning supply, grocery, linen closet item, dvd, book, and cd that we own within my reach. Of course, I do have abnormally long arms, but still.

When we moved back home today, though, I was so inspired by the deep down cleanliness of the house we'd been staying in that a major cleaning and organization binge was inevitable. And the first order of business was to put on our bed skirt...something Jon didn't even know existed when he moved our bed in a few months ago all by himself and thus it has sat forlorn in the corner for many moons as I am not brawny enough to lift our matress and put it on by myself. I have been begging him for three months now to please help me put the bedskirt on because I cannot STAND to look at all that crap we have stored under our bed anymore but somehow the bedskirt task has been avoided repeatedly. So at last we put it on and you would've thought Jesus had returned by the way I was REJOICING and seeing bright lights and hearing angelic music but alas, Jon did not share my joy. He "doesn't get it." What's not to get? How can that eyesore of a junk collection beneath our bed not make you want to claw your face off with your own fingernails and then feed it to the dog? What part of finally covering it up with a lovely and nicely pressed piece of white cotton so that we can now trick the world into thinking we are clean, tidy, non-junk hoarding people does NOT make you want to jump up and down and squeal like a schoolgirl?

Men. Seriously! I do NOT get them.

Nonetheless, I ought to wrap this up. It's time for ice cream and a movie and then we've got to go to bed. We have a week's worth of cuddling to make up for so obviously, we have our work cut out for us.

bon voyage

2005-10-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

We're housesitting for friends this week. Friends with a beautiful home. Friends with a black-bottom pool, a jacuzzi and a whirlpool bathtub. Friends with cable TV and TiVo.

SING GLORY, HALLELUJAH, AMEN!

So, in the event you don't hear from me for the next fews days, chances are I'm too busy pretending to be on vacation to sit down and post anything for the likes of you.

I suppose there's a chance I'll have time to write but just in case, I'm posting this pre-emptive warning lest I receive more hate mail from certain someones threatening to take me off their "must-read" list because I've gone missing for a spell. Certain someones who happen to be notably and uncharacteristically absent from the scene the last several days. Ahem.

So I bid you adieu and promise to bring back stories from paradise...the place where swimming and soaking and asking JON, WHERE ARE YOU? are actually possible since the walls within which we'll be residing span farther than arms reach. Totally rad.

things i might have guessed but have now confirmed with experience

2005-09-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

...Not having a dishwasher ain't bad. Not having a garbage disposal is a horror akin to war, pre-meditated murder, and puffy paint and/or Disney characters on clothing garments worn outside the house by humans over the age of 5.

...Really good yoga classes (not the stupid Rodney Yee yoga videos I got suckered into buying once but only used long enough to decide he says "breathe into the suppleness of your belly" too much) are LIFE CHANGING. I am en route to being hooked.

...Uber-flexible and uber-proud-of-it yoga junkies who are always in the front row so everyone can watch how good they are are really annoying. They think we are admiring them but really we are thinking, STUPID BENDY TROPHY WIFE WITH NO DAY JOB! I could do that as well as you if I had all day to relax in Downward Dog in my cushy ocean-view mansion after daily trips to the spa, the natural food store, and the mystery shop where you buy all those cute yoga outfits. BLAST!

...Being disciplined to stick to your budget and not use credit cards for unnecessary purchases is truly liberating. But it makes you want to do wacky things like clip coupons and go to the library for free books and dvd's and bring your lunch to work every day so you don't spend extra money and actually use up all of the fresh groceries you WERE allowed to buy on your debit card. Is this what you money-wise folks have been doing all along? Frickin' SPEAK UP next time.

...Homemade pesto made with garden fresh basil is GOOD.

...Making pasta for every meal for three days in a row so you have something upon which to EAT the pesto is not.

...Acknowledging the hazards of pasta overdose in writing whilst a pot of rotelle is on to boil only 2 yards away from you is heinous and unforgivable and worthy of 40 lashes. Bring it on. BRING THE PAIN!

men welcome here

2005-09-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been thinking everyone should have a toilet in their shower. What's not to love? It provides a convenient foot rest for shaving your legs and if you'd like to linger in a hot shower, you've got a nice and cozy place to sit. Plus, in the unfortunate incident of a bowel emergency, you would have easy access to the camode and wouldn't even need to dry off before using it. I think the whole thing is very efficient.

In our all-in-one bathroom, there's a little pre-shower ritual that must be strictly adhered to before turning on the water.

Step 1. Put toilet lid down.
Step 2. Move toilet paper to upper shelf, out of water's reach.
Step 3. Turn shower nozel away from door so as not to flood Living Room.

Quite simple. But regrettably, no matter how faithfully one follows Steps 1-3, Step 1 still does not completely prevent the toilet SEAT from getting soaked every time you shower. The physics of this are beyond me. What good is a lid if it doesn't protect the contents of which it is lidding? Nonetheless, within an hour or two after one of us showers, the toilet seat is still wet enough that you have to wipe it off with TP before you can sit down on it.

Or so it was before The Husband's stroke of genius. Immediate after showering, if you re-open the lid and lift of the SEAT with it, the water drains right off the seat and is dry and ready for use in minutes. MINUTES, PEOPLE! This is going to save us a fortune in toilet paper expenditures (which are already at a record high in the Wallace family...a topic for another time).

So what is considered a rude and thoughtless bad habit to most people is now considered standard courteous practice in our household. I never imagined hearing myself say this but I keep exclaiming, JON, WOULD YOU PLEASE PUT THE TOILET SEAT UP!?!?

my man

2005-09-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

Couldn't resist snapping a close up of what's on his shirt. Is it any wonder why I love this man?

untitled

2005-09-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Jon returned home last night after three days away chaperoning his school's Senior Retreat. I was so elated about his homecoming you would have thought he was returning from a two-year tour in Iraq. How have I so very suddenly lost every bit of my independent spirit and become completely dependent upon his presence in my every day life? In only two months?

During one of his nights away, I awoke bolt upright at 2am to blinding flashes of spectular lighting flooding in through our bedroom skylights and the chest-wrenching boom of powerful thunder in what can only be described as The Most Epic Electrical Storm in The History of California. And quite possibly the rest of the world. While honeymooning in the Alps this summer we got caught in a dramatic storm with the kind of thunder that makes your soul tremble and ache and I am not exaggerating when I say that Monday night's storm was an earth shaking masterpiece far beyond what even the massive Alps could render. It was alarming and spectacular. It was intense and romantic. It was a once in a lifetime moment and I was alone.

I began writing this post with no particular topic or message in mind. No point. No story. No conclusion. I simply started writing out of boredom and the consumption of one small glass of wine. But apparently this is what was intended to come out. A little message from me, to me.

This is it. This is life. This is your marriage and you don't get to pick the moments you get together...the perfect, romantic, and cuddly moments that you want. Sure, you'll get a lot of them along the way but ultimately what matters is what you make of the sleepy-eyed exchanges across the breakfast table, the way your greet each other at the end of a stressful day when you're hungry and exhausted, the way you respond to his unexpected kiss when you're right smack in the middle of something and trying to focus. It's not always getting the perfect cuddle in the middle of the night during a fantastic storm, it's showing up for his football games, it's putting away his laundry, it's holding hands while you watch TV, and it's grocery shopping. A lot.

He's sitting mere feet away from me right now writing a test for his class tomorrow. Our dualing laptops are tip-tap-tapping away with only the white noise of our fan in the background and all I can think is how grateful I am for the life I've been given. The husband I've been blessed with. Recently I've been feeling sorry for myself and complaining that he is gone a lot these days, and in fact he is, but what matters is that I am fully responsible for the time that I DO get with him. The little tiny moments that seem so incredibly insignificant until you multiply them by a lifetime and realize that all strung together, they are what make up a REAL relationship.

Kind of like right now when he's just finished writing his test and is flossing his teeth in the middle of the living room hoping I'll notice and wrap things up so I can go hang out with him.

Gotta go. This is my chance.

things i know to be true as of just now when i sat down and thought about them

2005-09-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

...Getting back in the swing of blogging is a whole different ballgame now. I went away for awhile and came back to find my BFF had bolted into blogging superstatus in my absence which is to say that more than FIVE people now comment on all of her posts REGULARLY and they are STRANGERS who we don't even KNOW OR PAY BY THE WORD to leave us little notes like the original five. Can you even imagine? And what the heck? How am I supposed to write crap now that I've been forced to acknowledge that someone other than the small handful of people I would allow to wipe my tooshie and change my catheter in the event of sudden handicap might actually read this? BRAKES. Someone put on the brakes.

…When your job requires you to be the intake hub for all of the frustrations and complaints of everyone in your office to the point that they literally line up outside your door all day long while you attempt to actually get some of your OWN work done and simultaneously listen to the new voicemails you have waiting for you every 2.2 seconds, you are entitled to go home in a persistant vegetative state and watch Felicity episodes from 5:30pm until bedtime or whenever your husband gets home and demands that you turn that trash off because it’s totally not worth watching after she got that stupid haircut. (Bad move, husband. DO NOT under ANY circumstances bash the holy and sacred entity of Felicity Re-Runs. Marriage 101.)

...I overuse the run-on sentence and I don't care.

...Gardening is like motherhood only on a smaller scale. There are some plants that just give you more concern than others and you can't help but worry about them. A LOT. Am I giving you too much water? Not enough? Do you need to be fertilized? Are you over-fed? Are you getting too much sun? Are you too cold at night? Why aren't you developing as quickly as your brothers and sisters? Are you tired? Are you sick? Is it something I'm doing? Are you SPECIAL? If so, am I supposed to TREAT you as though you're special or try to mainstream you? Are you getting bullied when I'm gone during the day? Are you going to freak out if I leave you with someone for a long weekend to get some time away? Honestly, I'm not sure I'm cut out for this.

Oh, but did I mention how great Watermelon is doing in school? She's making straight A's and she's the captain of the volleyball team! Today we marked all the kids' heights on the wall and she measured 1.5" tall. She's a beauty. Fighting the boys off with a stick, I tell you!

Oh my gosh, I'm toast.

294

2005-09-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable, I know, but I'M BACK. My wedding-plannin', honeymoon-travelin', apartment-movin', new job-startin', brand new life as a WIFE-adjustin', internet-lackin' hiatus is OVER.

Can I get an AMEN?

So here I sit with a million things to say about all that's happened since I disappeared this summer and did a Life 180 but I haven't a clue of where to start. How do you sum up the best and craziest summer you've ever lived in 27 good years with little tiny words? Somehow I'm afraid you just don't. But heck, let's give this little summary a shot:

BEING MARRIED IS RAD.

And that includes being married and living in a studio apartment the size of a shoebox. A 294-square foot shoebox, to be exact. And yes, I'm deadly serious. At long last it is time share a virtual tour of the Wallace Family Honeymoon Suite with the rest of the world. Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start...

The Gate

Our studio is detached behind the garage of a house so we have our own separate entrance along the sideyard. Please note the Beware of Dog sign...considering that Clarence, pet extraordinaire belonging to the folks in the main house, just peed all over Jon and our carpet approximately 2 minutes ago, we now take this much more literally.

The Patio

We have our own little private area in front of our door on the sideyard where we keep our BBQ and where I have my herb garden. Note the tile work along the sidewalk near the door...as you'll quickly learn, this charming little pad is all about eclectic tile work done by the artistic bloke who lives in the main house. As luck would have it, he's an art teacher.

The Front Door

I love our bright green door. But I'm thinking maybe that's 'cause Jon walks through it every night...my favorite part of the day.

The Herb Garden

A closer look at my herb garden. Gardening is quickly becoming my new favorite hobby and thus far, I haven't even killed anything yet.

The Funky Shed

This picture's a little dark but we have this cool little shed for potted plants and other important items such as our surfers crossing sign in the backyard. Again, more cool tile work on the steps leading up to it.

The Veggie Garden

The humble beginnings of my vegetable garden. Don't think I didn't do a little happy dance just now upon finding my first wee small watermelon beginning to grown. It's the size of my pinkie nail. Crazy!

The Kitchen

When you walk in the front door, the kitchen is to your right. Gotta love the breakfast table that doubles as extra counter space. Works like a charm.

More Kitchen

Charming, isn't it? Of particular interest should be the toaster oven on the left which is affectionately known as "The Oven" around these parts. Despite it's inferior size, it has successfully turned out all manner of baked goods including bread, cakes, brownies, and of course, cobblers...my new favorite dessert. Heck, I even roasted a pumpkin in it. Oh yeah, and the little black thing on the right edge of the counter? Yeah, that's "The Stove".

The Living Room

This is what's straight ahead when you open the front door. All hail the world's best mother-in-law who made this awesome furniture possible!

Looking To The Left of The Couch

That's the bathroom door and the ladder up to our bedroom. We think the middle rung is painted orange to warn us to be careful since that's the one we trip and nearly kill ourselves on just about every other day.

Looking Up Into The Loft

This is the view from the couch looking up towards the lofted bedroom. See the flip flops sitting on the floor next to the bathroom door? No, that's not cause we're messy...that's strategic. We'll get there in a minute.

More Living Room

That luscious chair is where I'm currently sitting to type this. I'm in L.O.V.E. See the little tiles along the door way to the left? They actually spell out a Bible verse that reads all the way around the door frame.

View of Living Room & Kitchen From Loft

Took this one sitting on our bed upstairs. The lovely glow is provided courtesy the overhead skylight, one of our favorite amenities.

The Loft

Gotta love the blue room. Our bedroom is 7' wide by 14' long which is to say IT'S SMALL. But cozy, wouldn't you say?

The Loft Windows

There are three sets of windows like this one across the top of this wall. Great sunrises in the morning and just last night I woke up at 3:30am because the stars were so bright!

The Closet

This was taken from the head of our bed looking at the opposite end of our room. Yes, folks...this is OUR closet. All 7 feet of it.

And finally...THE BATHROOM

When you first open the door, you see the toilet and absolutely amazing floor-to-ceiling tile. But the tile is not just artistic, no no. It's necessary since the whole bathroom is the shower.

More Bathroom

More crazy tile work...Jon doesn't take books into the bathroom so much anymore since there's plenty to look at in there already.

More Tile

Fortunately, the hooks are placed just so in the bathroom that the towels don't get wet when you shower in there with them. Genius, I tell you!

More Tile

Uh, yeah. Our toilet paper hangs on blue tile legs that stick out of the wall.

The Bathroom Window

There was a time in my life when I considered myself a very creative person. And then we moved in here and I realized that I ain't nothin' but a creativy-impaired retard next to the folks who decked this place out. Featured here is our window curtain made of Starbucks cards. See the small white circular tile near the upper right hand corner of the window? It glows in the dark.

And at last...The Sink

I've often asked myself, "Why bother wasting space with a real sink when you can have a tiny handmade tile basin that drains water down a handmade tile aquaduct along the bathroom wall and into the shower drain on the floor?" I mean really.

The Sink At Work

Now do you know why we keep shoes by the door?

if you think you've got your sh*$ together, check under your frige

2005-07-01T00:48:00.000-07:00

I moved out of our apartment last weekend and went back over tonight to help Em clean it out for when she finishes moving out tomorrow. We had been renting our refrigerator and washer/dryer from a (heinous, horrible, should-be-reported-to-the-Better-Business-Bureau) rental company who was scheduled to pick up our appliances, oh 6 days ago, and decided to show up today shortly before I arrived. They removed the frige and the washer/dryer and GREAT HEAVENS ABOVE, you would NOT believe the carnage left wallowing in the footpirnts of our appliances.

Bearing in mind that we had two cats for awhile, one of which sucked in every way except that she thought she was a dog and loved to play fetch with wadded up lumps of tin foil and wine corks, the hollow space beneath our appliances had become a graveyard where cat fodder had gone to die.

Left in the wake of our food-chilling and clothes-cleaning machines was all manner of fright. You name it: plastic pieces to things we never knew were broken or missing (and some we did), an eye dropper, the remains of a Cadburry Egg so old it had disintegrated into a lump of fine chocolate-and-faux-egg-middle-esque powder (we are certain we have acturately ID'd this as a Cadburry product as part of the wrapper was still intact), a chewed up tampon (feline tooth marks, I assure you), balls of tinfoil, and ungodly wads of hairy, dusty lint mixed with dark gooey stains of laundry detergent that had seeped under the washer and congealed in a glorious blob of adhesive goo akin to the amusing sticky stuff they use to fasten credit cards to advertisments that promise 0% on balance transfers for 6 months and a 7.9% fixed rate after that.

Oh, and of course, one of Em's favorite thongs which I regret to inform you she pulled from this nasty rubble with glee proclaiming, "I LOVE that thong! It's like the best color ever!" and then, seeing the horror on my face, "Dude, I'll totally wash it" - something I had hoped would have gone without saying.

But when faced with such filth and scum lurking in the kitchen we formerly thought to be hygenic (minus the omnipresent cat hair, of course - something that had just become a part of the landscape), what do you think we did? Cleaned it up quickly before it made us vomit? Doused it with bleach and cleaner to sanitize it before the horror could possibly spread?

NO.

We waded through it on our hands and knees and picked and pilfered with our bare fingers in desperation to salvage memories of immeasurable value.

See, in our house for the last six years we've had a tradition of signing the corks from bottles of wine we drank with friends or for special occassions or just with dinner for no particular reason at all. And buried in the mess of grime and dead spiders and hair and dust left under our over-priced rented appliances were gems we could never get back unless we dove in after them. Gems like "Christmas Party, 2000", a remnant from our first grown-up Christmas party in our very first apartment out of college, "Shari Friesen Graduates" from the bottle of champagne we toasted to Emily's sister upon her college graduation, and my personal favorite, "1.8.2003 - Good Day at the Office", a tiny peek into a time of turmoil for both of us at our respective workplaces when coming home to soak in the hot tub and moan about our bad days was habit. A time when reverting to school-girl silliness, cracking stupid jokes and talking about boys from the hours of 5pm until bed instead of pretending to be the suit-wearing professionals we mascaraded as by daytime was all either of us had.

So dive in, we did. We salvaged a good many treasures and then returned them to their rightful home...the box with all the other signed corks which, of course, we had to pull out and read through all over again and every single one was sweeter than even the best bottle of wine had tasted.

After considerable reminiscing we remembered all the cleaning we had to do and started to rally ourselves to get going. But then Em came up with an alternative plan that sounded much better than scrubbing bathrooms or sweeping up the appliance catacombs. So instead we opened a bottle of wine, poured two glasses, turned on a sentimental cd (okay, it was Ricky Martin but I promise this has significance to us) and we played cards on the floor of our half empty, half stacked with boxes living room.

For what do broken-hearted girls have to do to console themselves but to drink wine and play cards and pretend that everything hasn't just changed around them so fast that the way it was is already hard to grab onto and it's suddenly hard to breath?

In an attempt to be brave, optimistic, forward-looking women, we signed the cork:

We have all the corks ahead of us.

Emily

Abby

June 30, 2005

8 days before Abby's wedding

But I know that's not was either of us was really thinking. We were thinking about the funeral we had just held over a heap of dusty garbage on the floor of our kitchen. We were mourning the loss of the only way we have ever known our friendship - as roommates.

I know there is much greatness and joy ahead but saying goodbye to what came before it is proving much more difficult than I was prepared for.

yes. for the millionth time, YES.

2005-06-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

It’s the funniest thing. I’m getting married in 15 days and people keep asking me, “Are you getting excited?” DUH! What the heck do you think? I’m about to pull an Oedipus and gouge my eyes out? I’m more distraught than the day I learned that tortilla chips are FRIED, not baked? (GASP!) I am crying myself to sleep every night out of fear and dread?

Uh, no.

NEWSFLASH, folks. OF COURSE I’M EXCITED. I’ve been excited since Christmas. You know, when he proposed.

I know people are just sharing in our joy and making conversation but I just find the whole thing amusing. It’s like saying, “You just won $500 million dollars. Are you excited?”

NO!! I’M SO DOWN ON MY LUCK. WOE IS ME! I AM DESTITUTE. I WILL HAVE TO SCAVENGE ON THE STREETS AND SLEEP IN THE GUTTER FOREVER. I HAVE THE WORST LIFE AND NO CARDBOARD OR PENS TO EVEN MAKE A SIGN ABOUT IT. I AM HOPELESS. I AM FINISHED. I AM DOOMED!

i propose a contest

2005-06-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

I cannot bear the burden of this annoyance on my own any longer. Can someone, anyone, PLEASE crack the code of my neighbor's indecipherable personalized license plate for me?

What in the name of all things sacred is ISONOMY supposed to mean?

I am at my witt's end. I have walked by it twice a day for the last two and a half years and wracked my brain over what it could possibly mean but still, I've got NOTHING. Just a million different ways to pronounce those seven stupid letters but not a single guess as to what they're supposed to say.

And I have no idea who the car belongs to so I can't even ask, although at this point maybe that's a good thing. I'm not so sure saying "Hi, nice to meet you. WHAT THE HECK DOES YOUR STUPID LICENSE PLATE MEAN?" makes for the most amicable first impression with the neighbors.

So if anyone out there can help me, I beg of you. PLEASE. Speak up. And to sweeten the pot (as though outsmarting my two-and-a-half-year quest for knowledge isn't prize enough), the first person to crack the code will get a quarter.*

*Maybe. My mom used to promise that the first person in our family to find the bay leaf in the spaghetti sauce would get a quarter but I have to warn you, she rarely repaid in full and it's true what they say about the apple not falling far from the tree. And that makes total sense because neither trees nor apples deal in American currency, guys, so they don't exactly carry around quarters. Duh! I mean, what did you expect??

you betta' reconize

2005-06-07T13:12:00.000-07:00

Either you recognize my nephew is the most perfect, scrumptious, precious thing on earth or you are dead inside. Don't be dead inside, okay?

P.S. Special kudos to Bearca for the particularly excellent fauxhawk. And no, I did not misspell the title of this post. 'Tis to be read phonetically.

regarding that which i have already mentioned

2005-06-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

A number of things have come up this week that harken back to topics I have written about on this site so I've decided to update you on them all at once:

1. Found out today that the out of order bathroom note leaver lady here at work has a bachelors degree, two masters degrees and a doctorate. This explains why she is far too important and busy to call the Maintenance department and report that the toilet is broken. Obviously she only has but enough precious time to scribble a note and leave it behind for us lesser-educated potty-using minions.

2. Jon has officially given me permission to call him by a bonafide term of endearment. OF HIS OWN VOLITION. And not just ANY term of endearment but my personal FAVORITE: Love. He doesn't wince when I say it, he doesn't even just grin and bear it. Folks, he actually LIKES it. I don't know what brought this change of heart but I am not asking questions. Why argue over being made whole again?

3. Got my first angry comment on this site. To 777 I would like to say I'm sorry you felt my expose on the memorial bumper sticker was unjust but if you had more carefully read what I wrote, you would have realized that I was pleading for someone to explain the reasoning behind this act to me, not simply to disparage it. You would have realized that I didn't intend to offend anyone or sound vicious but that I simply do not understand these adhesive memorials. Perhaps you could shed a little light? Doubtful since you will not likely ever revisit my site although, of course, you are always welcome back.

4. Lastly and most importantly, I must report that the unthinkable has been found. Concrete proof. Actual evidence. Ladies and gentlemen, I am officially in posession of a photograph of me wearing the infamous vegetable bathing suit. I'm not quite ready to show this to the world - it's too painful - but if and when I decide to take the plunge, I promise that you, my faithful readers, will be the first to know.

grab the funk...kick it out...repeat

2005-05-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Jon is well-known by his students and our circle of friends for his theory on dance. It's not something I could do justice by attempting to explain here because it is something you must see to believe. Something you must study to appreciate.

But let us suffice it to say that the general idea is about harnessing "the force" by "grabbing the funk and kicking it out." There is, of course, a special signature move that exemplifies this entire theory which he loves to demonstrate in class and, naturally, at dinner parties. Do you understand now why I'm so proud of him? I am obviously marrying the right dude.

But now, after chaperoning prom this weekend, Jon has added the following footnotes and observations to his age-old dancing theory:

1. Girls like to dance. Guys DON'T but they are left with absolutely no choice. They MUST dance if they want to be able to rub up against the girls.

2. Chaperoning high school dances could prove to be an excellent form of birth control. And I quote, "It is so painful to watch them try to dance. I never want to MAKE anyone who does that! I don't want to be responsible for creating anything capable of that awkwardness. We should come to more of these."

interview with a lopez

2005-05-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

The chain-email questionnaire concept has made its inevitable entrance into the blogosphere. I should have seen this coming.

My apologies to those who find this annoying but I can't help it. I'm a sucker for these things. Does it make me narcissistic because I love the chance to answer questions about myself? It think it does, but I'm okay with that. Thank you, Carolyn, for including me in the fun...

1. How did you meet your soon-to-be husband?
'Tis a marvelous story but kind of long if you want to hear the full version. The short version is this: We were introduced by mutual friends two summers ago, we hung out with our group of mutual friends several times over the course of that summer but didn't go on our first date until the night before Jon drove back to Minnesota for an entire year. We knew there was something there worth pursuing, though, so after that one date we decided to stay together and see what happened. We dated long distance for that whole year before he moved back to California last August. We got engaged on Christmas Day, 2005.

Only 47 more days until the wedding, but it's not like I'm counting or anything.

2. What was your favorite childhood game?
Make believe. I lived in my head as a kid and spent the better part of my childhood wrapped up in my own imagination climbing the tree in our front yard and riding my bike around the neighborhood like I owned the place. Take a peek back in the Poka Bean archives and you shall see...I was a childhood nut job.

Oh, and does anyone remember that TV show Scarecrow & Mrs. King? I totally wanted to be Kate Jackson so I went around pretending to be Mrs. King a lot.

Spies + Romantic Tension = Alluring, Magical Duo That I Cannot Resist

This may explain why I love Alias so much as an adult.

3. What is your biggest fear?
This is a three-way tie between failure, losing a loved one, and getting my foot run over by a car. Or worse, a truck or SUV. I don't know why, but I'm convinced it's going to happen to me and it's going to suck.

4. Have you ever broken the law?
I suppose the answer is technically yes if you count the one speeding ticket to my name but I totally went to traffic school and isn't that supposed to scratch it from the record?

Otherwise, no. I'm a goodie goodie, also know by my friends as a Stick in the Mud. I have the world's strongest guilty conscience so I don't like to break the rules. The mental consequences are too much for me to bear. Guilt is anguish and is to be avoided at all cost.

The extent of my wild, rebellious side is the stud in my nose, the occassional disregard for my turn signal, and my recent decision to rage against the french manicure machine by deciding to wear clear nail polish to my wedding. HA! Take that! Who says you have to have a french manicure when you get married anyway? HOGWASH, I tell you. Not gonna do it.

5. Go-go boots or stilettos?
Stilettos, baby. But only on the rare ocassion I actually dress up and wear something other than flip flops, God's Perfect Shoe.

************************************
Want to play?
The Official Interview Game Rules:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person's will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

on like a prom dress

2005-05-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's that time again. Time to don my finest threads, attempt to look older and much more authoritative than I really am (or really care to be), and put on my most intimidating face.

It's time to instruct America's wayward youth to leave room for the Holy Spirit. It's time to chaperone Prom.

When Jon and I last chaperoned one of his high school's dances, I struggled to find something appropriate to wear. I asked my sister, She Who Knows The Right Outfits For All Occasions, for guidance and she told me, "I think for a chaperone role, you are going to need to go slightly more conservative than usual. Like whereas normally an outfit for such an occasion might be 35% sassy hoochie and 65% good Christian girl, you may want to decrease the sassy hoochie percentage just a shade."

Precisely why I can count on her. Sage advice.

Well, having kept these immortal words in mind, I have succeeded in finding myself an appropriate dress to wear and can now move on to Step 2: focusing on and eagerly anticipating Friday night's action. See, this is no ordinary prom. This is a private Christian school's prom, a prom where the threat of banishment to the 10-minute Time Out Box for dirty, offensive dancing looms imminent. A threat menacing to freshmen and seniors alike.

And let me tell you, there is no better way to attend such an event than on the arm of the one and only Mr. Wallace, teacher and football coach to some of the school's naughtiest offenders. Master of bursting cool kids' bubbles. King of humbling the cocky and obnoxious. Ruler of the piercing look of disapproval and utter disappointment.

So I say, bring on those booty-shakin' moves, kids. Get skanky. Mr. Wallace is in town and I've got a front row seat.

STRIKE FIRST. STRIKE HARD. NO MERCY SIR!

Let the bloodshed begin.

a little something for my mom

2005-05-06T09:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent a lot of time at my parents’ house over the last several months. I stay with them every time I drive to San Diego to visit Jon for the weekend since they live about 2 miles away from him.

Or they used to, at least. Seeing that Jon presently lives out of his truck, it’s hard to say the exact mileage that currently separates their dwelling places but this a topic for another time.

I absolutely love my parents. I always have. But over the last several years, I’ve grown to feel an additional sentiment towards them. Seems the older I get, the more I realize how much I LIKE them. And perhaps more specifically, how much I want to BE like them.

One day I will take the time to tell you all about my dad who, in my opinion, has the world’s most tender heart and can intelligibly converse about any conceivable topic on earth with the utmost humility and grace. Except maybe for the correct lyrics to the Stevie Nicks classic “Landslide” which he thought was about Boulder, Colorado up until quite recently…the result of a wee mix up with the “times make you bolder” line. And to this remark he would undoubtedly say, “Well, I may not know the lyrics, but what about the WORDS?” because in addition to being incredibly tender-hearted and intelligent, his third most notable characteristic is definitely his corny sense of humor and high tolerance for the tireless repetition of jokes that got old circa 1972. And that weren’t even funny back then. (Sorry, Dad.)

But today, I want to say a few things about my mom.

Now that I’m two months shy of becoming a wife, I find myself looking at her with new eyes. When I spend the weekend with them now, I am fixated by the seemingly effortless grace with which she keeps their house, and subsequently their lives, in order. I know it really is NOT effortless for her and that she works very hard, but her mastery of wife-y-ness makes the daunting, monotonous list of tasks look simple to eager and naïve wanna-bes like me.

I love to examine the contents of my mother’s refrigerator. While strange unknown moldy substances crawl to the back of mine to die, hers hasn’t seen an ounce a food go bad in its hallowed halls since, well, ever. She knows the right amount of fresh produce to buy so that they can consume all of it before it goes bad and dreams up creative things to make with the assortment of groceries she last purchased so that none go to waste. And don’t get me started on her freezer. Sweet Moses! It’s a vision of labeling and organization and she can make every ingredient stored in its dark cavernous recesses come back to life with her cooking. Her yummy, yummy cooking.

I love to marvel over her linen closet. She knows the perfect way to fold every last sheet and towel and tablecloth so that they all fit perfectly into the allotted space. None are squished or askew. All are easily accessible and smell fresh.

I love to look through her cookbooks. Recipes she’s tried are marked up with comments on the outcome, ideas for ways to make it even better the next time, things she substituted or added, and sometimes the name of the person in our family who especially liked it. She can find a brand new delicious recipe seemingly out of thin air and make it for the first time for a big holiday dinner and it always comes out amazing. Like she’s been practicing it and perfecting it her whole life.

I love that she cleans her kitchen sink every night after the dishes have been done (which, by the way, my dad often does himself…let me not mislead you with all this praise of my mother to think he doesn’t pitch in around the house.) I used to HATE that she would make us do this EVERY night and thought it was so unnecessary…can’t you just clean it every couple of days? I would roll my eyes when she would say, “Girls, if you just do a little at a time to keep up on things, then you don’t have to BUST on them later.” I would snicker. “Bust” on them. What does that even mean? Yeah, well that’s why my kitchen sink always looks the way it does. I don’t clean it every night. I don’t even clean it every couple of days. I tolerate it as long as possible and then sure enough, I have to BUST on it, just like Mom said.

I love my mother’s pantry and how it’s always fully stocked. She can whip up any tomato sauce, chicken broth, or cream of mushroom soup-based dinner at the drop of a hat, and in large enough quantity to feed the local high school football team.

I love to watch her ironing technique, her methodical motions that make the most of each stroke. And I love that she irons often and dutifully even though it is her MOST DESPISED CHORE so that my dad has wrinkle-free clothes to wear to work.

I love that she knows the perfect comfort food to bring to a family with a brand new baby, the names of plants and the right way to care for them, how to pick a good melon, the way to get out any stain, the correct spelling of words like subpoena and hors d’oeuvres, the difference in cuts of meat and the right ones to select for pot roast or grilling or never eating at all because they’re way too fatty and not good for Dad’s heart.

I want to know…WHEN do you get all this wife-y knowledge? Logic tells me you must learn it along the way – by trial and error – but my gut says that wives and mothers as good as my mom JUST KNOW. They are born knowing. They have God-given instinct. They are intrinsically wired for domestic greatness. They don’t join the club, they ARE the club.

Well whatever or however, I want in.

I want to KNOW like my mom does. I want to be around her and soak it up. I want to watch her and learn. I want to be a fraction of how great she is, how loving, how selfless, how clever, how organized, how efficient.

I want to grow up enough to be able to lovingly serve my husband and family the way that she does: WILLINGLY. Even when she can’t bear to unload the dishwasher ONE MORE TIME. Even when she doesn’t get home from work until after 7pm and she still has to make dinner. Even when she would sooner prefer to drop the hot iron on her foot than use it to press one more dress shirt. Even when she just doesn’t have the energy.

Even when there is nothing in it for her.

You might think it's pretty grown up of me to finally recognize and appreciate all of her efforts and the sacrifices she’s made, but no. I’ll be truly grown up when I’m able to make them myself.

God help me. I'm a long way off.

So Mom, with Mother’s Day around the corner and all of this on my heart, this is what I want you to know:

I want to be just like you. The measure of success in my life will be how closely I can model your example.

I am praying for a miracle of mother-daughter Wife Osmosis.

perfection snuggles with wee small fist

2005-04-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

pitfall

2005-04-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

About a week ago, Jon made a sniffing sweep near my armpits and said, "Did you put deodorant on this morning?" When I responded, "Yes, of course" his immediate reply was:

"Did it fail you?"

Now most of you know Jon enjoys pointing out how much worse I usually smell than he does -- me the dainty, feminine half of our relationship, he the hyper-masculine, outdoorsy athlete -- but I'm not convinced the driving force behind this brutal comment was his usual desire to brag about his superior essence.

I fear he may have simply been telling the cold hard truth.

So albeit reluctantly, thus began my quest for new deodorant. I ventured to the drug store this week in search of a new pit protector. I thoroughly examined the packaging of every option on the shelf, read the back of countless tubes, and pulled off the lids to smell them all, even the "Lilac Bloom", "Orchid Fresh", and "Peaches and Cream" types that I DO NOT endorse. (Who wants their underarms to smell like dessert anyway?) But ultimately I was not impressed with the selection and decided to stick with what I've got. Besides, maybe Jon just caught a bad whiff at the end of a long day. Surely it wasn't THAT bad.

Ah, denial. 'Tis a sweet, sweet thing. Or a sweeter smelling thing than B.O., at the very least.

Last night when Jon picked me up for dinner and leaned in to kiss me hello, he scrunched up his face and said, "Abby, I really think it's time." I told him I had looked for a new brand but none of them seemed right. If he wanted me to get different deodorant, he was going to have to step up to the plate and pick it out himself.

Bad idea.

We went to the drug store and eventually emerged with Jon's pick. Now, I will grant you that it does smell FANTASTIC but that is because it smells just like JON. Yes, that's correct...I bought the very same deodorant that my alpha male fiancé uses. Men's deodorant. Strong men's deodorant. Strong men's deodorant whose packaging actually reads "CLEAN MASCULINE SCENT"...the infamous Speed Stick Fresh Scent that I have long praised him for using because it is a positively intoxicating soapy smell on his skin.

But on me? I'm not so sure.

I brought it home last night and nervously shared the news with Emily. She was in bed reading and asked to smell the new specimen in order to better judge so I handed it over. She took one whiff and immediately rolled over and proceeded to snuggle with it. In fact, I might go so far as to say they were spooning. Suggestively. I cannot think of any better way to put "clean masculine scent" in perspective for you.

I think she also said something like, "Maybe ALL women should wear men's deodorant. Then other women would think we smell like men and respect us and other men would think we smell like equals and treat us as such."

But seeing that it was very late and we are incapable of holding cohesive conversations and controlling our laughter after bedtime, we quickly got off topic and into a giggle haze. In between clutching my gut with laughter over her description of a simpleton she met recently as someone who (she stated with disgust) "like, rides horses and doesn't watch TV," and rolling on the floor over my apparent ignorance about the difference between a seismograph and the Richter Scale (who knew?), my recollection of her all-women-should-wear-men's-deodorant theory is fuzzy at best.

Suffice it to say, however, I've already been wearing my Speed Stick Fresh Scent for three good hours today and have so far seen no results to prove any truth to her hypothesis. Neither male nor female has regarded me one bit differently, a fact that both relieves and disappoints me.

Nonetheless, I got into to work this morning and emailed Jon...
I smell like old man but I love it!

He wrote back...
Your pits should not smell like any old man, they should smell like your fiancé. It's kind of like I peed all over you to mark my territory. I see how those youth interns look at you at work!

Sneaky little bastard.

part o' heart

2005-04-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

I spontaneously met Jon for dinner last night. We had a lovely and unexpected midweek date. When we said goodbye (which, by the way, has gotten SO OLD) I gave him a kiss and said, "I love you. With all of my heart and THEN some."

He kissed me back, paused and said, "I love you too. But only with my left ventricle and right aorta. You get the rest when we get married."

77 days and counting.

reasons why the world's most arrogant email cannot break me

2005-04-20T17:16:00.000-07:00

Today I stewed for awhile over the following specimen that arrived in my inbox. It's a response to a polite request I made TWO weeks ago sent by a gentleman of somewhat notable last name who, I should mention and am glad to say, is completely UNassociated with my lovely place of employ:

Abby,
I will follow up with your request in time...

Thanks,
[name of Holier Than Thou author that I am kindly omitting here]

In time? IN TIME?? Please allow me to translate that for you:

Abby,
I am mighty and to be feared. Don't you know who I am? Bow to me and the timetable according to which I like to do things because on the scale of importantness, you are but a 2 and I go to 11.

I am the King of the World. Of all the kings, I am the king-y-est. I don't have time for petty, insignificant mental midgets such as yourself and the foolish, needless requests that you make, especially when they're things that my slave, er...I mean my assistant can't take care of for me and therefore require ME to do actual WORK. I don't DO work. I just AM. And that's reason enough for all to worship me.

Bow in homage to my greatness and consider yourself very fortunate to have received this generous reply.

Big Jackhole
(and many thanks to Em and Carolyn for recently adding this fantastic and fitting nomenclature to my vocabulary)

But let me tell you why today, oddly, I didn't give a rat's rear end about this blatant disregard for respect between professional humans:

1. I am now Aunt Abby to the world's most perfect nephew. I think about him 20,000 times per day which means I could only dwell on the Jackhole's remarks for about 4.5 seconds before it was time to think about Evan again. Fie on anyone bold enough to try to cut in on my nephew-joy. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

2. I'm about to marry the ACTUAL king of the world. THE Jon Wallace. He is hot, he is manly, and he would willingly kick the a$$ of, or better yet POOP on, anyone I asked him to...notable last name and all.

3. I got to eat my waffles this morning...2 delicious cinnamon waffles toasted and slathered with Brummel & Brown and scarfed down with a delicious cup of Senseo coffee. And I got to enjoy them on my way to work while I listened to BOTH of my Lauras. You just cannot mess with a day that starts out that good.

4. I am wearing the world's cutest cotton candy pink sandals today. I have but to merely look down and smile. No amount of belittling emails could dimish the sheer, unbridled joy emanating from my footwear. In fact, I could be walking around the office wearing nothing BUT these shoes and feel like the cutest girl in the building. But I wouldn't do that, of course, because it's against the rules.

Alls I'm sayin' is DON'T MESS with the baby nephew having, Wallace marrying, waffle eating, coffee drinking, Laura listening, pink shoe wearing JOY FORTRESS that I am. You cannot break me. You cannot bring me down.

welcome baby nephew!

2005-04-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

evan charles cramer

born april 16, 2005

7lbs 4oz, 20.5 inches

...perfect in every way...

if it's bumper-stickery in nature, i don't want your loving memory

2005-04-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

At least once or twice a week I see a car, or more typically a large truck, with a sticker on it that says something like this:

In Loving Memory Of
Sarah Jones
1991-2004

Now I really don’t mean to sound cold or heartless or calloused here but honestly, I don’t get this. WHAT is in loving memory of your beloved deceased, your giant truck? Do you really mean to tell us that you went to the Ford dealership and bought that beastly F350 to dedicate to the memory of your lost loved one?

People dedicate park benches or plant trees in someone’s memory all the time. I get this. It makes sense. It’s usually done to honor a special place their loved one enjoyed or to create something to live on in their honor long after they’re gone. But your giant, gas-guzzling truck? The logic doesn’t follow. This is what gets you to the liquor store and the gun show. Unless your 13-year old little girl was into monster truck racing or off-roading in the desert, this doesn’t seem like much of an honor.

Again, I don’t mean to be harsh or heartless. I know it’s not my place to judge the way anyone copes with grief or loss. But I just can’t see myself feeling compelled to slap a big sticker on the back of my Civic if I were in their shoes. I can’t imagine wanting to advertise my loss on the back windshield of my car.

I’m sorry if this makes me a jerk but honestly, I just don’t understand the gesture.

So to MY loved ones reading this, this is my official plea: Please do not put stickers about me on your cars when my time comes. Not even on Jon’s Tacoma, the coolest, greatest, hottest truck of all time, hands down.

Instead please honor my memory by going to the beach a lot, hugging Jon EVERY day, eating a lot of bacon and ice cream, and once in awhile making soap. THOSE are the things that would truly honor my memory and cause me to smile down upon you from my cushy beach chair in the sky.

out of order

2005-04-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

For some time there has been a small post-it note attached to the door of the handicapped stall in the women's bathroom at work that reads OUT OF ORDER. I hadn't given it a second thought until just now when I got up to fetch two very fine and lovely pieces of nice expensive white card stock from the printer area for something I'm working on and decided to go to the bathroom while I was up.

I walked in, set my two very fine and lovely pieces of card stock down on the shelf by the door and then proceeded to go about my business. There was already one other person in a stall when I arrived. Her own stack of papers and pen were sitting on the shelf when I came in and set my things down next to them.

I stepped into the stall next to her and closed the door. I caught a peak at her sandaled feet but didn't recognize them. When she was finished, I heard her flush, wash her hands, and head for the door. But for some reason, she stopped short. The echo of her footsteps indicated she had turned and walked back towards the shelf. It was quiet for a minute and then I caught glimpses of her bright, billowing purple shirt as it appeared in slivers through the cracks in my stall door. She was walking past my stall and clear down to the end of the row to the door with the OUT OF ORDER note on it. In silence, she stopped, turned around, and walked out.

At first I thought this odd but then decided she must have dropped or lost something and was looking for it in the bathroom before leaving.

I finished up my business, washed my hands, and picked up my very fine and lovely pieces of nice expensive white card stock before heading out myself. But wait...there was only one piece. What happened to the other?

I stepped back in and looked around on the floor by the shelf to see if I had dropped it. I didn't see it right away but soon something caught my eye across the room. Sure enough, my card stock was on the bathroom floor but not nearby the shelf and not because I had dropped it. It had been methodically placed at the foot of the handicapped stall door with a small note scribbled on it. I walked over to read it.

"Has it been reported?"

What the heck. You stole my very fine and lovely piece of nice expensive white card stock to leave THIS pointless note?

Effective.

It would have taken you less time to go report the out-of-order stall yourself than to leave this stupid note behind and you wouldn't have had to insult anyone or rip off anyone's nice paper in the process. Who are you Miss High and Mighty Purple Shirt that you think it's not as much YOUR responsibility to report the out-of-order stall as it is anyone else's? Do you think it's up to those lower class Bathroom Trolls who patrol when no one's looking and clean up after your mess?

And did you not notice that there was NOTHING else on the shelf when you walked in? Do you think the Bathroom Trolls also stock very fine and lovely pieces of nice expensive card stock SCRAP PAPER on the shelf after they wipe down the sinks and scrub the floors and refill the soap dispensers so that bathroom patrons can leave little insulting notes behind suggesting SOMEONE out there is being irresponsible or remiss in taking good enough care of the place where you crap?

Cause it's certainly not YOUR responsbility. No, no. You are ENTITLED to a clean and orderly and fully functional bathroom and will quickly bark when you're displeased with the level of service you're receiving. Those darn Bathroom Trolls. Always slacking on the job and falling short in accommodating your every need.

Well let me be the first to say it. You, Miss High and Mighty Purple Shirt, are the one that's out of order.

I know what your shoes and your obnoxious purple shirt look like and I know where you work.

I will find you and you will pay.

the week in review

2005-04-01T17:05:00.000-08:00

Realizations I have made just this week...

...I love baked beans. They are delicious specimens that I desire to shovel into my oral cavity via industrial fork lift or have fed to me intravenously. But for some unknown reason, I always forget how much I love them in between the 2-3 times I eat them per year. While this forgetfulness is probably best for my heart and my body weight, I felt it was time to address the issue so yesterday I said to myself, “Self, always remember that you love baked beans.” I feel better now that this is squared away.

...People who have a sudden, giant emergency because they poorly planned something at work and then try to make you all frantic like it’s YOUR emergency and YOUR job to fix their mess even though you had absolutely NOTHING to do with what they’re working on really stink. In fact, I might go so far as to say they are mean. Yes, Mean Bad Planners. And they're almost worse than people who don’t like baked beans.

...My wedding guest list is not simply an inanimate electronic spreadsheet living in perfect harmony with all the other Microsoft Excel files on my computer. No. It is alive and it is multiplying like a deadly cancer. It is a giant, rabid and ravenous beast that’s out for blood. Human blood. Bride and groom blood. It is a fiery meteor headed straight for Earth at a billion miles per hour and it’s doubling in size with every foot it travels in outer space. It is a monstrous pillow with thousands of pillow tentacles fast approaching our mouths and noses and threatening to cut off our air supply. If we don’t stop it, it’s going to smother us all.

...The anticipation of 4.5 hours of traffic school on a Friday night is worse than the actual 4.5 hours of traffic school on a Friday night. Okay, well this is wishful thinking since I don’t actually start traffic school for another hour and a half but since my approach of whining about it obnoxiously and dreading it so much that I want to hide under my desk and cry hasn’t worked, I’m now trying the think-positive method. Stay tuned.

word to my lauras

2005-03-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

I have become addicted to talk radio. Conservative talk radio, specifically...much to my father and fiance’s delight.

I covet my morning and evening commute time as a chance to hang out with my Lauras. And no, you talk radio amateurs, I don’t mean Dr. Laura. Get with the times.

I’m talking about Laura Ingle on KFI, courtroom drama reporter extraordinaire, and Laura Ingraham on KRLA, the witty and intelligent morning show host/light of my life. I love my Lauras. I love them, I love them, I LOVE THEM.

I never thought there was such a thing as adoring a reporter until Laura Ingle entered my life, or rather, my air waves. All psychosis and morbid fascinations aside (of which I have much and many, respectively), I was absolutely RIVETED by her reports on the Scott Peterson trial and have scoured my AM radio dial for her genius everyday since I first heard one of them. I don’t know what kind of awards they give for great reporting but I’m telling you, she should get some. No. Correction. She should get ALL of them. Nobel, pulitzer, blue ribbon, Heisman trophy, grammy, whatever. ALL of them. I eat up every second of her simple, articulate delivery. She's so descriptive and powerful that she makes you forget you're listening to radio. She makes it visual and if she isn’t on in the morning to report the latest courtroom sagas, I am crushed. All other courtroom and news reports after her are simply white noise.

And Laura Ingraham. What more can I say than almighty heavens, glory be!? I have recently converted to listening to her show because it is smart and real and important and at a moment’s notice, brilliantly hilarious and light-hearted. She is insanely intelligent and quick-witted and can take you from serious to silly in mere seconds. And flawlessly. More women should be like Laura Ingraham. I know I want to be.

Did I mention that I love my Lauras? I love them. I love them. I LOVE THEM.

But let me say this. If ever you want to torture me, you have one of two choices. Either poke me in the eyeballs with hot skewers or make me listen to the lame-o, annoying, nasally-voiced news chick Terri Rae Elmer who plagues KFI's air waves on the hour, on the half, and when it breaks by concluding her news briefs with the mandatory line, “KFI is the TALK station with the most frequent TRAFFIC reports presented to you BY Lexus dealers” over and over and over again in her sing-songy, I-put-the-emPHAsis-on-the-wrong-syllAble kind of way and force me to sit helplessly with my hands tied behind my back so that I can’t scratch my ears off with my own fingernails as I would so desperately LOVE to in order to make it stop. Why, why, WHY do they let her do that repeatedly on air? It’s as though she can read the news just fine until she gets to that closing line and then suddenly she’s completely thrown for a loop as to how to speak properly. Normally. NOT ANNOYINGLY.

I despair, but nevertheless, I will continue my daily love affair with my Lauras. And this post is intended to encourage you all to do the same while at the same time warn you about Terri Rae and the peril of her Lexus-sponsorship line. I beg of you to see it coming and turn your dial before it strikes!

You will thank me for the new friends and the sound advise.

survival of the beachiest

2005-03-06T21:43:00.000-08:00

I recently returned from a 4-day trip to Minnesota where I attended an outdoor wedding. Yes, that's right. Outdoor wedding. In Northern Minnesota. In February.

You'll be glad to know I not only survived the cold, I survived the relentless stream of questions. Abby, do you need to borrow a warmer coat? Are you warm enough? Don't you think you should wear a hat? Are you warm enough? Do you have the right kind of shoes? Are you warm enough? Do you want to borrow another sweater? Are you warm enough? Do you need to borrow a warmer coat? Do you need to borrow a warmer coat? DO YOU NEED TO BORROW A WARMER COAT???

NO.

Thank you. I am fine. I know you think I'm just a clueless California blond but I do, in fact, know how to dress myself. No, I've never LIVED in a cold climate before but I have BEEN to cold places many times and it's not rocket science, people. Layers, wool, and down. Hats, scarves, and gloves. Long freaking underwear.**

It irritates the malarky out of me when cold weather people think warm weather people don't have a clue about living like they do and this somehow makes them superior...like Californians don't know what REAL LIFE is like because we don't have to shovel our driveways or scrape ice off our windshields or add a wind chill factor to our temperature readings.

Don't get me wrong, I had an absolutely lovely time this last weekend and defintely appreciated it when people asked me if I was warm enough, etc. out of genuine concern. But it really makes me crazy when cold weather people ask those questions just to prove that they are Mighty and All-Knowing Expert Winter Warriors and I am nothing more than, like, an airhead dumb blond who like, totally doesn't understand the way things, like, work outside her Southern California bubble. Like totally. For sure.

Well, duh. Of course I'm not hip on the cold weather scene since I don't live in it all the time but that makes me neither completely ignorant about nor completely incapable of coping with the cold.

The way I see it, everyone's an expert at doing life where they live. Obviously I'm not well-versed in the proper etiquette for snow activities like cross country skiing or sledding or snow shoeing, but you know what? I could out beach-etiquette any Minnesotan, any day of the week. I could teach you cold weather folk a thing or two about not shaking out your towels into the wind so that the sand blows all over the natives who are innocently soaking up the sun on their regular beachfront real estate. And I could teach you not to wear jeans to the beach. Or jean shorts...in fact, no denim of any kind or tank tops, if you're male. And absolutely no socks. Or Tevas. Or WORSE...socks AND Tevas. I beg of you. Please. Just don't.

And no, I may not know the finer points of driving in snow but I could out-drive ANY cold weather person in LA traffic on the 405 at 5:30pm on a Friday with a cell phone in one hand and a stick shift in the other while I SIMULTANEOUSLY steer with my knee, guzzle my grande decaf non-fat iced latte from Starbucks, apply my makeup, switch cds and fiddle with the stereo controls to find my favorite song, gesture madly at the jerk who just cut me off, and cross 6 lanes of bumper-to-bumper SUVs to get into the carpool lane.

And yes, I know exactly what you're thinking now that you've just read that. Ugh, California drivers! But that is PRECISELY my point...without living in the reality of this culture, you are not at liberty to judge. To y'all, good driving is watching for black ice and not hitting any deer or moose, but survival driving in California is not getting run over by a Hummer and multi-tasking so that the hours of time you spend in traffic aren't a complete waste.

We all have tremendous expertise in our own places of origin, our own cultures, with no one's expertise or culture being superior or inferior to the other (which, I feel, is a very generous statement for a native San Diegan to make) so what do you say we put an end to all the you-know-nothing-of-my-world-so-you-must-be-a-total-idiot SNOBBERY?

I will if you will.

**Mom and Dad...this is not the appropriate time to bring up the story about the family road trip when we stopped in Amarillo, TX in the winter and it was really cold and there was snow on the ground but I didn't believe you that I would need to put on shoes and a coat to be warm enough so I got out of the car barefoot, yadi yadi yada. For the last time, I WAS IN SECOND GRADE. It was the first time I had ever seen snow so this DOES NOT COUNT, not to mention, it's high time to give this story a rest anyway.

observations at target on my lunch break

2005-02-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

Observation #1:
Two young girls, probably 9 or 10 years old, were standing on the greeting card aisle oohing and ahing over the prettiest designs on the shelf. In desperation, one of them exclaimed, "Why do grandmas get all the pretty ones?"

Ah, the ignorance of youth! I wonder: At what age do you finally begin to understand that the pastel flowery cards with cheesy rhyming poetry in scripty fonts are, in fact, the worst picks on the rack? And at what age are you finally old enough to once again revert to thinking they are fantastic, special, desirable treasures to receive from your loved ones? This cycle of life confounds me.

Observation #2:
Two adolescents overheard discussing the ichthus...

Boy: I don't get it. What is Christian about a fish? Why is it a fish?
Girl: (Deadly serious) Because Jesus, uh...you know. Jesus ate fish.

Breeds confidence, doesn't it?

Observation #3:
A 20-something soon-to-be-aunt stands bewildered on the stationery aisle muttering to herself over which baby shower invitations to pick. "Are these too unisex? Does the yellow rubber ducky motif scream 'SEX OF CHILD STILL UNKOWN'? It's a BOY, people. A really important BOY! Is it so difficult to manufacture cute BOYish invitations? Ugh. NONE of these are cute enough for my nephew. NONE OF THEM, I TELL YOU!!!"

Okay, well, that last one was me but I swear I overheard the rest.

and now, i grovel

2005-02-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

A letter to my BFFs

~ The lovely Undercover Celebrity, the one and only Starlet, and the blessed Malin. And actually all of the rest of the female race...I owe you all this apology for breaking the sacred code. ~

Beloved Ladies,

I’m writing to plead for your forgiveness because I am about to do the unthinkable. I am going to ditch out on girl plans to hang out with my man.

I know, I know…this is the lowest of low but in my defense I would simply like to remind you that your men live a) in your own home with you and b) a mere 5 miles down the road so getting to see them on a random weeknight is old hat. Not as in BORING, just as in usual, typical, and routine.

‘Tis not so for the Wallace and I so upon his offer to drive up tonight for a spontaneous, mid-week date, I have decided to forsake all others (that would be you) and jump at the chance. I hope you can find it within your hearts to forgive me and I hope that OC night is good, clean fun. Emphasis on the clean part since Marissa is a total lesbian now and the show is going down the tubes along with the rest of society but nonetheless, all hail the Mighty Seth Cohen in all his glory as he is the sole reason the OC lives on in our hearts and in national syndication.

Again, my deepest apologies for breaking the solemn oath of un-married womanhood. I am fully prepared to except my punishment but if we could hold off on it until AFTER tonight’s date, that would be great. Tar and feathers totally don’t go with my outfit.

Desperately seeking your grace (uh yeah, remember that book we just finished?),
Love Poka

wisdom i would like to impart to my readers

2005-02-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

If Cox Communications is your internet/email provider and your email address ends in "@cox.net", take the time to carefully spell this out for the J Crew customer service representative helping you on the phone.

Cox Communications is not everywhere in the states so the representative may never have heard of it. Be sure to spell out C-O-X nice and slow for them lest they mistake the ending of your email address for a dirty word and then force you to suffer through The Longest Moment in the History of Catalog Phone Orders by slowing guessing aloud how they think it is spelled for you to confirm (or in my case, deny).

It is acceptable to point wildly at the phone receiver, jump up and down in silent laughter, and pee a little in your pants while mouthing "OH MY GOSH" repeatedly to your fiance across the room as long as you keep your voice calm, cool, and collected for the dirty representative. Do not break out into uncontrollable laughter until you hang up the phone.

the other white meat

2005-02-10T13:29:00.000-08:00

As I sit here downing my 5th leftover rib from today's lunch meeting (no speeding ticket on the way to pick it up this week, thank you very much), I am wondering why I haven't eaten more ribs in my life. Why, why, WHY?

Why have I not made it a point to consume more of these tender, barbeque-y morsels of juicy, meaty goodness since I first cut teeth and started eating solids?

Why have I forsaken this sloppy, scrumptious meat for so long for that of the cow, or more completely boring, the chicken?

Sweet hallelujah, this stuff is good. HEAR MY WORDS, people. Investigate The Rib and embrace it's magical wonder forever and always.

recipe for disaster with a side of shame and spinning

2005-02-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

(Yields 1 serving of unhappy lady)

Ingredients:
1 part official diagnosis of Vertigo with associated spinning, headache, and wooziness - finely chopped with no end in sight
1 part rush to pick up lunch for office meeting - peeled and crushed
1 part bored police officer - jelly filled

Instructions:
Mix all ingredients in food processor until smooth. Pour mixture into jelly roll pan and bake at 375 until brown on top. Allow to cool, then take out pen and scribble speeding citation on top of baked mixture.

Serve to disoriented Vertigo patient with a side of shame and spinning. Enjoy!

the birthday chronicles: a six-year review

2005-01-28T09:58:00.000-08:00

Emily and I have been best of friends for what feels like a million years but what really only amounts to the span of 6 birthdays each. Each of those birthdays has been particularly significant as we tend to do them big so since today marks the start of Emily's 27th year on Earth (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NINNY MUGGINS!), I thought it fitting to spend a bit of time recounting and reflecting upon the last 6 birthdays we have shared together...

AGE 21
Emily's Birthday
The first birthday I was priveleged to truly share in Emily's life was her 21st, an all-out booze fest which began with dinner at the classy Acapulco restaurant in Santa Barbara and then continued with a bar hopping excursion down State Street led by my former boyfriend Jim who was bent on making it a memorable night for her (read: bent on getting her wicked drunk). As I was not yet of age and too pure and innocent and guilty conscious-driven to ever try to get a fake ID, I spent the evening peering through the windows from outside State Street's finest establishments trying to get a view of Emily at the bar as she chugged down every alcoholic concoction Jim could get in her hands...and chug she did. Her mantra remained "I don't really feel it yet" to which he continually responded, "GREAT! Then you need more." Needless to say, this birthday ended with much misery and vomit but makes for great stories for the grandkids.

Abby's Birthday
Ironically enough, my 21st birthday celebration also began at the infamous Acapulco in SB for Happy Hour margaritas but saw a very different conclusion. It was a Monday, the first day of classes my senior year of college and wouldn't you know it, I had a night class from 7-9pm. My plan was to go to Happy Hour with friends, go to class, and then meet back up with everyone after class for more birthday fun, but seeing that two days prior was my sister's wedding and the day before I moved my whole life from San Diego back up to school, I was completely exhausted. Once 9pm rolled around, I wanted nothing more than to go to bed. But my friends did continue the festivities without me and from what I hear, they had a lovely time.

Age 22
Emily's Birthday
Emily's 22nd was celebrated with a little surprise party I put together at Soho, a hip swanky little dinnerhouse/bar/live music hot spot in Santa Barbara which involved an ecclectic mix of friends. I remember this mix vividly as several of the friends in attendance pitched in with me to buy her a video camera which subsequently captured the whole evening on film. Certain other friends simply signed the card to appear as though they had pitched in to buy her this marvelous gift but in typical, expert mooching fashion, never actually gave me a dime...Andy, you know who you are and I am still bitter.

Abby's Birthday
My 22nd birthday was The Most Epic Birthday of All the Epic and Magical Birthdays of All Time. Emily surprised me (and I mean SURPRISED ME) with a limo she had rented for the day to take a small group of girls wine tasting in Santa Ynez. We had the Best. Time. Ever. It was a perfect, beautiful day and she had even managed to plan to do it while my sister was in town visiting so that she could come along. I'm also fairly certain there was a decanter of scotch in the limousine, but honestly that part gets a little fuzzy.

Age 23
Emily's Birthday
Okay, I know I said that all six of the birthdays we've shared together were grandiose and therefore very memorable, but for some reason neither of us can really recall what we did for her 23rd birthday. We're pretty sure this was the night that we splurged on the most amazing dinner of all time ...the Prix Fixe Wine Pairing Dinner Menu at AMEN, SING GLORY HALLELUJAH The Wine Cask. Kumbaya, my Lord. KUM-BAY-A. And to really top it off, we enjoyed this unprecedented meal in the pleasurable company of The Phil (aka "Coach" - Emily's Dad) and The Great Lauren Brock. Shabat shalom.

Abby's Birthday
My 23rd birthday was yet another great fruit of Emily's genius and generosity. She took me to San Francisco for a weekend where she treated me to my first day spa experience...a massage at the original Elizabeth Arden Red Door Day Spa. Cue the angelic singing and bright, blinding lights. We also enjoyed fine dining (oh, the cheese board!), wacky nightlife at some Indian joint in the Haight Ashbury District and a quick jaunt to Napa for a little wine tasting, which of course ended with a trip to Carl's Jr. because what good is wine tasting if you can't follow it up with a Western Bacon Cheeseburger???

Age 24
Emily's Birthday
Believe it or not, this birthday involved Paper Mache. For Emily's 24th, I constructed a large paper orange and filled it with 24 individual envelopes of things to do and see in Orange County and off we went. (Okay, this might not sound like a dream trip to most of you, but you have to understand that Emily has long obsessed over Orange County. No one knows why...we just go with it.) We stayed at the adorable La Casa del Camino hotel in Laguna Beach and trapsed all over town enjoying great shopping, great food, and a really boring movie.

Abby's Birthday
My 24th was all about pampering. (Of course, that's a stupid statement because which of these birthday has NOT been about pampering?) It started with a delicious dinner at The Cliff House and was followed by brunch at the Biltmore the next morning, pedicures at Walter Claudio, and facials at Skin Deep. I know. I have The Coolest Best Friend On The Planet. I believe I was also housesitting in Montecito over this birthday and that Emily brought me my favorite take out to eat by the pool...and maybe also in the pool while we floated on rafts. Sing praises. Amen.

Age 25
Emily's Birthday
Em's 25th began with a surprise lunch at Las Brisas in Laguna Beach attended by a gathering of girlfriends and was followed by a trip to Spa Gregorie's , a group outing to Happy Nails for pedicures, and then a night at the Improv to see Harland Williams, the man who has forced me to view fried calamari as "crispity, crunchity buttholes" forever after.

Abby's Birthday
My 25th was celebrated by an Elmo/Sesame Street-themed surprise party hosted at Starlet's house where we dined upon Frito Boats and then moved the party to Saddleback Lanes for an evening of my favorite activity EVER...bowling. (Even though I did love Sesame Street as a child, I should mention this is not the reasoning behind this choice of decor. It's what was on sale at Party City and considering how much money Emily had dropped on all of my previous birthdays mentioned here and how heavily the slightest bit of guilt weighs upon my conscious, I am very glad she bargain-shopped. The sale items did include a Pin-the-Tail-on-Elmo game, though, (me being Elmo, of course) and it was greatly enjoyed by all.)

Age 26
Emily's Birthday
Emily's 26th was celebrated at our place with a Roaring 20's theme party attended by a gang of friends. Boas and fedora hats were provided so that everyone could look the part without much effort and it made for great pictures. We ate a lot of food including homemade ice cream cake that I am craving as I type this. I love the person responsible for cookies 'n cream.

Abby's Birthday
My 26th happed to fall on my first day back at work after a 10-day vacation in Hawaii where Em and I were in Starlet's wedding so we did this one a bit mellow. We were too docile from being so well rested to go all out and really, too tan to function normally, oh misery. Em and Jon took me out for a yummy Thai food dinner and then joined me at my parents' house where my folks gave me the mighty Senseo and Em gave me one of my most favorite possessions of all time...Season 2 of Felicity.

And thus endeth the glamorous telling of the six birthdays we have shared so far. As you can imagine, we are broke from going hog wild but rich with the best memories of our lives...the kind of memories you're supposed to make in your 20s but that not everyone gets the kind of friends you ought to make them with. I am richly blessed...Emily is the dearest, truest, most loyal and amazing friend I have ever had and I know we will be a part of each other's birthdays ever after.

I love you, Em. Happy birthday...and HERE'S TO 50 MORE!!!

mononucleosis

2005-01-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

It has just been confirmed that Krissie officially has Mono...not SARS. Please accept my apologies for publishing erroneous information. I accept full responsibility for this heinous oversight.

The part about the puss is still true, though.

rubino's: where nobody knows your name even though you go there like all the time

2005-01-26T17:36:00.000-08:00

I try to bring my lunch to work most days of the week in an effort to save a few pennies and eat healthier food but once or twice a week, my beloved co-worker Krissie (the one who looks like Bo Derek) and I treat ourselves to lunch out. Typically, we head to Rubino's for the deal of the century: a huge slice of pizza and a soda for 2 bucks. Or $2.69 if you add a side of Ranch plus tax which, of course, I always do. I mean, I have no choice about the tax part, but I always willingly add the Ranch.

Our Rubino's lunches have become something of a well-choreographed ritual. We depart the office at 12:30pm sharp and drive the 1/4 mile down the street to the shopping center where Rubino's sits perched between A-1 Mail and a real estate office. We drive in whichever Honda Civic is the most readily available in the parking lot right outside our office...typically mine because I am naughty and like to think the rules of parking in the upper lot four days a week don't apply to me because I'm above the law and invincible and cannot be inconvenienced with parking up top when there are open spaces in the lower lot mere steps outside the office door. Sheesh!

When we enter Rubino's at 12:35, the place is always empty except for a few wayward souls who I can only assume either a) just bought a home in Orange County at the real estate office next door and can now only afford to eat the $2 lunch special, or b) simply enjoy the experience of eating in dead silence turned whirlwind-of-loud-obnoxious-high-school-students turned silence again (for which I don't blame them...it's a real thrill.)

We step up to the counter and each place an order for a Number 1 with cheese and a side of ranch, please, with either the Tall Dark Jolly Man or the Moderately Friendly Blonde Woman and then we move on to the soda machine to fill up our styrofoam cups with Dr. Pepper. We grab a stack of napkins and two plastic knives and then robotically retire to our usual table by the door.

We chit chat and sip on our drinks while we wait for our pizza until NUMBER 43, YOUR ORDER IS READY booms over the loud speaker (and yes, they use a loud speaker in this restaurant the size of my living room with only three other customers present, probably just in case we can't hear them over the subtitled soap opera playing on the TV hoisted up in the corner of the room or the faint oldies music playing in the background which only Krissie's finely tuned ear can pick up on...even when she is deathly ill with SARS or some other odd virus she recently contracted on a visit to China and every ounce of her body including her finely tuned ear is congested with, well, congestion. And puss, if I'm being honest.)

Upon the loud announcement of the status of our Number 1s with cheese and a side of ranch, please, one of us dutifully rises to fetch the meal from the counter. We then use several napkins out of our great big stack to sop up the grease floating atop our pizza. (My mother is now reading this with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not because we sop up the grease but because I am eating something that has so much grease atop it that it has to be sopped up. Mom, I totally swear I eat carrots and broccoli for lunch every other day of the week. Promise.)

Next comes the slicing of our giant pieces of pizza into two normal sized pieces which is no small feat when attempted with flimsy plastic knives that must cut through the cheese that is quickly cooling to a solid (more maternal wailing and gnashing of teeth here). Once our slices have been successfully divided, we pray, pop open the side of Ranch (or sides of Ranch as was the case this week cause I totally don't want to get SARS), and proceed to mow down our $2 specials. We munch and dip and swig our sodas and discuss the men in our lives in between bites and over the din of the giant gang of high school students who have now entered the restaurant right on schedule and are being loud and obnoxious right on cue.

After we've finished, we dump our trash and head back to the office for the rest of the afternoon. And after that, it's go home, sleep, eat carrots and broccoli for the next couple of days, and repeat. We are completely predictable. And that's exactly the way I like it.

the sweet smell of...well, not me

2005-01-18T13:50:00.000-08:00

I'm really sorry for all of the Jon-related posts recently but before you start whining and complaining, I'd like to publish a preemptive SHUT UP because I'M ENGAGED and the superlative magical wonder and newness of it all will only last for so long so I'M ENJOYING EVERY MINUTE OF IT while I still can.

So anyway, what I have to say about Jon today has to do with a recent ongoing discussion about household roles and responsibilities, or at least roles and responsibilities as we imagine them to be in our near future as co-habitators. In a moment of panic when I realized I will be cooking all of the meals, doing nearly all of the cleaning, and most likely managing the finances (duh...things wives have been doing since the dawn of time but apparently I'm a slow learner) I asked, "What exactly are YOU bringing to the table?" to which he responded he would take out the trash.

What, like TEN TIMES A DAY or something?

I mean, that's nice and all since it's a chore I'm happy to get rid of but in the grand scheme of things, taking out the garbage hardly seems like enough to balance out my household load.

So we discussed a few options and Jon managing the vacuuming and bathroom cleaning duties is now on the table. I feel the bathroom cleaning portion is particularly fitting since he uses the toilet EVERY. TEN. MINUTES. But the frequency of his trips to the loo is a topic for another post entirely. Another very long, very wordy, very descriptive post about the very core of his being. His very essence. Poop.

Okay, well oddly enough, that's an excellent segue to my point. After dropping the subject for awhile (and intermittently enjoying a leisurely dinner that involved much cheese and a few beans, if you know what I mean) Jon gazed longingly into my eyes, squinched up his nose and said, "I know what I bring to the table. Odorless gas. And the strength to endure your stenches."

Thus concludeth Household Chore Debate #1. We are SO totally even.

mrs abby wallace

2005-01-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

Well, luckily I didn't make Jon Wallace so miserable last month that he could no longer bear to be with me. In fact, I think I might have done some sort of reverse psychology voodoo witchcraft on him by writing that post because he up and proposed. That's right, friends, I said proposed. Jon and I are engaged!

Come July, I will finally get to marry the man I adore.

I will get to marry THE Jon Wallace, master of the random but genuinely interesting historical factoid, the gallon jug of water, and the blue shirt.

I will get to marry the man who never loses his cool, the man who truly never needs to ask for directions, the man who loves Ms. Pacman more than anyone else on the great planet Earth.

I will get to marry the man who can make me laugh a deep, gutteral roar from a part of my stomach I never knew existed, the man who never pretends to be anything other than himself, the man who loves wild adventure and travel, and also lazy afternoon naps.

I will get to marry the man who is unafraid of hard work, the man who can eat an entire meal in three bites, the man who desires to live a simple life in jeans and flip flops as much as I do.

I will get to marry the man who has called me EVERY day that we've been together even though he desperately hates the phone, the man who always builds me up, the man who prays for me.

I will get to marry the man who I most respect, the man who keeps Pepsi in business, the man who I will probably never beat at miniature golf.

I will get to marry the man who loves good music and good books, the man who always eats off my plate and lets me eat off his, the man who hates coffee but graciously grins and bears it while I linger over a big cup and lets me kiss him when I'm finished.

I will get to marry the man who is consistently patient with me, the man who loves his friends and family and encourages me in the way I love mine, the man by whose side the simple act of walking feels like spending a cozy day at home.

Come July, I will finally get to marry the only man who has captured both my head and my heart. My one and only.

At last. I will get to marry Jon Wallace. The love of my life.

eight ways to make jon wallace miserable

2004-12-20T16:01:00.000-08:00

1. Force him to spend a full day making cookies, hanging lights, decorating the tree, and doing Christmas crafts with two holiday spirit-crazed females, namely me and his mother.

2. Cause him to miss the best surf of the year by volunteering him for a full day of Christmas cheer activities...see #1.

3. Take so long getting ready that you no longer have time to grab dinner before the movie you've planned to go see, thus forcing him to eat movie theater popcorn which always gives him a stomach ache.

4. Wait an extra long time in between shifting gears in his beloved truck so that the engine revs loudly and then always slam on the brakes. A lot.

5. Make him "share" the comfy sofa chair with you so that you get to cuddle and he is squished into a space half his size for the duration of a movie.

6. Drink all of his water.

7. Repeatedly ask him what he's getting you for Christmas until he says, "Do you really want to know?" and then scream, "NO!" Of course I don't want to know, you moron! No matter how much I beg you, you are not supposed to even enterTAIN the idea of telling me! Duh." to which he will undoubtedly respond, "Then why do you keep asking?" which means he obviously doesn't understand the game and you must forge ahead in this circular argument for approximately ten more minutes. This one is particularly vicious and not recommended on an empty stomach.

8. See numbers 1 and 2.

the three people you meet in the bathroom

2004-12-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

Let's be honest. There are three kinds of women in this world: Sitters, Squatters, and Seat Cover Nazi's. Most women fall pretty clearly into one of these categories along the germaphobe spectrum when it comes to using public restrooms. (Surely there is a similar breakdown for men but as I am not privy to the goings on in the men's bathroom, urinal and male toilet stall etiquette are beyond my realm of expertise.)

Well, I feel compelled to confess that, for the most part, I am...(gasp)...a Sitter. A straight up, bare-flesh-to-public-toilet sitter. I know, I know...not the most popular option of the three but I assure you, I choose my toilets wisely. For example, at my office the bathrooms are extremely clean and as I work at a church, I feel pretty confident that I run a low risk of contracting a horrible disease from my fellow church staff by sitting directly on the office toilets a couple times a day. If I use the bathroom at a reputable place of business whose facilities appear up to code and my own cleanliness standards, I'm inclined to do the same. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm completely fine with this.

But I promise I'm not completely disgusting. Clearly if I have no choice but to use the restroom in a questionable facility, I take the necessary precautions. And clearly, the "necessary precautions" I am referring to are scooching down the germaphobe spectrum to the Squatter designation and not in the direction of my nemesis, the Seat Cover Nazi.

I don't know what you Seat Cover Nazi's think that thinner-than-air piece of porous tissue is actually protecting you from but let me be the first to shout it from the blogging rooftops...you morons are kidding yourselves. Not to mention completely wasting your time unfurling those "perforated" buggers and getting them to balance on the seat just right so that the center strip doesn't drown and pull the whole thing under with it in a Titanic-like disaster. You might as well be sitting on pantyhose so I say, SUCK IT UP, PRINCESS! and take a good, old fashioned skin-to-plastic seat on the throne. If you're so concerned about being hygienic, then you should eliminate contact all together. Save a tree, give your thighs a work out, and squat.

Now I'll admit that I've used a seat cover a time or two. I'm not proud of this but I've walked into a bathroom with someone I didn't know very well and heard them wrestling with one of those paper demons and didn't want them to think I was a disgusting person so I played along. But I will not fall prey to that trickery again. No, no. I will stand by my word...

Sit, squat, or go home.

the notorious KPV

2004-12-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

I finally got my license plates in the mail for my new car and have to say I'm quite pleased with the outcome. I was really worried I would get a bad number-letter combination that would not only bug me for the rest of my life (read: the amount of time it will take for me to pay off the car), it would bug all of the poor, helpless motorists who will have to stare at it as they drive behind me as well.

California's standard issue plates come with three letters sandwiched in between four numbers. That three-letter combo stands out pretty well and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that there is definitely something inherently good about certain letter combinations and something unquestionably wrong about others. For example, something like UVF is clearly bad and SBZ is pretty cool. YUI is bad. AKJ is good. FHD, bad. RLA, good...and so on and so forth.

Then, of course, there are borderline combos like BRL or GHP in which the final good/bad verdict must be decided based upon the number combos that accompany them, but for the most part, I think the call can be made based on the letters alone. It's pretty cut and dry.

Well, the good news is that I got a marvelous letter combo: KPV. Really, it doesn't get much better than that. In light of my mom's recently issued DOM which seems awfully ominous to me (sorry, Mom), my roommate's NGS which I think might be some sort of racial slur, and my former VLB which might as well be code for some unknown female body part, I consider myself quite lucky.

And even though I didn't need good numbers to accompany a letter combo as good as KPV in order to really put my plates over the edge, I got some. Sorry I can't share them with you...even though I am getting dumber, I'm not dumb enough to publish my entire license plate number on the internet lest some psycho use it for evil and start stalking me or something. Not likely since my weekly readership totals on this site presently average approximately 2.5 harmless friends who have nothing better to do than to read this junk and who immediately disregard the pointless crap I've written about anyway, but you never can be too careful.

So I just wanted to report this mini-victory to...uh...you. My faithful 2.5 harmless friends who will actually read this. And who will hopefully not read it carefully enough to fully realize just how weird I really am. Oh, who am I kidding? You 2.5 already know.

i am getting dumber

2004-12-06T08:51:00.000-08:00

Exhibit A
On a recent trip to Round Table Pizza to pick up dinner with my roommate Emily, I noticed a large poster on the wall advertising a veggie pizza named "Gueneviere's Garden Delight". I became extremely confused and paused for a moment of reflection...

Me: Oh my gosh, Emily. That's so weird! Why on earth would they name that veggie pizza Gueneviere's Garden Delight? As though the name Gueneviere has anything at all to do with vegetables or pizza. What were they thinking? That is so stupid. There is nothing medieval about veggie pizza!

Emily: Abby...we're at Round. Table. Pizza.

Me: Oh.

Exhibit B
While driving to my office Christmas party last week with my beloved co-worker Krissie (who, I should mention, is notably blonde and fair), we had the following conversation...

Krissie: Hey, you know that volunteer that's been sitting by me recently?

Me: (Nod in acknowledgment of middle-aged black woman who has been sharing her cubicle.)

Krissie: Today she told me I look like Bo Derek.

Me: What!?! Krissie, if anyone in this scenario looks like Bo Derek, it would be your volunteer.

Krissie: Huh?

Me: Wait...who is Bo Derek? Isn't he that black guy that played all the professional sports?

Krissie: No. She's that famous blonde model/actress. I think you're thinking of Bo Jackson.

Me: Oh. Cool! Then maybe you really do look like her!

Honestly, what has become of me?

why i prefer to remain unmotivated

2004-11-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I stepped foot outside of reality and into the world of the motivational seminar. Our whole staff was sent to a special leadership training event. I think it was intended to be some sort of incentive or reward but as it turns out, I would've preferred to pull out all of my arm hair with my teeth and knit a scarf with it had I been given the choice.

I should preface the rest of this expose by saying it wasn't ALL bad...there were a few good speakers in the line up whose upstanding reputations I will protect by not mentioning their names. But the rest of this event was a mysterious experience.

Over the course of the day, I witnessed pyrotechnics, the perfomance of numerous "motivational" songs including but not limited to a "Proud to Be an American" medley performed by a blonde decked out in pleather pants (plastic-leather for those fortunate enough to have avoided the phenomenon thus far in life), a female emcee wearing a bright magenta suit and black sequined top, a salvation message/altar call sandwiched in between two get-rich-quick infomercials on how to make millions via a) the stock market and b) real estate, and a showering of thousands of American flag beach balls all around the arena during the dance competition portion of the afternoon (which, naturally, awarded the craziest dancer with a DisneyWorld vacation).

I still don't know what the theme of the day was...I'm beginning to think there wasn't one and maybe the whole thing was a set up. Maybe I was actually in an alternate reality created by a scientist who wanted to study human reactions to the incongruent, the disingenuous, and the bizarre. In fact, I think I would feel better knowing that were the case.

Seriously, I want my 8 hours back.

everyone who has ever made fun of my car should read this

2004-11-02T13:50:00.000-08:00

Well, folks...it's official. I have finally done the deed. I dug deep within my stingy soul and my pocketbook and I bought a new car.

Those of you who know me and are acquainted with my former automobile are most likely muttering, "It's about frickin' time!" under your breath (or perhaps more loudly). But for those of you who have never seen my old faithful ride, please allow me to paint a picture of the vehicle that has just been victoriously replaced:

It's a '91 Nissan Sentra. Theoretically it's red, but anyone with two good eyes can plainly see the truth...it's more like dingy maroon with pink highlights where the paint is badly chipped and oxidized. Two years ago I was rear-ended in a hit and run accident involving a single white female hopped up on crazy pills and had to get the bumper fixed. The auto shop presented me with a newly repaired bumper that was so shiny and red that it no longer matched the rest of the car. Nice.

Then last year I was rear-ended again, this time by “Vito Lenny”, the Italian could-be Mafia member/community college art professor with, I kid you not, NAMASTE on the license plate of his giant Lincoln Town Car. (I'm curious: When did crime lords get into painting and yoga? I was tempted to ask but didn't want to find a bloody horse head under my sheets.) Paying bills and buying shoes seemed like a much better use of the insurance funds I received as a result of this incident so I opted out of fixing Sentra and it was left missing large chunks of paint on its sparkling bumper. Just what it needed.

But those of you who are familiar with this car are wishing I would quit all this small talk already and get to the Sentra's most distinguishing and important features. So here goes.

First, it has…deep breath…a SPOILER. A completely inexplicable spoiler. An entirely unnecessary, ridiculous, and altogether shameful spoiler. I considered having it removed once but then decided it adds a good $25 to the value of the car and that when it would come time to sell it, I was going to need every bit of added value I could get. Plus, why remove the one characteristic of the car that has helped me develop the most character by being its owner and driver?

Second, and most ironic of all, darling Sentra is equipped with a top-of-the-line alarm. With one look at this car, you would wonder why I ever locked it at all, but the trusty "bleep, bleeeeep" sound that reverberated as I hit the button on my keychain helped confirm for everyone within a 2-mile radius that, in fact, my precious car was secure. Fortunately, after a couple weeks of ownership, I figured out how to turn the alarm to silent mode allowing me to lock up much more discreetly. But those first few weeks were shaky. Honestly, I've never been on the receiving end of such bizarre looks in my life.

Oh, how I could go on. There are countless stories I could tell about this car, such as the drooping headliner debacle, the time I got pulled over by the Border Patrol because they thought a little blondie driving such a vehicle must undoubtedly be smuggling illegal aliens across the border from Mexico (and I do not mean this offensively, I’m simply stating the facts), the transmission problem that put 5th gear out of commission and kept me cruising at a cool maximum of 55mph, the stolen stereo incident (yes, someone actually broke into it...maybe I shouldn't have turned the alarm to silent-mode after all?), the numerous rescues by Triple A…where do I stop?

But ultimately, no matter how tragic or entertaining, these are not the things I will remember about this car. I will remember the phase of life that it drove me through, the season.

Listen up, Sentra-mockers. It's time you heard this.

I will remember the incredible feeling of freedom as I drove off my college campus for the first time in a car of my own and all of the desperate attempts to find parking in front of Van Kampen Hall each time I returned.

I will remember the way I packed it to the gills to move into my first apartment. And my second. And my third.

I will remember how it drove me to my first important job interview, my first 10-mile race, my favorite concerts, and always home for the holidays.

I will remember its scorching hot seats after long days at the beach, its forgiveness for my singing voice, its consistency no matter my mood.

I will remember the conversations had, the arguments fought, the kisses shared, and the prayers spoken in its walls.

I will remember Emily wanting to fall asleep in its comfortable seats every Sunday on the way to the first church I “shopped for” and chose on my own.

I will remember the countless road trips up and down the coast and all of the times it took me to the airport to fly off to see Jon or pick him up for a visit.

I will remember crying in it, laughing in it, giving myself pep talks in it.

I will remember making unalterable life decisions in its company as I drove by myself, listening to my favorite music or simply the hum of the road beneath us.

Mostly, I will remember the space it gave me during the time of my life when I changed and grew so much that I not only became an adult, I became myself. I will remember the quiet times spent in it on my own that taught me to appreciate the art and the grace of being alone.

Sure, I could’ve been driving something a lot nicer these last six years...no one will disagree with that...but no finer car could’ve made this season of my life any sweeter or any more complete.

So I’m sorry this is long, but before I dive headlong into my next phase of life, the late-20s Honda Civic phase, I needed this closure. I needed to pay my deepest respects. And I think it goes without saying that an old friend like Sentra deserved a thorough and proper eulogy.

next speaker, please

2004-10-07T16:49:00.000-07:00

It's Day 1 of spring break my senior year of high school and I'm on drop-mom-off-at-work duty so I can use her car all day. What better way to ease the pain and inconvenience of having to get up so early on my vacation than to stop at McDonald's and treat myself to breakfast?

As this thought occurs to me, I begin mentally patting myself on the back for being such a genius. Ah, hindsight.

So I pull up to the first big menu board at the McDonald's drive thru and roll down my window. I can smell my greasy vittles a-cookin' as I hear the Less Than Enthusiastic Drive Thru Attendant say, "Next speaker, please." So I lean out the window and proceed to order.

Me: "Hi. I'd like hashbrowns and a small orange juice."

LTEDTA: Silence.

Me: "Hello??"

LTEDTA: "Next speaker, please."

Me: "Oh, hi. I'd like hashbrowns and a small orange juice."

LTEDTA: Silence.

Me: "Hello? Are you there? Can you hear me? I said I want hashbrowns and a small orange juice."

LTEDTA: "Next speaker, please."

Me: (Louder) "Hi. Thanks. I said I would like HASH...BROWNS...and a SMALL...ORANGE...JUICE."

LTEDTA: Silence.

I snap my head back in the car in frustration. Argh...the nerve. I just want my bloody breakfast, you morons! Well forget it, there's no one in line in front of me and there's a bagel shop across the parking lot so I decide to take my business elsewhere. Serves 'em right.

I pull out of the drive thru agressively and try to shake off my irritation. After winding through the strip mall parking lot with no luck for a few minutes, I find my car once again facing the entrance to the McDonald's drive thru and decide it's meant to be. I will get my hashbrowns and orange juice, damn it. I will!

So I pull up to the first menu board again and roll my window back down.

Me: "Hello?"

LTEDTA: "Next speaker, please."

Me: "Yes, hi. That's me. I'd like hashbrowns and a small orange juice, please."

LTEDTA: "Next speaker, please."

Me: "For crying out loud. I AM the next speaker!! Can't you hear me? I want HASHBROWNS and a SMALL ORANGE JUICE."

LTEDTA: Silence.

Hmmm, suddenly I notice that the creepy man waiting in line behind me is exiting his large van and walking toward my car. For a split second I hope that instead of rape or kidnap me, he intends to take care of business and set this drive-thru idiot straight.

Creepy Man: "Um, excuse me, miss. I think they want you to pull up to the next speaker."

And so he did.

Me: "Oh...um...uh huh." (Bashful smile) "Yeah. Uh, thanks."

Turns out maintaining your pride leaves a way better taste in your mouth than hashbrowns and orange juice.

raised by wolves

2004-10-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before that my boyfriend isn't into nicknames or terms of endearment. He falls into (he'd prefer reigns) the alpha-male category and would sooner choose to guzzle a 40-ouncer of Ipecac or chew off his own feet than be called something so emasculating as "sweetie" or "honey". He's strong and athletic, a rugged outdoorsman who'd be perfectly content to take off into the woods by himself for a week and eat nothing but peanut butter and crickets and small woodland creatures that he kills with his bare hands.

Okay, that last bit was perhaps a slight exaggeration, but work with me here.

I think maybe my roommate said it best when she proclaimed, "I just can't picture him coming from a mother. I think he must have been raised by wolves." Now, don't misunderstand me. He's not some heartless beast or savage. He's completely house broken and he functions very well in civilized society. He's sweet, intelligent, thoughtful, and handsome and most importantly, actually did come from a human mother, a very loving and nurturing one no less. It's just that he's a true man's man and he doesn't like anything messing with that, particularly something so unnecessary as sweet talk.

So unfortunately, this poses a wee problem for a natural-born nicknamer such as myself. After watching him wince on numerous occassions when I've called him something so offensive as "sweetheart" or "darling", I have asked in great frustration, "So, what CAN I call you?" And every time the answer has been the same: "Just call me by my name. Call me Jon."

So that's what I've been doing. Or trying to do, at least. I've slipped a few times with a "babe" or a "love" here and there but he has graciously let those go. In fact, out of nowhere he recently thanked me for working so hard on specific areas of our relationship, a thoughtful statement that I treasured and translated to mean, among other things, "Thank you for respecting the fact that I don't like to be called gooey pet names and for making an effort not to use them."

And I've got to tell you, I'm kind of beginning to like it. I'm not sure I'm willing to admit this to him yet but I'm learning there's something very powerful about calling the person you love by name and something even stronger about hearing them call you by yours.

More selfishly, I have to confess that the satisfaction of being able to do something small to lift him up has significantly quelled my (minor) disappointment at not being called by terms of endearment myself. And even though I don't get the traditional affectionate nicknames, I should mention in Jon's defense that he has established a few of his own to replace the old standards. I get the aforementioned Evil Jungle Princess, the periodic Foul Temptress of the Night (a name that is completely obscure and not at all the product of a juicy story like it might sound), and my personal favorite, Abblesauce.

So I'm thinking since these fly I may soon be able to get Raised by Wolves on his approved list. That would help confirm for the nicknamer in me that I'm not altogether at a loss.

strategic living: the finer points of peaceful coexistence

2004-09-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

After rooming with my best friend for over 5 years now, we have ironed out the nitty gritty of roommate living and established a basic "if it needs to be done, do it...if it needs to be cleaned, clean it" approach. Like grandma says, it really does seem to come out in the wash.

But as with all good rules, there are exceptions to this one, and they are very important to know. If there's one thing I've learned about peacefully coexisting, it's that it often boils down to leverage. I don't mean keeping score, I mean strategy. Let me explain.

Exception #1: I always take out the trash.
This particular household chore does not fall under the "if it needs to be done, do it" category because Emily simply doesn't do it. She "clams up" and "doesn't know what to do" when the trash can is full. I think it's kind of like stage fright, only with garbage. Or maybe she felt a certain kinship with Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout in elementary school and decided to take her lifestyle to heart. I'm not really sure.

In any case, Emily claims to be "bad at" taking trash bags out to the dumpster. (Translation: She missed the giant 6'x15' opening once about 4 years ago when attempting to heave a big bag into it and therefore feels she lacks the skills to successfully complete this task in the future.)

Terrible excuses, right? WRONG. Please keep reading.

Exception #2: I don't do electronics.
When it comes to setting up the DVD player, the VCR, the TV, the stereo, etc. and particularly when it comes to pushing the appropriate buttons in the appropriate sequence on any number of our remote controls to operate said electronics, I am out for the count. This is Emily's domain. She is a (lovable, moderately OCD) freak and actually likes to read manuals on these kinds of things so they're all hers.

For the most part, I'm a pretty smart girl so it's no secret that if I really had to, I could figure out our household electronics. But because I really don't want to, I get to play dumb. Just like Emily and the trash.

See what I mean? Leverage.

Now, some of you might be thinking that, based on the illustration I have just provided, I'm getting the raw end of the deal. Stinky, rotten garbage vs. clean, sleek electronics may seem like a no brainer, but do not be deceived. This is where strategy comes in. Since I'm pretty indifferent about the trash removal chore, I choose to assume responsibility for it so I can strategically get off the hook from doing other things that I'd rather not do.

Without pulling out the exhaustive language from the Official Roommate Code Book, Volume I on Exceptions #3-#97, here are a few more examples to make sure you get my point:

I kill the bugs and spiders and clean up the cat barf; Emily thinks up genius things to make for dinner when we only have 6.5 items in the frige and half are moldy. I typically load and unload the dishwasher; Emily cleans out the huge stack of magazines we get each month and is responsible for building and monitoring fires in the fireplace. I do most of the grocery shopping and write the rent check; Emily writes the checks for our utility bills. I water the plants; Emily monitors our living room decor and refrigerator door to make sure they are minimalistic in nature and clutter-free, respectively.

Of course, there are exceptions to these exceptions because we often blur the lines and pick up the slack for each other when needed, but for the most part, these are our standard living procedures. Our SLP's.

We've lived together so long that all of our married friends joke we're like husband and wife. (I'm always the husband in this scenario which is very bothersome, but that's a topic for another time.) We usually laugh or roll our eyes at this joke but I'm really beginning to hope my own marriage will work this well.

And also that I can pass off the trash and bug-killing duties to my future husband in exchange for a few better ones, but that's neither here nor there.

active imagination

2004-09-23T16:24:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I had an incredibly active imagination.

I imagined I had 10 brothers and sisters (since in real life I have only one and this seemed like a great shame to me.) I gave them all names and every morning before school I would close the bathroom door and quietly recite the same speech into the mirror as though I was telling my classmates about my giant family for my day of show and tell. I made sure to include personal details about each one of them in my speech, i.e. "Colby is my oldest brother. He's 18 and he's on the soccer team and has a really pretty girlfriend." Colby is the only one I remember now. Long live imaginary cheese brother.

I imagined I was an Olympic gymnast and performed difficult vaults in my backyard using the mini, circular trampoline my mom got at Price Club to exercise on (and I don't think ever did...remember those?) as my springboard and the stucco-ed retaining wall as my vault. I nailed it every time.

I imagined that my boogie board was a horse named Misty and that the act of riding the whitewater of some awfully wimpy waves at Cardiff State Beach was actually the two of us on an epic cross-country adventure.

I imagined that all of my clothes could talk to each other and I would strategically re-hang my clean laundry in different locations in the closet so they could all get to know each other. I'd hang one piece up and say out loud "Blue Shirt, this is Red Shirt. Have you met?" (Okay, was this revealing too much?)

I imagined I had to drive the afternoon carpool to pick up my imaginary kids after school and would ride my bike all over the neighborhood stopping in front of the same houses on my carpool route and talking out loud to my "kids" as they hopped in the "car". It's a wonder so many of my neighbors later asked me to babysit for their children after witnessing such dementia.

I imagined that the giant tree in my front yard was a big, two-story house and that each of the big branches were different rooms. There was a kitchen, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a master bedroom with it's own "exit" that I would swing out of, and, of course, a sewing room. There was also a large storage closet but it was pretty high up so I didn't use it much.

I don't know why all these memories came to me today but all of a sudden I felt so sad I don't imagine like I used to. These days, my imaginative thoughts only reach so far as dreaming that my credit cards are an unlimited source of free money and that McDonald's will start serving the Shamrock Shake year round. And also that Alias is really going to come on this Sunday night, despite all evidence to the contrary.

So I've decided to try to re-activate my imagination a little and I thought it best to warn you. If you see me driving down the freeway talking to myself, fear not. I'm not going quietly mad, I'm just talking to my "kids" in the back seat. And if you're laying at the beach this weekend while I attempt to surf and you hear me whinnying from the water, don't be alarmed. It's just me and Misty (all grown up) on another epic adventure. I think I'll not revert to introducing my clothes to each other but I make no promises about resurrecting Colby and the missing 9. I'm too young to be old, and I never did get any brothers so I figure I might as well.

wedding rings

2004-09-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

I was in a coffee shop today and was enjoying some good people watching while the teenage barista was steaming and frothing my latte. A middle-aged, awkward, disheveled man wearing a sloppy outfit came in while I was waiting and caught my attention. He was not self-assured, not graceful, not quite right...the kind of guy who looks odd enough to make you feel really uncomfortable for him. The kind of guy who is just off enough that you feel embarrassment for him even though he is completely oblivious to all the things he should theoretically be embarrassed about. I would call him "unapologetically dorky" but I don't think that's accurate. He was so clueless about his dorkiness that he didn't even know to be unapologetic about it.

He stepped away from the counter holding a muffin on a very small plate. The coffee shop was crowded but he managed to find a chair for himself. With no table to set his food on, he pulled his knees together sort of femininely, set the tiny plate on his lap, and proceeded to awkwardly nibble on his muffin.

Instantly, without thinking about it or consciously intending to do so, I realized my eyes were searching wildly for a good look at his left hand in hopes I'd find him wearing a wedding ring. Now, this is a pretty normal learned behavior of most single women and a habit of curiosity that's hard to break even once you're happily dating (as I am) and don't care about a stranger's marital status. But on this particular occasion, my instinctive search for a ring on this guy's hand had nothing to do with interest about his availability. On this occasion, I looked for a ring out of pure, desperate hope that there is someone out there who loves him. Someone who needs him. Someone who is as oblivious to his dorkiness as he is and who adores him and greets him affectionately at the end of a long day.

But even more than that, I looked for a ring out of the selfish hope that I wouldn't have to feel sorry for him or worry for him. Because as long as someone else out there loves and cares about him, I wouldn't have to. As long as someone else is a friend to him, I wouldn't have to feel guilty that I don't want to be one. I wouldn't have to suck up my discomfort and try to love him myself. If he's married, then he has at least one person in his life. If he's married, I'm off the hook.

Most of the time I think I really have it together. I think I'm good to people and caring and that I live by noble principles. And then the awkward guy in the coffee shop happens and the ugliness of my human nature slaps me in the face.

Today I went back to square one.

a little bit about me

2004-09-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, let's get down to the basics. There are a few things you ought to know about me.

I am a skilled chunk hound. When it comes to ice cream (and it does every night for me), I don't believe in flavors without chunks and I am gifted at digging through cartons to make sure I get big ones in every bite. I am regularly reprimanded by my roommate for leaving our ice cream in chunk-free ruins.

I have my nose pierced. (Sorry...this is about as dangerous and rebellious as I get. Does it sound more dramatic if I also mention that I work for a church? No? I didn't think so but it was worth a shot.)

I always sleep on my side.

I have never craved a sandwich.

My boyfriend periodically calls me Evil Jungle Princess. Don’t be alarmed…I am not (usually) evil nor do I hail from a jungle or any sort of royal lineage. This distinguished title really has nothing to do with me personally, rather it is the name of a chicken dish at a local Thai restaurant that he's particularly fond of. My boyfriend isn’t too keen on doling out nicknames or terms of endearment so I have to take what I can get.

I loathe cleaning out the bathtub.

After living by the beach for 26 years, I am finally learning to surf.

I have an aggressively strong (some might call it hyperactive) conscience. Stories about the silly things it has driven me to do should be reserved for another time. Like when I'm in the mood to laugh at myself so hard that I actually shed tears. And pee a little bit. In my pants.

I’m terrible at estimating numbers, i.e. how many people are in a crowd, how much people weigh, how many miles it is between point A and point B, etc. I am also inept at determining when someone has had plastic surgery. (I rely on my roommate for this. She has a special gift.)

I fear public restrooms. Not in a germaphobe kind of way...more like in a don't-want-to-be-raped-and-killed-in-one kind of way. For crying out loud, haven't you people seen the movie Copycat?

My fingers (particularly my thumbs) are freakishly bendable. And I mean freakishly.

In my mind, each number is a different color. This would take a great deal of time to fully explain but basically, it goes like this: zero and one are white with a black outline, two is pink, three is yellow, four is red, five is blue, six is salmon, seven is green, eight is turquoise (most of the time, at least...eight is fickle for me), and nine is maroon. So you can easily understand why the number 4629 (for example) is unattractive in my head. It just doesn't go together, you know? Come to find out this whole color/number thing is a legitimate neurological phenomenon. It has a scientific name and there are books about it and everything. I have been many things in my life but never a "phenomenon" of any kind so I consider this progress. A personal advancement of sorts. Being a neurological phenomenon is definitely a good thing.

true story

2004-09-03T17:29:00.000-07:00

True story.
In 7th grade I had to be rescued by a lifeguard while I was wearing a vegetable print bathing suit. (If that doesn’t sound like much to you, I suggest you re-read that first sentence while paying particularly close attention to the words “7th grade” and “vegetable print bathing suit.”)

It was my class’ end-of-the-year beach party. I was in need of a new bathing suit so mother dearest took me to Marshall’s the night before the party in hopes to find a bargain. Regrettably, though, my 7th grade “not a girl, not yet a woman” physique prevented any of the choice bathing suits from fitting properly so mom kept bringing me other options to try until we came across one that fit.

Yep, you guessed it…the vegetable print bathing suit. In hideous, 70s wallpaper shades of green, orange, white, and brassy reds (you know, for the tomatoes), this one-piece doozie was a far cry from the feminine look I had in mind. (Okay, so it had a couple splashes of deep purple where eggplant peaked through the bounty of onions, carrots, and broccoli, but that totally doesn’t count.) To this day, I would like to break the nose of the fool that thought to manufacture this little number in the perfect size for a junior high girl.

For some reason, this bathing suit seemed to please my mother greatly. Probably because the price was right and it made me MUCH less desirable prey for the junior high boys but neither of these reasons occurred to me at the time. All I knew was that it was my only choice and if I wanted to please my mom (a skill I learned at an early age and have spent the better part of my life perfecting) I had to get the suit. Besides, who was really going to notice anyway??

The answer to that question is quite simple: Everyone.
I went to the beach party wearing the vegetable bathing suit and went swimming with friends. When we all decided to head back in, I swam hard but didn’t seem to get anywhere. A lifeguard swam out to rescue me and pulled me to shore where I found a large gathering of classmates staring and laughing (at both my near-drowning incident AND the bathing suit, of course). The lifeguard claimed I was caught in a rip tide. I’m still not sure that was the case but was grateful for his very official proclamation since it protected me from the alternative…exposing the fact that I’m a terrible swimmer would’ve been really put my embarrassment over the edge.

Needless to say, this was a rough way to end 7th grade. So why tell this story NOW? After all these years? Well, I’ve only recently been able to confess it to my closest friends and to my mother (who, by the way, claims to have no recollection of the offending suit and acted quite wounded when I recounted all the ways it scarred me.) But finally confessing made me realize how good I really had it. While most junior highers were dealing with divorcing parents, identity crises, getting mixed up with the wrong crowd, etc., I was dealing with the vegetable bathing suit. Just me and a piece of nylon material printed with a thorough cross-section of produce from your neighborhood grocery store.

That, my friends, is the best introduction I can think to give you to my pretty, sweet life.