Endorsed: This Wedding

I don't know Nick & Surya, but Amy Moss at Eat Drink Chic endorsed their color palette, and I LOVE their wedding pictures.

http://jonaspeterson.com/wedding/wedding-nick-surya-basalt-colorado/

Dustbuster

I have a dustbuster problem.

Not with the actual dustbuster – the actual dustbuster is four years old and still going strong. (I have a Black & Decker 15.6V Cordless Cyclonic Hand Vac Model # CHV1568 and I give it two thumbs up – you’re welcome for the endorsement, B&D.)

The problem is that, while my dustbuster looks like this…



…when Mike looks into a perfectly clean, well-organized room and sees the dustbuster plugged in somewhere, like in the corner or under the desk, he sees this:



He has a deep and abiding hatred for the sight of this little cordless handvac that I can’t begin to fathom. “WHY is that thing just OUT there? It looks terrible. TERRIBLE.” Mike is pretty sure that every person on Hoarders started with a dustbuster charging in a visible spot.

I can’t complain too much, though, because Mike is also the only reason our entire house doesn’t look like a dorm room. Some people have a true gift for interior design; some people decorate their homes and hope for the best; and some people have changed addresses once a year for the past 30 years, so her idea of moving in is having a couch and a bed and a table, unpacking some of the boxes (definitely the ones with clothes in them and some of the books), putting a picture on the table, and having most of the kitchen utensils in drawers. My therapist calls it a detachment disorder. I call it convenient.

Either way, Mike’s actually got a talent for making this place look like adults with jobs live here.

At first, he’d ask me questions about this ottoman or that painting. I’d grunt and shrug, then go back to digging through the boxes in the closet looking for a flashlight or a deck of cards or my social security card or whatever. Then he’d go online and a few weeks later – boom! Dining room table! Boom! Rug in the living room!

I finally started getting in on the game. I try to look at a room now and think, “If I wanted to put something in here and not think about moving it again….what would I buy?” I had a large photograph and my diploma framed and they’re both actually hanging on the walls. I was a key player in deciding which rug we got for the office. Also, the gnome that’s on top of one of the kitchen cabinets? ALL ME. This is really becoming somewhere that I’m proud of, because I’m helping it look the way it does.

But I’m also the one who bought the dustbuster.

...everyone needs a project

Jenn: I've decided I'm going to blog at least once every day for the next month.
Mike: Why?
Jenn: Because.

-----------

Mike: Are you going to drink this wine? It's still good, you know.

He points to a bottle of wine that was $4 at Publix, was opened three weeks ago, has a screwtop, and has been sitting next to the stove.

Jenn: Um, no.
Mike: Why? It's still good! It's just been, you know, decanting.
Jenn: Yeah, it decanted past drinkable and straight into Sh*ttown about two weeks ago.
Mike: Well, maybe you just don't appreciate fine things, like delicious decanted wine, huh? Blog about THAT.

----------

So. Day 1 - DONE.

NAILED IT.

It's amazing I can walk, much less run...

I ran 3.5 miles, which I have done several times before in recent memory. However, tonight was just Not A Good Run Night. I got a shin splint; my right knee started throbbing; I think my heart skipped a few beats at one point. I was just glad to get home and ice my shins.

So I drank water and ate applesauce, we ate dinner, and then were sitting on the couch.

That's when my foot cramp started. At first, it was one of those "Oweeeeee my toe is going into a strange muscle spasm and looks shriveled" spasms. Then it turned into "my foot looks like a dried mango" cramp and I started howling. Mike was slightly alarmed, and said, "OK, drink water, stand up, and stand on your tiptoes."

So I did.

And THAT'S when the calf cramp kicked in. So with great presence of mind, I dropped to the floor.

Mike was all take-charge-I-worked-in-a-GNC-in-college guy at this point, and said, "Just lay down flat on the couch!" So I'm lying on the couch with Charlie's ass RIGHT in my face, and Mike's stretching out my foot and leg, but every time he let go of my toes, the cramp kicked right back in.

I've been hobbling around for a few minutes, pounding water, and it seems to be subsiding. I am so feeble. Gawd.


I was at least a 4 on the Allie scale:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html

Upon Returning From a Walk on a Spring Evening

Me: Charlie, what's in your mouth?

Charlie: Numpfingh

Me: There is clearly something i-

Charlie: Mmmpf uhhuhh numpfigh! Mmpfnghh! Ope ah ahhhh.

Me: Drop it. Drop. Droooop.

Charlie: <Slowly, reluctantly opens his mouth. A small frog hops out and hightails it for the grass.>

Me: You're ridiculous. You know that, yes?

Charlie: I could use some water and a snack, lady.

-----
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Tree Lobsters!: Flu

Tree Lobsters!: Flu

Presented Without Comment

Headline of the week:

Rush Limbaugh has Balls of Steele

What separates us from the animals?

Charlie generally has three responses to something new and unknown:

1. Chew on it
2. Pee on it
3. Bark at it

Generally the basic human responses, too...

Well, THAT'S new

I ran 3 miles in 30 minutes tonight, and it was easy! I even got faster every mile.

I might finish the River Run after all...
-----
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This counts as cross-training, right?

I'm moving again. It's been 2 years since the last move, and I'm only moving two miles down the road, but it's still... moving.

I'm enjoying the evaluation phase of moving - where you look at each thing you own and ask yourself if you like it enough to pick it up at least twice. Amazing how often the answer is, "Ummmm, no." It also seems to be directly related to how heavy said item is.

I'm also enjoying what I call Moving Christmas - where you find all these neat things that you've completely forgotten you own. I will never need to buy another iPod charger or set of earbuds again. Ever. In this life or the next. I also seem to have a habit of getting a prescription filled and then forgetting I did.

And I'm enjoying the new place - I really like it, and it's spacious enough that I love the feeling of having a blank canvas that I can paint, but with my STUFF. Deciding where to put each item, how to decorate each room, how to organize the closets (yay!) is very pleasing.

Lifting lots of heavy things and getting cardboard paper cuts? Still sucks. After all, it is still moving.

Danger looming

My reaction to minor work stress, boredom, and tasks I don't want to do?

Snacking.

I figured out some effective ways to fight this. I don't keep any cash on me and I bring portioned, healthy snacks to work. Baby carrots, a Clif bar, pretzels and lots of water.

This has resulted in an alarming level of self-loathing - parts of me really hate other parts of me. More specifically, my stomach hates whatever b*tch part of me is hiding the Cheetos.

If I keep it up, there may be all-out civil war. I'm a little scared.

-----
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Well, I'll be damned...

I came home from the optometrist and the grocery store to find that Charlie, in a characteristic lapse of judgment, had decided that one of the Playstation 3 controllers looked like a chew toy.

I yelled. He cowered. I tapped him on the nose with it. He looked contrite. But we've been here before, and it only seems to sink in for a month or so that just because it's within reach on the coffee table doesn't mean it's fair game.

Then I remembered something. When I was 5 or 6 years old and we had just moved to Bonaire, we acquired a dog. I don't remember the details - I think it was a stray, and I know my dad adopted it. I have no memory of the dog's name, so he'll be Dog. Dog, who was an outside dog, would roam the neighborhood at night and come back with... things. More specifically, things from other neighbors' homes. A piece of decorative coral left to dry on a porch, an empty bowl, and on one memorable occasion, a goatskin rug.

One morning, Dog came home with a sneaker - just one. For whatever reason, that's when my dad decided he'd had enough. I don't know where he got this idea. He may have come up with it on his own, but it seems more like a tip you'd get from some guy at work. Anyway, he took the shoe, scolded Dog... and then tied the shoe around Dog's neck. Left it there all day. That dog walked around, so damn embarrassed and ashamed, and never brought home stolen goods again.

So I had Charlie sit and tied the controller to his collar. He sat in that same spot, silent and motionless, as I put away groceries, cleaned the kitchen, and put food in his bowl. I untied it about 15 minutes later, and he's been quietly following me around ever since.



I don't know if it worked, but it sure as hell did SOMETHING.

If you listen to one thing today...

...listen to this:

Segment 3 with Sherman Alexie.

It starts as a pretty standard interview about his most recent book, but then turns into a conversation about good and bad, heroism and villany, and tribal identity that just resonated with me as so profoundly true and honest.

As he discussed how the events of 9/11 changed his view and showed him "the end game of tribalism," I realized he was explaining one of the essential struggles with identity. As soon as you identify with your tribe - I am American, I am liberal, I am Christian - you start encountering conflicts between how you feel and what the larger group believes. The way Alexie described his struggles with that issue was, for me, a complete "ah-hah!" moment.

Filet Mignon, Mojitos, and why I'm glad my dog never saw 'Waterworld'

Poor Charlie.

I was gone for a long time today. It felt like a long day to me, so in dog years, Charlie had already decided I was gone forever and it was time to fend for himself. I expected to come home and find he'd built a contraption to convert his urine to water and had painted a handprint face on one of his Wilson tennis balls.

He hadn't, of course. He just sat on the couch all day and almost spontaneously combusted when I walked in the door.

Tonight was a good night, though. Grace has named 2009 "The Year of Girls' Night Out (GNO)" and tonight was our first event. We went to MOCA Jacksonville for Best of Jacksonville 2009. There were over two dozen restaurants and sponsors there, and we tried food or drinks from every single one. Some of the highlights:

- Chocolate caramels with sea salt and chocolate-covered Cheerios from Claude's
- Beef-cured salmon tartar from Pastiche
- Steak and mac & cheese from Morton's (hello!)

All that, plus funky music and an open photo shoot for models who wanted to be on the cover of Jacksonville Magazine made for great fun and outstanding people watching. I swing back and forth on my feelings about Jacksonville as a city, but tonight - I have hope. This place could really be something.

Tonight's Food Network Observation