Come out of the closet

I had a super fun delicious happy weekend, but my work week has started like a kick in the crotchal area so I shall save my telling of fun tales for later. In the meantime, Nordic Boy tore out the closet in our guest room to start to make new ones, which constitutes high levels of excitement in our world. Here is a photo of us acting squirrelly in the early stages of Project New Closet. I don't know why, but the first thing we did when the first part of the closet was in was to climb inside and act weird. Luckily Delium was there to take photos of this strange reaction to new closetry.

Many of my days look like this

Yesterday, I had a really typical day. I went to work, sat at my desk, went to meetings, went out for lunch, worked some more, came home, went for an after-work walk with Nordic Boy, we made and ate dinner, read and watched a little tv. A pretty ordinary day, but a good one.

Yard Rogaine

As I have told you many times before, our yard is a mess. It is way, way, way less of a mess than it was when we bought our house, but it is nowhere near the vision that we have for it. Like, if you want to get all metaphorical then our vision for the yard is for it to be beautiful like Michelle Obama, but right now it is looking more like, well, I guess I would put it more in the Ke$ha ballpark. However, before you judge me too harshly, I must point out that it used to look like Donald Trump so real progress has been made. The main thing that hinders us is that we are still constantly ripping things out of the inside of our house and dragging them outside, so we don't want to put a bunch of effort into our yard quite yet, because having shit dragged across it every 5 minutes will just re-mess it all up again. Also, getting a yard in shape takes money. And right now we are spending our money on inside things, like the beautiful new furnace we got for this winter which we love but cost us serious bank. I really wish I was a baller shot caller so that we could pay for everything as fast as we can work on it- but alas it is not to be, and so the yard has been moved down the list.

One thing we have done is planted our front slope, which doesn't get walked on or dragged on or anythinged on, so at the very least, when you drive up to our house it doesn't look horrible from the street.

I took this photo in the pouring rain, so just pretend that it looks good, ok? Because really, it does look pretty good in real life.

Once you walk up our front stairs, there is a flat part of the front yard where nothing grows. This is because most of our teeny tiny front yard is dwarfed by a gigantic pine tree that really should never have been planted in the yard to begin with. So the patch of yard around the huge trunk is really bumpy (the root system is busting upward, taking the pathway to the front door with it, hi friends, don't trip and then sue us, please), and full of dirt and pine needles. Nothing will grow there because the pine needles strangle everything across the front of the whole yard. We really need to get rid of that tree, but our tree-hugging souls have been putting it off. This summer will be the end of the line though- the tree is going. Ugh. Let's not talk about it.

Anyway, once the tree is gone, I have high hopes that we can plant that little patch of land with something pretty. I haven't decided what yet. Flowers? Shrubs? Or should it be a little patch of grass? Philosophically I am not a huge fan of grass, since it's a pain in the ass and a water-suck, but I am from the midwest and so having a yard with no grass seems wrong somehow. I feel like there needs to be grass somewhere, right? No, there really doesn't, actually. Maybe a little? Blah, no, why? Grass is pretty! So are other things! (See, this is exactly how it goes in my head too).

Well, so far I haven't had to make a final decision, because the big pine tree has been there, making most of our yard look like this for the past few years.

Some leaves drift over from the trees in our side yard, but really that is about all of the action we are seeing.

But then, something weird happened. Two weeks ago.

All kinds of shit just started growing under the pine tree! Grass, and flowers, and other ground cover. What kind of weirdo magic is THAT? After years of nothing, spontaneous greenery is happening. And it happened like, overnight. I walked out of my front door one morning and was all HA-WUT? Were we hit by a guerilla gardener who just could not stand our yard for one more minute?

Mysterious.

You will be my Saturday Love

I suppose I could do a weirdo Consumables today, considering the amount of tv and movies I watched while afflicted with the Black Pox, but I wasn't really watching them all so much as I was providing myself with a dull audio-visual backdrop for misery. That just doesn't seem fair somehow, at least according to the rules I have set up in my own mind about how Consumables should work, so instead I shall just give you a rundown of the state of my world today.

First of all, the Black Pox has definitely left the building, but it has left in its wake a sort of combination smoker's cough/consumption like ailment. There is nothing that will make a lady feel quite as attractive as a deep manly smoky cough every 5 minutes or so. It's just sweet, sweet perfection.

I finally finished working on a big document that I had to do for work- this is the one I was telling you about before that decided to turn itself into WingDings last week. The magical IT fairies helped me un-WingDing and I had it in my mind that I would finish it this week no matter what else happened. By the time the end of the week rolled around, it was looking dire. THEN. I plugged in Pebbles Radio into the old Pandora machine and I need to tell you this: Pebbles Radio has magical fast-working powers. I am telling you, listen to me. That shit got done with hours to spare. HOURS.

My all-time favorite relative, R, turned 30 this week. I think it freaked her freak a little bit, but not nearly as much as it freaked my shit out. See, in my mind, she is about 15 years old. But then again, in my mind I am 17 so my math is seriously busted.

My plans for this weekend are, in short, to catch up with my whole life. I feel like I haven't seen any of my peeps, done anything fun, seen the world outside my house for so long. It was really only a few days, but man. I always thought I would be top notch at it if I ever got myself into a house arrest sort of situation but apparently I need to go outside regularly or I feel weird, so no ankle bracelet for me. Just in case you were thinking of giving me one of those.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Remember, if you need to get productive, Pebbles Radio. Here's one to get you started. Cherrelle, Saturday Love.

One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Sickbed

Well, I am out of quarantine and back to work and life, which apparently is defined as a shit ton of email. Because really, that is all that I have been doing since getting back- reading and answering mounds of emails. Is this really what my life consists of? That I could drop off the face of the earth for a week and then come back and really not anything needs attention other than frickety frackety emails? Yes, that's exactly what it means.

It turns out that Nordic Boy and I both had the flu. Not the bubonic plague, as we both were convinced we had. The doctor said that most people don't really get the flu very often, but that people get bad colds and call it the flu. So then when they really do get the flu, it feels like they are dying. Which, YES, it does feel that way. I guess I have never really had the flu before, for realsies, because dang! That was not a joke.

That said, if you do have to have the flu, I suggest having it with a friend. I am sorry that Nordic Boy was sick too, but not that sorry, because it was eons better having him home with me every day. Watching the Hallmark Channel is so much better with one's homie right there. Whining was better. Napping was better. Cursing the unknown rube who gave us this bug was better.

Not only did we have the flu together, but we did something we have never done before- we went to a doctor's appointment together. I mean, we have accompanied each other to the doctor before, but this time, we actually had an appointment together. Like at the same time. Now that is taking joined-at-the-hipness to a whole new level. But again, it was more fun, especially when our regular doctor wasn't working that day and so we got another random dude and he walked in and totally looked like Dwight Schrute. Infinitely more entertaining to have Dr. Shrute with a pal there to see it too.

Now I am better although I really don't feel like eating anything which sucks because food is awesome. And surviving on water and cough drops makes me feel sort of stoned all the time, which is probably not the best state to be in when answering three thousand emails.

While I am on the subject of being sick, I feel like I have noticed that there seems to be a breaking down of societal rules around sharing details of illness during small talk. Have you noticed this? People have shared with me, in response to a question like "I heard you were sick- are you feeling better?" all sorts of bodily details about what has emanated out of their various holes and what sort of rashes they have where and all like that. Am I being a fuddy duddy to think that perhaps there needs to be a bit more of a filter on some of that talk? I even saw a Facebook status update where a person I know from middle school broadcasted the color and consistency of his mucus production. Come on, people. I am asking officials to call that out of bounds. Let's have some decorum, shall we?

Maybe I am not the person who should be the arbiter of such matters though. After all, I am the one that coined the term "erectionate" to denote when a person feels sexy affection for another person, so I am not the best judge of appropriateness I guess.

Librarian to Sick Bay

I've been missing from blogland because both Nordic Boy and I caught the plague, people. It's been going on for days and it ain't over yet, although I'm hoping I'm past the halfway point. This bug is FUGLY.

I have lost track of how many days I've been in this mess, so let me convey it to you in the only unit of measure that we're using these days: tv we have allowed to be on while we go in and out of sleep on our couch.

The Big Lebowski, The Golden Girls, Mr. Deeds, Rocky 2, Ocean's 13, Frasier, The Bodyguard, Kindergarten Cop, Mary Tyler Moore, Juno, Quantum of Solace, Grease, Little House on the Prairie, The Girls Next Door, Kendra, Mash.

Those are the ones I was awake for anyway.

Gotta jet. I have some fevered napping to do while The Nutty Professor 2 plays. Very busy.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Week wrap up

Helloooo peoples! I hope you are having a loverly Friday, because I is!

Here is what has been happening this week.

I went to lunch with a friend/co-worker and her friend Ava, and have you ever met someone who just seems like sunlight is beaming out of them? That was Ava. She's a teeny tiny thing, 89 years old, a retired actress, with bright blue eyes and an awesome giggly sense of humor. She was dressed as cute as can be, and was careful to put her lipstick on as soon as she got done with her lunch. Adorbs! She told us all about how she loves to go dancing (and still goes), and told stories about her departed husband who she was married to for 41 years ("my Robert" she called him) with total joy. She called us both darlings and ate her lunch with gusto. She still goes out on stage once every few months to do scenes from her one-woman show, where she talks about her childhood in Europe where she survived the Holocaust. Just a complete and utter freaking delight, she is. What a privilege.


Last night I went to a runway show where the models weren't professional models, which I haven't seen in a while. The clothes were gorgeous, but the ladies in them were even more so. They all seemed completely chuffed to be on the runway, and hammed it up, and laughed, and strutted. They were all shapes and sizes and a lot of them had friends at the very end of the runway so you could see these little groups of people giving them "go, honey, go!" faces. It was super. More runway shows should look like that.


In other news I had this big document that I was working on for work and the file got corrupted into just a big mess of WingDings, and I ask you, why do WingDings exist at all anymore? Does anyone use them? Why did my file want to convert to WingDingology? For pete's sake.


Oh, and I forgot to mention this in Consumables, but I watched a bit of Ice Loves Coco, and you know what? He totally does! It was actually endearing.


Well, there you have it folks. From Holocaust survivor all the way to the inventor of Thong Thursday. I really can mix it up sometimes.

Consumables #61

I just got done taking a four-day weekend just for the hell of it and one of those days included sunshine! This exceeded all expectations in my cold gray Seattle heart so I am basking in an afterglow of happy.


I kicked off my weekend by going out and trying a new restaurant with Nordic Boy. My quest for a drink I like a lot continued. I decided to go FULL HIPSTER and order an "astronaut mimosa," which is champagne and Tang. I don't know why I did this, but perhaps it was due to the fact that they were only charging four bucks for one and I am sick of paying out the yin yang for stuff that I don't like. You drinkers can drop some serious coinage! I actually liked the hipster special, which makes me happy that I liked something but sad that it was a hipster drink involving powdered sweet-tart-like material. Not exactly the sophistication I have been searching for.


I think I am going to give up on this quest. Should I?


Some other time-off stuff: Biogirl and I took trip to Ikea where we made it out alive (always a risk when going into that gerbil maze), with Biogirl stocking up on a myriad things and me getting a couple packs of napkins. I get undue joy out of Ikea napkins, you guys. We also hunted down a bakery that we had never been to before ("Biogirl is interested in sugary carbs" might be the understatement of the year), and then I heard a mesmerizing commentary from her about the term "oily bohunk" from the movie Sixteen Candles which was capped off by her talking too fast and accidentally calling the star "Molly Ringworm." Don't you wish you could be part of our think tank?


There were many other awesome things that happened but I am feeling a little backed up in the Consumables (wow, so gross!) so Ima talk about those instead.


Books!
Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The first in a series of prequels to Peter Pan. I had to read this for work, and I wasn't super jazzed about it but I ended up liking it for the most part. It was solid action with plenty of swashbuckling pirate stuff and magical business going on. I kind of found the original Peter Pan to be a bit of a dick but in this version he wasn't.


Duck, Death and the Tulip, by Wolf Erlbruch
I sort of loved this picture book, although I can't think of a situation where it would do anything but freak a little kid out. Maybe it's one of those kids' books that are really more for adults? I don't know. The whole thing is about a duck who has a feeling that someone is following him, and it turns out to be Death. Duck goes about his life, with Death his constant companion, until well, you can probably guess how this all turns out. It is stark and beautiful and creepy.


The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, by Jeffrey Kluger
I don't know what I was expecting from this one, but it didn't live up to what I wanted it to be. It focuses on a lot of things that I think most of us already have heard (first-born children tend to be caretakers of younger sibs, conflicts between siblings can carry on into adulthood) but doesn't go much further in complicating those ideas.


In the TeeVee!
The Bachelor
Did anyone notice that I haven't said THING ONE about The Bachelor this season? That's because I am off the junk, people! I want full credit for this! I am in recovery!


Dancing with the Stars
I am sort of loving this season, mostly because the stars aren't stinking up the joint as bad as they usually do. Plus, how exciting is it that Half Pint is on? I am waiting for her to do a prairie-themed tango or something. Maybe her partner Maks will dress up like Nellie Olson! Ok, probably not but a girl can dream.


Movies!
The Hunger Games
I went to see this on opening weekend and was startled by the sheer lack of costumery in the crowd. I guess dressing up for this one is hard- it's not like you can walk into the theater with a bow and arrow. Still, I thought something like that would happen. When I add up all of the things I didn't like about the movie it should add up to me not liking the movie, but yet? I liked it. I think I was able to get over the fact the Gale is Mrs. Miley Cyrus pretty well, and I could tolerate Peeta although I still maintain that he looks like an evil kid in a Karate Kid movie. Every time I see him I want to tell Ralph Macchio to beware. I think my favorite thing about the movie was Lenny Kravitz. There's a sentence I never thought I would say.


Strictly Background
A documentary about people who make their living by being extras in movies. That's pretty much it.


If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Follows the trial and the events leading up to it of a man accused of eco-terrorism. I thought it did a good job of raising really hard questions. I found this really sad on many levels, but then again I am a hippie pinko, so of course I would.


Hell and Back Again
An embedded journalist films troops in Afghanistan, and then follows a wounded soldier's journey back to the US, where he copes with his injury, getting back to his life, and the aftermath of battle. I guess this one isn't much cheerier, is it?


After Innocence
Woo! Another depressing one! I really can pile it on, can't I? This one follows The Innocence Project, which is an organization that helps people who have been wrongly accused to get new trials so that genetic evidence can be used to help exonerate them. They follow a bunch of people who have been in prison for decades who don't belong there, and the fight to get them free.


Prodigal Sons
The filmmaker is a transgender woman from Montana who is filming her return to her hometown for her high school reunion. I thought this was going to focus on trans issues, but really it turns out to be a film about the filmmaker's brother and his battle with mental illness. Plus, Orson Wells plays a major role in this family's life, which is a bizarre twist.


Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust
Just when you thought I couldn't get more depressing, I bring in the Holocaust. This one is about  a father who takes his grown sons to Poland to find the family that helped hide his uncles from the Nazis.


War Dance
Ok, so none of my movies are chucklefests this time around, I can see that now. This one is about kids in Uganda who are struggling to survive in refugee camps. In the camp that this film follows, the kids have formed a group that does traditional songs and dances, and they have the chance to win a national competition. You get to hear their stories, how they came to be in the camp, and what the dances do for their lives.


I feel like I have to promise a silly movie for next time.

Fortunate

Today marks the biggest chocolate and peanut butter day of my whole life- the day Nordic Boy and I met. We were teenagers and it was the 90s. I didn't know he was my dude at the time, but I did know that I found him totally intoxicating, and that he looked at me like no one else had looked at me, ever. Both of these things are still true.

Nordic Boy and I haven't said or written any particular vows to each other, but we do have lots of notes and ephemera that we have given each other over the years. Here's one thing that lives on our mantel that Nordic Boy handed to me on a snowy night in Illinois over 15 years ago.

I don't know what a vow feels like, but I imagine it's something like the feeling I get when I look at that.

Anyway, happy meetiversary to us. Sing us about it, David Gray: