A couple of thoughts

1.) Tonight at Starbucks, Jon and I had front row seats to a parking lot sobriety test that was failed miserably. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The woman couldn't even stand on the line with both feet on the ground without falling over, but the true comedy came when they asked her to walk a couple of paces, one foot in front of the other. She lifted her right foot, thought intensely for a moment, wobbled a bit, then set it down in about the correct location. Close enough, at least. Then, she lifted her left foot, thought intensely for another moment, and set it down right on top of her right foot. HILARIOUS.

and 2.) Have you ever had a zit on your forehead so huge that your hairdresser's hand gets caught on it, then she looks to see what her hand got caught on, then she apologizes for looking?

Not very tricky...

So after I went and bought a ton of Halloween candy, poured it all into one of those classic jack-o-lantern pails, and set it out on my desk for the entire office to enjoy, into my head popped the most hilarious scenario. It went like this: I choose one person at work and I don't let them take a piece of candy until they say "Trick or Treat". I make this person believe that I make everyone in the office say "Trick or Treat" before allowing them to take a piece of my candy. THEN, when a group of people are all standing around in the lobby, this person comes along for a little snack, says "Trick or Treat", waits for my approval before taking their candy, and everyone laughs at them. SO--- I picked my victim (it really wasn't a difficult decision, let's just leave it at that), and IT'S NOT WORKING. Apparently, he'd prefer just not have any candy at all rather than say "Trick or Treat". I probably should have foreseen that. Plan ruined.




What on earth could possibly be lamer than a motorcycle cop? How about a...?










Picture thanks to Jon, who is currently on his way home from his most recent trip to spend his SIXTH CONSECUTIVE WEEKEND at home with yours truly. The water you see in the picture is the Juan de Fuca Strait, which is not in South America at all. Not even close.

Gloggity Glogg

Remember camcorder buddy? Our next-door neighbor that gave us his old camcorder when he bought a new one? The guy that later quizzed us when we were on our way out the door to go to my company barbeque and asked why we weren’t taking it with us? Well as it turns out, he’s one of the maintenance people for the entire apartment complex. One day Jon’s chatting with him about life in general, and the next thing we know, we’ve got all new fixtures, lights, blinds, ceiling fans, faucets, and a new fridge. Hooray! Between all that, and a recent trip to the Phoenix IKEA, we’ve pretty much got a brand new house.

Here’s what our apartment looked like two years ago, when we first moved to Tucson.

And here’s what it looks like now.

No, I did not tell Penny to lay in the picture. She always figures out how to best be in your way, then she plops down right there. Folding blankets; she tries to lay on them. Adjusting the rug; she stands right in front of your face. Speaking of adjusting the rug, just forget about how it doesn't quite lay flat in the picture. I pulled the ottoman over and apparently forgot to smooth out the wrinkle I created.

The couches are old news, I know. But the blue rug isn’t. And fancy that – matching end tables! Who knew they could bring me so much joy? We almost got a new coffee table, too, but I decided I wasn’t ready to part with old one yet. My mom got it the week I was born, and I’ve spent many-an-hour running in circles around that thing, flipping the sides up and down. As it is, we always leave them down, and I have no idea why you'd ever flip them up, but I like to have the option.

Among the other things we bought at IKEA:

WHAT?! Who knew you could buy these things?? The best part is that on the side of the carton, a caption explains, "Silently Traps and Kills Prey". Good thing, too, because that silly plant saying "Hello Lunch!" is pretty misleading.

We passed a huge display of this stuff while waiting in the checkout line. First we started out making fun of it (GLOGG) but a few minutes later, after casting many pining looks behind him, Jon requested that I “Go grab some glogg” for him. We haven’t tried it yet, but apparently it’s supposed to be served warm with nuts and raisins.

In conclusion, please tell me if this math adds up.

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PS – I’m very grateful to Camcorder Buddy for the upgrades: HOWEVER :: He’s kind of an oddball. As in, he talked the entire time about how he’s the best person EVER at replacing towel racks and the like. (“I don’t even need the instructions.” Fifteen minutes later: “See that? That would have taken anyone else another hour.” Twenty minutes after that: “You know Harold? It takes him TWO DAYS to do what I’m doing here”). Also, there was an awkward moment when he and I were outside cleaning up the mess from the packaging on the new fridge. His dirty baby was crawling around in the gravel with crap all over his face, and this guy starts talking about how heavy the kid is, then to prove his point, he scooped the baby up out of the dirt and flung him at me. (“…OH...um…hi baby. Yep, he’s heavy…” [trying to hand it back..no luck…set it on the ground]). Does anyone else think this is weird? First time meeting this guy, and he forces me to hold his filthy baby? We’re definitely not at that point in our relationship.

PSS – Jon has been in town for FIVE CONSECUTIVE WEEKENDS!!!!

Claims to Fame

Possibly seeing Robin from the Real World in Banana Republic the other day got me to thinking about my other brushes with stardom. You probably won’t be impressed.

• I once saw a guy that looked kind of like M. Night Shyamalan at a Ralph’s grocery store in Anaheim on our honeymoon.

• I was once in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas when some old guy named Pete Rose was sitting in front of a sports store, signing autographs for people that purchased any item. Jon knew who he was, and so did about five other people in the general area.

• Some confused old lady in Pottery Barn once mistook me for Claire Danes. Okay, that was an exaggeration. It went like this:

Her: You look so much like Claire Danes! Are you her sister?!?

Me: I’m not, but I have been told before that I look like her…

Her: [gasps midsentence] Oh! Oh…I thought you were going to say that you ARE her!

Yes, I took that picture specifically for this purpose, and no, I don't want to talk about it.

I only see it at certain angles. This one does the trick. I’ll allow it.

Tangent: Before I moved to Las Vegas after high school, I’d never been compared to anyone famous, but once I was there I got a new one almost every day. The most ridiculous one I ever heard: “a white Halle Barry”. The most offensive one ever: Drew Barrymore. Drew Barrymore?!?!! Take it back.

End tangent and continuing with my Claims to Fame list:

• I was the drum major for the Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School marching band. Here’s a picture of me leading the band down Highway 395 in Carson City for the Nevada Days parade. We were too poor to afford a camera with a zoom, apparently.

Despite my obscenely huge feet, the band teacher told me that I was the best drum major they EVER HAD. In your faces!

• I met with and shook Elder Bednar’s hand the day he was set apart as an apostle. Jon didn’t think it was a big deal, because he’d met him a few times previously at BYU-I when he was the president of the school (Bednar…not Jon). But I thought it was cool. It was especially interesting because he and his wife were walking out of the Fashion Place mall when we bumped into them. On a Sunday. Right after being announced as an apostle. I like to think he was squeezing in some shopping after the general session of conference and before his next meeting.

• Peter Noon from Herman’s Hermits once autographed my shirt. Two of my friends and I went to a concert in Reno wearing matching wife beaters:

And got a little love from the lead singer. Warning: Scary/ugly picture of us coming up. ESPECIALLY of Peter Noon.

We stopped at a Krispy Kremes on our way back to Gardnerville to eat donuts and take stupid pictures.

Also, try saying Herman Hermits fast. I’ve been plagued my entire life to say “Herman Herbits” when I get too excited about it. And by “my entire life”, I mean the past six years or so, because the first time I’d ever heard about them was the night before the concert when we three got together to make our tank tops.

Anyway, last but not least on my list of brushes with stardom: I once passed Eugenia from America’s Next Top Model walking down the sidewalk in New York City last year.

And that’s it. The end. Pretty sad. Forget I even mentioned it.

Dear Vandals, You're Stupid, Kthxbai

A good part of my morning was spent on hold for the Tucson Police Department. When I finally got a hold of an officer, I was able to report that sometime between the hours of 7:00PM last night, and 7:30AM this morning, our office building was the victim of a drive-by shooting.





This is the second time since we moved into this building that we've been grateful they opted for the shatter-proof, double-paned windows. A few months ago, the newspaper delivery woman ran herself over with her car (at 3 in the morning), which somehow jumped the curb once she was positioned in front of it and mowed her over en route to hit the building. The glass didn't even crack. And she was fine. Okay she wasn't fine. Her leg was broken and she had to drag herself to her car to call 911 on her cell phone. But it could have been worse.

Other things I did today: Made about ninety phone calls to the building owner and contractors, had a meeting with a very nice lady cop, and found a couple of LOLcats that I had squirreled away on my hard drive for a rainy day. You know you love them.

Penny: Elle est un peu retardé

What happens when you put a little bit of orange soda in Penny's water dish? She drinks until she throws up. Which brings me to this: It's been a year since we got this little weirdo. Here's a look back at some of her dumbest moments.

• When she came running into the living room with her ball attached to her collar.

• When she tried to act brave around the umbrella, even though it was perfectly obvious that she was scared of it.

• When she loses her mind every time Jon opens up a bottle of near-beer (ew) because she knows what comes once he's finished with it:

• When she got attacked by a lusty chihuahua at the dog park.

• When she fell going down concrete steps and scooted on the ground, on her face, causing injury to her lip. (Sound familiar?)

• When she cried like a maniac at our company picnic every time Jon was out of view. In her defense...she really loves him.

Aw. Ignore her creepy eyes. They don't usually look like that.

Also, it may have been my fault that she drank so much water. I was the one that dribbled the soda in there, and I laughed until I cried because she was drinking so violently. But her water dish is fairly small, so I didn't think she could make herself sick on only that much. I was wrong. She's better now.

A Few Things:

1) We left a pot to soak overnight inside of another pot full of water. In the morning, the pot inside of the other pot was covered in a layer of clear slime (like egg whites), and it had changed color from red to pink. THE PLOT THICKENS: Once the pot was dry, it turned back to its original color. But when it got wet again, it turned pink again. The first person to give a semi-plausible explanation for this phenomenon wins my respect.


2) Jeopardy question:

Jon’s answer: Jesusbird
Actual answer: Cardinal

3) Corinne called me on Saturday to say that she walked into her bedroom to find a mouse all curled up on her pillow, taking a nap. One of her cats pounced on it, once, then lost interest when the mouse ran away. I guess that’s what you get for buying cats that look like this:

4) We went and saw Ghost Town this weekend. It was pretty good – I would recommend it, though it could have done without some parts, and I’m pretty sure there were some inconsistencies in the plot (though I’m not known for being the World’s Best Follower-of-Movies). But it made me laugh out loud a few times, and I’d give it a solid B. There were two F-bombs, for those who care.

5) This is what Jon looked like when we went to see the movie. He's great. I'm obsessed with those pants.

6) Afterwards we went to Banana Republic (the entire store was 30% off!) and got a couple of things. Jon is convinced that Robin from the Real World San Diego was in the store, but I wasn’t so sure. It definitely sounded like her, but she was at least 40 pounds lighter than she is right now on the current Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I would take Jon’s word on this over mine, though, because I’m also not the World’s Best Face Recognizer. I have a real problem with remembering faces. And he didn’t just say that it LOOKED like her, he says he knows that it WAS her.

7) The lady at BR that helped us out was a real piece of work.

Me: Could you check in the back to see if you’ve got this in the next size down? I already looked on the rack and there wasn’t one.
Her: [seven minutes later] There wasn’t another one out on the floor. Would you like me to check in the back?
Me: …….yes please.

After she came back with no luck finding one in the size I wanted, she spent at least three minutes arguing – literally arguing with me - about the fit. “It’s not too big…no, there’s supposed to be lots of ill-fitting, floppy fabric hanging around your hips.” Finally another sales associate intervened and took my side. That’s one thing I’m proud of from my experience of working at Banana. I never blatantly lied and told someone that something looked good when it didn’t. I was working when ponchos tried to make a comeback, and Banana carried a particularly heinous version in their 2004 fall line. Whenever anyone asked my opinion about them, I expressed my severe disgust towards the entire idea. As Best Week Ever once put it, “Ponchos are great if you’re caught in the rain, chasing banditos, or born without arms”.

And 8) When Jon was in the LA airport on his most recent trip, he witnessed the following incident: On his flight into Tucson, the crew was late, and they came hurrying around the corner to board. The pilot’s rolling suitcase accidentally caught the edge of an old woman’s wheelchair, so he stopped and turned to apologize. Her response? “Yeah, I BET you’re sorry”. One of the flight attendants rounded on her, “Excuse me?! Don’t you ever talk to my captain that way”, to which the crotchety old bag replied “Oh, drop dead!” She was promptly wheeled away by security, off to wait for the last flight of the day. (“Wait! What..? Where are you taking me??”) Just another reason why Jon needs to start his own blog. Hilarious.

Lovely

Who’s going to win this cycle of America’s Next Top Model? Will it be…

Thing 1?

Thing 2?

Or Thing 3?

*All photos taken with the trusty Powershot A520 during last night's episode.

Attempting to be Domestic

Jon’s been in town for over a week so far, hooray! On Saturday we went to a barbeque/potluck that my company put on, which actually ended up being pretty fun. I brought deviled eggs (paprika and all). Look at me go.

They took a lot longer to make than I thought they would. Then, on Sunday I made hot pudding (my mom’s recipe), which was a lot easier to make than I ever dreamed it could be. It turned out EXACTLY how it was supposed to, too. What a surprise; I’m pretty sure that’s never happened to me yet in my short history of baking. Is making pudding even considered baking? Anyway, hot vanilla pudding just isn’t hot vanilla pudding without the sprinkles.




If you give it a couple of swirls, the sprinkles make pretty, colorful designs.



But if you swirl it too much, the pudding just takes on all the colors and turns kind of grey. I don’t have a picture of that, because I was careful not to overmix. I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. Jon might have overmixed his, though.

On Monday night I made a cake from scratch. I used actual cake flour and everything. It turned out okay. Here it is in stages.

Here you can see that I wasn’t successful in dividing the batter equally. One layer is significantly smaller than the other so it got all dark in the oven. That’s the one that kind of stuck to the pan when I tried to extract it. Nothing that a little icing used as glue couldn’t fix.

And here’s the finished product:



Never mind the marks on the wall. And never mind all the frosting splatters and smears on the pan. And never mind that I don’t own a cake plate so I put it on a round baking sheet instead. The important thing is that it TASTED kind of good when we ate it. Not the best cake I’ve ever had…but a success nonetheless.



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In other, non baking related news, some form of insect may or may not have laid eggs in my kneepit. I’d been wearing the same pair of jeans for almost the entire day on Sunday, then at night when I sat down on the floor to play with the dog, something bit me. Does that mean it was crawling around in my jeans ALL DAY?? I never found what it was, but I got a lump behind my knee that really hurt. When I walked on it, it ached. How weird?! Yesterday I noticed that the initial lump had shrunk down a bit, but it had turned bright red.



This picture was taken at work two days after I got bit. Stupid Blogger keeps trying to reorient the image because originally, it looked like it was upside-down. That's because I took it myself by twisting around backwards and angling the camera. Then Blogger puts its stupid oar in and tries to put it the "right" way, and it just confuses everyone even more. Just forget about the camera strap hanging into the shot, and my bare feet. Anyway, I noticed that there’s definitely something black INSIDE of the bite, so I had Jon thoroughly inspect it when I got home from work yesterday, and he said it’s a broken blood vessel.

That’s about all the news. Sorry for the boring post. You were wondering why it’s been so long since I’ve written anything, and now you know.

My Thoughtful Husband

Jon’s office building is attached to a big warehouse/machine shop, where they build all the surgical equipment that his company sells. The entire complex is in an undeveloped, desert-y area, and they tend to get lots of bugs and lizards and stuff in the building (earlier this year they found a baby diamondback rattlesnake in the hallway.) Anyway, two days ago Darren in the machine shop started screaming like a little girl when he saw THIS walking across the floor. Jon was kind enough to bring it home so I could see it – I’ve had horrible nightmares the past two nights. Thanks, honey!

Staring at that thing’s face literally makes me ill. I hate it.

Mood Music

This song makes me sad.

	Andrew Bird - Cataracts
	Found at skreemr.com

This song makes me happy.

	I'm From Barcelona - Treehouse
	Found at skreemr.com

Favorite Conversation So Far Today

[Background information: Jon bought a nice belt to wear with his suits a couple of weeks ago, but when he was packing for his current trip to Chicago, from which he will be returning in a couple of hours, he couldn't find it anywhere. The following conversation took place this morning, over the phone.]

Me: I found your belt.
Jon: Where was it?!
Me: On the camp chair, under a suitcase [we have suitcases and duffel bags all over our apartment]
Jon: Oh.
Me: [Trying to fold up the camp chair to put it back in the closet, where it belongs] I can't figure out how...never mind, I got it.
Jon: Figure out what? Oh...you're trying the belt on?
Me: ......NO..!!!!??!?!?? ....I was folding up the camp chair!!!! (?????)

Proud to be Canadian

I realized a few weeks ago that whenever people go from light to dark, they go WAY dark. Wouldn't it be kind of unique if someone just went kind of light brown? You really don't see that very often. Someone should totally do it. I will. Okay, I did. I'm hesitant to post the picture of the results, though, because I had lighting issues and the color isn't well represented. But it's the best I could do, and besides, the reason for the picture was two-fold: so you could see the new color, and so you could see the fabulous scar that is the result of my recent fall. Nothing a little Mederma applied three times daily for 6-8 weeks can't fix, I hope.













You can't tell very well because the flash lit up my hair, but the color is kind of a honey brown. It all turned out really well, I think.

On my way home from the salon, I passed a car that had an "Irish Bride"(?) decal in the back window, the license plate said "Cullen", and the plate cover read "Proud to be IRISH". Does this mean that she married an Irish guy (whose first or last name, or both, is Cullen) and that she now considers HERSELF to be Irish?! Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way.

Anyway, that's all the news I've got. Have a supergreat weekend.

Ew.

I was standing in line at Walgreens two days ago, waiting to buy two bags of Ricola Honey Lemon Throat Lozenges with Echinacea, when I saw THIS , trying to hang out with the candy in front of the checkout counter:



A lady cut in line in front of me while I snapped this picture with my camera. I have no idea why it came out so small, but let me just make it very clear --- this is a PICKLE in a POUCH. Juice and all. Keep in mind that I'm not anti-pickle, under the proper circumstances, but I seriously almost started gagging when I saw them. All I could think of is those bags that people have to wear after having a colostomy. Sorry. Ew. Even worse, the advertised flavor of the pickle on the right is "zesty garlic". Anyway, I came home and told Jon all about it, and he thought I was crazy, because apparently colostomy pickle pouches have been around FOREVER. He launched into some long disgusting shpeel about how truck drivers love them because apparently you don't have to touch the pickle to eat it, you just squeeze it out the top. Am I the only person that has never seen one of these before?? Am I overreacting??!

What we've been up to

Jon has been home for six whole days, hooray! Here’s a glimpse into what we’ve been doing since I last posted.

1) We went shopping. I got two new pairs of shoes.

I got these ones at Dillards. They were 75% off. Thanks, Labor Day Sales!

Pewmas

2) We went and got massages at a spa. The entire thing was amazing, minus the uncomfortable incident where Edward thought that the edge of my shoulderblade was a giant knot. He worked at it for two minutes until I shifted my body, then he moved on.

On our way back from the spa, the sun was setting to the west and a huge storm was happening in the south. This picture was taken with Jon’s phone. Turns out the camera on his phone takes better pictures than the old Powershot A520.



Since we were driving south when I took this, we ended up running right into that storm. It was literally the hardest I’ve ever seen it rain anywhere in my entire life. So exciting.

3) We rented West Side Story. I’ve been wanting to watch it with Jon for YEARS and I finally forced him to sit through it. Such a good movie…

4) Jon got rid of some old t-shirts. Best day ever! He’s got a closet full of old, holey, stretched out tees that drive me crazy. He finally turned a few into rags last night. Then he took his old Stussy tee, the worst of them all, and cut the sleeves off. He was pretty pleased with himself, marching around the apartment, and when I told him how excited I was that he was finally getting rid of that thing, he said, “I’m not getting rid of it…I just wanted to cut the sleeves off.” Here he is looking particularly white trash. Ew.





5) We ate lots of raspberries. Jon bought a couple of cartons of mutant crack-berries that were huge and delicious. Look at the size of this thing.



6) I randomly developed the awful habit of grinding my teeth in my sleep. I have no idea where it came from – I’m not stressed out or anything. But I have literally woken myself up a few times throughout the past week or so. Annie and I shared a room almost our entire lives growing up, and she’s a severe teeth grinder. She eventually got fitted for a rubber tray thing that she had to wear every single night to protect her teeth, and she’d STILL go at it. Only it would make a loud squeaking noise instead of a grinding noise.

7) Jon made an amazing Crockpot dinner. Beef, sweet potatoes, sweet onions, and carrots, simmered for half the day in a mixture of near-beer, Worcestershire sauce, maple syrup, lime juice, and some other stuff. It was supposably an actual recipe that he found online. AMAZING.

That's the news since I last posted. But something that happened a few weeks ago that I keep forgetting to mention - Severus, the second and final snape, died. Let's have a moment of silence for the dumbest creature alive. He somehow managed to get his head trapped under his fake hollow log. Jon was sad, but I call it survival of the snapes that don't get their heads stuck under their homes. The end.

PS - Sorry for the long gap between my last post and this one.