Henry Chills Out

We had this styrofoam cooler from Joey's uncle that we'd brought some milk and scraps for Henry back in. It was sitting on the floor and Henry was sitting by it in a cute "I'm cute, Mom!" sort of way.

My little brain began to think. "Hmm, I wonder if Henry would fit in the styrofoam cooler?"

So I picked him up, took the lid off, and dropped him in. He didn't so much like being in it, but he wasn't struggling either. He just sat there and looked at me, pathetically.

I set the lid on, just to see if he'd try to get out. He didn't, so I took it off again.

"Something's wrong with Henry. He's not struggling in the cooler!" I yelled to Joey who was doing homework.

"What did you do to him? He's where?" Joey asked, and came bounding around the corner with the camera.

"Ohh! Poor guy!" Henry looked at Joey with big, sleepy eyes. "He must be super tired."

He took several pictures of Henry before calling, "Come!"

Henry just sat there, looking at him. "Is he stuck?" I asked.

"I don't think so..." Joey responded, snapping pictures at strange angles.

"I think he needs help." So I picked him up and scratched him behind the ears for awhile before he climbed off me to go flop on the wood floor in the entryway.

He's so lazy.

Henry Is Theologically Confused

Our neighbors like to borrow Henry when they go play tennis.  They think it's funny/cute that he freaks out and chases the ball the whole time.  So we told them they could borrow him whenever they wanted.

That was at 2:30 p.m. yesterday.  (Joey and I were going to the store and thought it made more sense for Henry to be playing tennis than sleeping in the kitchen.) 

We got home from the store at 4:00 and Henry was not yet home.

We cleaned the house until 5:00, and Henry was not yet home.

I made dinner, cleaned the veggies, and packed Joey's lunch until 6:00, and Henry was not yet home.

I began to wonder if our neighbors had dog-napped Henry since they like him so much.  Joey began to wonder the same.  We waited until 6:10 before we called over there to see where he was.  (Maybe he ran away when they were playing tennis?)

Our neighbor answered the phone, cheerily as normal.  When asked how Henry was she responded, "Oh, he's just sitting here on the couch with me watching Bishop Jakes!"

Bishop Jakes?!  OY VEY!

"I'll bring him over at 6:30, after this is done."  She said.

Joey and I looked at each other. 

"Is Henry watching a Catholic televangelist?!  Do they make those?"  I asked.

"No, it's much worse than that.  Bishop Jakes one of those Health and Wealth guys on TBN or something like it." 

We shuddered.  There's nothing worse than one of those big-haired televangelists on TBN who just want to sock it to you and take your money and run. (After they "heal" someone's broken arm and slay a few people in the spirit, of course)

"Does Henry know where we keep the checkbook?"  I ventured.

The Return Of The Breathe Right

So I guess I don't have very good aim when throwing things in the trash when I'm half asleep. (Or when I'm fully awake, for that matter...)

I got up right away when my alarm went off, quite pleased that it was Friday. Henry (somehow on our bed again) was all stretched out and ready for his Morning Rubs. He looked really cute so I obliged him.

I was scratching his furry little back when I felt something odd in his fur. It felt like some kind of tape. Joey hadn't woken up yet (it was 6:30 a.m.!) so the lights were off and it was really dark. I unstuck whatever the sticky substance was and held it up to the light by the window.

"AAAAUGH!" I screamed, fairly quietly.

"Maaabuaaaaahhhhhh....." said Joey, tossing around in the covers. Henry just looked up at me like, Mom, what's your problem?

"It's....it's....it's a Breathe Right!" I poked at it. It was all distorted in shape and wadded up--very similar to the one I found in my pants the night before. In fact, it seemed to be the very same one. "I must not have thrown it in the trash like I thought I did."

Joey rolled around and mumbled some stuff. Poor guy.

Henry and I threw away the Breathe Right for sure this time and went out in the living room where he immediately wanted to play fetch, get scratched, go outside, and eat breakfast all at the same time. (He's way too high energy.)

And, thus, I hope this chapter in the Breathe Right saga is closed. Seriously.

Joey Gives Me A Haircut

When I got my "stacked bob" haircut a couple months ago, the stylist left it a little bit long in the back.  A sort of "I Can Tell This Is Going To Be A Mullet Tail In A Month" kind of long.  I tried to get her to fix it but she didn't understand.  And when I went back for a trim a month ago, she still didn't understand and cut it the same way.

Sigh.  The trials of moving across the country and having to find a new hair stylist.

It has definitely grown into a Mullet Tail.   NOT CUTE.  The rest of the haircut is just fine...except for my Mullet Tail.  I played with it all day long yesterday even trying to figure out if I could cut it off myself in the bathroom with a mirror and some scissors.

I decided not to push my luck.

This morning, however, I couldn't take it anymore.  I looked at the back of my hair in the mirror and made an exectutive decision.

"Joey?  Can you come here and cut my hair?"

"What?!"  Joey yelped and came into the bathroom dragging his feet.  "You want me to do what to your hair?"

"Cut it.  See this mullet part?"

"Yessssss...." trailed off Joey.

"I want you to cut that part off."

"How?"  He was not excited about this.  "What if I wreck it?"

"You can't wreck it.  Just cut straight across here," I demonstrated, "And you'll be fine."

"OK...fine..."  He took the scissors in hand and, slowly, began to snip.  I felt hair fall on to my shoulder with a satisfying little fluff.

Moments later, "I think it's higher on the right side than on the left!"  Joey panicked.

"It's OK, just fix it...." I soothed.

A few seconds of high concentration later and Joey said, "OK, done.  How does it look?"

It was perfect.  NO MORE MULLET TAIL! 

"Sweetie!  You did perfect!"  I cried.

Joey cleaned the fuzz off my shoulders and walked out of the bathroom, quite pleased with himself indeed.  The entire hair cutting venture has been a win-win situation.  He feels great that he did awesome cutting my hair and I feel great that I no longer look business in the front and suspicious in the back. (There was no "party" in my Mullet Tail.  It just looked suspicious.)

The Breathe Right

Some of you may remember a previous post on my Pops' Breathe Rights. Some of you may not, so I'm including it here for a back story.

When Pops, Mommy and The Kid came down last month, Pops brought along his Breathe Rights. I assured him that he'd be in big trouble if I found any in unusual places. Fortunately for him, I didn't find any.

While he was here.

Last night I wasn't feeling very good. It was chilly outside (yay!) so I put on my lounge pants and a t-shirt and loafed around with Henry all evening while Joey went to church.

Around 9:30 I got into bed, Joey read me Pooh (Kanga and Roo came to the Hundred Acre Wood and Piglet got a bath, poor thing) and was just about finished with the story when I said, "There's something funny on the inside of my pants."

"Oh?" Joey said as I struggled with the comforter to try to get to the bottom of what was scratching my ankle.

I flipped the lining of my lounge pants out and, to my great astonishment and horror, there was a Breathe Right.

Regardless of the fact that my stomach was really hurting, I began to laugh uncontrollably. "How did a Breathe Right get inside my pants?!" I asked Joey.

He was stymied. "Maybe in the laundry?" He offered.

Maybe, indeed.

Obviously Pops' legacy of Breathe Rights has followed him down to Texas. And, thus, he's in Big Trouble.

I fell asleep shortly after I removed said Breathe Right from my pants (it was really stuck on there) and came from my sleepy haze suddenly at 10:30 when Joey finished his Greek and came to bed.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"Going to bed," he replied. He thinks it's funny when I'm disoriented in my sleep.

"Am I wearing pants?" I asked.

"Yes, you are." He replied.

"I thought I took those off." (I must have gotten them confused with the Breathe Right.)

"No, you didn't. You're wearing pants."

And we settled in to sleep with Henry on the foot of the bed. (We've given up.)

I got up when my alarm went off this morning (yay!) and felt much better than I did last night (YAY!). I sat on the floor to give Henry his Morning Rubs and Joey came in to pat me on the head. "Good morning!"

"Good morning," I replied. Then, suddenly, "Hey! I'm wearing pants! I thought I took those off."

Joey laughed. "No, you never did."

See what Dad's Breathe Right did to my brain?!

Codependent

I think I'm codependent on The Kid.

I need him to answer Great Questions of Life for me, so I call him all the time to get the answers.  Such as:
1.  Should I buy a cookie with tons of frosting on it?
2.  I need to go to the bathroom, what do I do?
3.  There's cookies here, should I have one or not?
4.  I'm bored, what should I do?
5.  Should I get a soda?

Poor The Kid.  He is often bothered by my phone calls at strange hours of the day or night.  (Most particularly doing Youth Group.  And sometimes during church, but those are text messages.)

I also feel compelled to tell The Kid everything bad that I do.  (So sometimes my Verizon bill is high if I have to take lots of pictures of things and send them to him on his phone.)  I thought maybe this codependency would end when I moved to Texas, but it seems to have pretty much remained the same.

Gotta love technology, eh?

Um, The Kid, should I get a soda? .......

My Unwise Decision

I got up this morning feeling really awake and energetic.  I thought to myself, "I should wax my eyebrows!"

And so I did.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in pain and free of some obnoxious eyebrow hair.  (I'm not really sure why I'm telling you this.)

I washed my face, dried it and looked up in the mirror.

"AAAAUGH!!"

All the skin around my eyebrows about an inch up and an inch down was fire engine red.

"I cannot go like this!"  I wailed, as Joey made his way into the bathroom.

"Wow..."  He said.

I started trying to find ways to do my hair to cover up the red blotches that were now covering my forehead.  "If I wear it all forward like this you can't really tell, right?"

Joey chose wisely and left the bathroom so as not to have to answer any further questions.

And, thus, I sit here with a blotchy forehead.  Remind me never to wax my eyebrows before I leave for the morning.

Henry is a Renegade

Because Joey's getting soft in his old age, he started allowing Henry to sleep on the floor in our room about 3 months ago.  This was fine because Henry didn't think he could jump up on to the bed and bother us while we were sleeping.

Recently he has learned that he, in fact, can.  He jumps on the bed in the middle of the night and burrows around for prime real estate OR sits on our pillows.  It's not our favorite. 

He's been sleeping in his kennel a lot lately.

Joey and I bought some 6 1/2 inch bed risers at Bed Bath and Beyond, certain that our $10 fix would keep Henry from bounding on to the bed at 3:00 a.m to lick our faces

Last night poor Joey was extremely tired.  At 8:00 p.m. he looked at me, pathetically, and said, "Can we go to bed?"

"Now??"  I asked.

"Yeah, I'm SUPER tired."

We agreed to each do one more thing and then we'd go to bed.  I took a bath (a real hardship, I know) and Joey worked on Greek.  I think I got the better end of the deal on that one.

At 8:35 I came out and asked Joey if he was finished.  He looked really drowsy.  He decided that he was so he put up his Greek, took Henry out one last time, and crawled into bed to read me Winnie the Pooh.  (It was Eeyore's birthday last night, in case you're wondering.)

I sat up and read until 9:30, but Joey conked out as soon he closed Pooh.

Henry was curled up in the down comforter on the floor, sleeping peacefully.  I hoped he'd stay there.  He was really, really cute.

This morning when my alarm went off, something fluffy and soft wriggled around by my toes.

"Henry?!"  I asked, feeling quite awake from my 9 hours of sleep.

Joey, who was not getting up yet, said, "Didn't you put him in bed with us?"

"No..." I said, "I thought you must have."

"Raaaaattssss...."Joey mumbled, not really caring that our "$10 fix" didn't fix nothin'.

So apparently Henry can still jump on the bed.  (That kid's got ups.)  At least he didn't: lick, burrow, or jump on us.  I suppose we ought to be thankful for small favors.

Either we're going to have to get used to him occasionally waking up on our bed, or he's sleeping in his kennel again.

I Am Boring

Apparently my life's real boring right now. So dull, in fact, that I could not convince myself to get out of bed and get started today.

(This could be due mainly to the fact that it's rainy, gloomy and cool and my bed was so comfy...)

Joey is quite responsible, HE actually got up when his alarm clock went off (at 5:00 a.m., I might add) and wound up giving Henry a bath. (Henry's, um, sick. We missed him crying in the middle of the night so he had an accident in his kennel. Poor baby.)

Me?

My alarm went off at 6:00 and I got up, looked in the mirror, petted my still-wet puppy and went back to bed.

Ten minutes later Joey came in the room. "Are you going to get up?"

"No." I said, burrowing into my pillow and holding my bear by my head.

"But your alarm went off..." He was subtly saying: I got up when MY alarm went off, you should too.

"Yeah....I reset it." It's been a bad habit for me the last couple weeks. (Resetting my alarm, I mean, not getting up. Although getting up FEELS like a bad habit...)

"OK," Joey said, kindly, and shooed Henry out of the room.

Henry sat at the door and cried for a few minutes before realizing that I was not going to come out and give him his "morning rubs" or play with him. Again, poor baby.

Twenty minutes later, my alarm went off. I considered rolling over and pretending it wasn't happening, but the noise was so annoying that I forced myself to get up. I made the bed in the dark before going out into the living room.

I was greeted by bright light, a still-damp dog, and an alert husband. "Babe, you're finally up!"

"Rawr." I said, and began to wander around pointlessly. It took 15 minutes before I could get excited enough about the day to actually get in the shower.

And, thus, I conclude that I must be Very Boring Indeed or I'd be able to get up easier in the morning.

Reasons Why I'm Glad I'm Not Our Downstairs Neighbor

1. Joey chases Henry around the floor by galloping on his hands and knees and makes a big raucous doing it. He probably sounds like some kind of elephant or other large beast to someone down below.

2. I very regularly throw things off the balcony (such as large tree branches that Joey cut off, ash from cleaning the fireplace, etc...) and try to miss their balcony, but I can't always be sure.

3. When I sweep my balcony every day, it winds up in the neighbors balcony down below. I used to feel bad about this until I leaned over mine enough to see in theirs and discovered that, while there's a really large and noticeable line of junk I've swept down (leaves, Henry's fur, Joey's hair, etc...) the neighbors haven't done anything about it. They also have overturned Rubbermaid containers out there so I'm not sure they even go on their balcony.

When considering our downstairs neighbors, though, one must realize several things:

• We have never actually seen the neighbor's face so we're not entirely sure he has one. I did, however, see him carrying a cat in a cat carrier. So we (mostly I) figure he's insane.

• He's behind on his rent a lot. I know this from sneaking over and reading the delinquent notices that the landlords post on his door. (All of you who are shushing me right now, stop it. You'd do it too.) They're sometimes there for several days before he takes them down.

• He's got something in front of his bedroom window that looks vaguely like a headboard. Why someone would put a headboard in front of a window is beyond me. (Another reason why we--mostly I--think he's insane.) Unless, of course, it's to prevent armed robbery or something, in which case I'd just rather put a steel plate in front of my window. Or get a raging pit bull or something. But I'd never sleep in front of the window like that.

So, for many reasons, I'm glad I'm not my downstairs neighbor. He seems real nuts.

Rabid Squirrels and Bird Poo

Perhaps some of you may recall the previous post in which I bemoaned our neighbors multitude of bird feeders. For some weeks now no birds have discovered the feeders.

Until last week.

There's this Stupid Squirrel that lives in the tree that covers both our balcony and the front stairs. He used to sneak on our balcony and look at me with his beady little black eyes, but I got Joey to saw off the branch of the tree that was hanging over our balcony (not sure if that's really allowed, but he did a very nice job of it) and the Stupid Squirrel hasn't bothered me since.

Until, as I said, last week.

Stupid Squirrel found the bird feeders. And he delights in eating any and all the seed in them and he does this pretty much all the time.

Every time I go up the stairs toward our door Stupid Squirrel and I have this uncomfortable face-off.

He dodges one way, I go the other. He jumps nervously about from railing to railing (I'm always afraid I'm going to get bit in the crossfire) and tries to get off the front balcony before I get there.

Thus far he usually just dive bombs for the ground at an extremely painful looking speed. The "splat" noise he makes when he lands is kind of satisfying, but I do feel sort of sorry for him.

Aside from Stupid Squirrel freaking me out every time I go up my stairs, there's a plethora of bird poo covering the railings and sidwalk below.

Not to mention all the seed that Stupid Squirrel spilled when he was decimating the bird feeder.

I think Stupid Squirrel sits on St. Birdfeeder's head and eats the seed out of his little seed bowl because the amount of seed that's been thrown everywhere is just appalling. He has little regard for the starving squirrels in the Mojave Desert or wherever.

And, thus, I am looking forward to our neighbors bird seed being eaten. I am afraid of this rabid Stupid Squirrel who looks as though he's going to bite me for invading "his" territory, and I'm quite finished with all this bird poo.

And yet I know I must "dwell together in unity", so I'm thinking of having someone come steal the neighbors bird feeders so that we can be unified in not having any.

Seems like a good idea to me.

If I get rabies from this squirrel and wind up in the hospital, I expect a lot of flowers from those of you who read this blog and never comment.

One Is Never Too Old For Winnie The Pooh

Joey and I went to Half Price Books on Tuesday because we wanted to find the Mr. Men and Little Miss books.

They didn't have them. (Losers.)

We DID find a hardcover copy of The Complete Stories And Poems of Winnie The Pooh, however, and Joey didn't hesitate to buy it for me.

"For our children someday," he justified, as he walked up to the counter.

I cracked the binding as soon as we got in the car and read "Rice Pudding" to him.  He was very amused.

I then began to read him Chapter One which is entitled "In Which We Are Introduced to Winnie The Pooh, and Some Bees, and The Stories Begin". 

Those of you who have been in Sunday School, attended college, or any situation in which I must read aloud know that I am terrible at reading out loud.  My eyes move too fast for my mouth and then I wind up bungling everything.

Joey thought the story was fantastic, but was a little confused because I'd done such a poor job at reading it.

Later that evening I asked, "Can you read me that chapter of Pooh as a bedtime story?"

He obliged me.

"We should probably do this every night," Joey said, after he finished reading the Introduction and first chapter.

And so we have.  (Granted, it has only been two nights since we bought the book.  But we still have.)

After reading Winnie the Pooh again I have realized two pertinent things:
1.)  I seem to have plagiarized A. A. Milne's writing style without meaning to.  Must have been in my subconscious from childhood or something, but I definitely recognized myself in his writing.  Odd.
2.)  It is not normal for a married couple in the mid twenties with no children to read Winnie the Pooh at night before bed.  To each other.  However, I rather like it.

In Which I Spill Water All Over My Pants

I had a cluster headache today so wound up going home at 1:00 to take a nap. While the headache is not yet gone, it at least feels better and I guess I need to pick my battles. Henry was super cute, too.

At about 6:20 I was on my way to take dinner to Joey at DTS. (He's monitoring a distance learning class, the prof's in Houston and they're beaming him back to Dallas.) I'd picked up Subway after I went to the chiro, being sure to ask for extra mayo for Joey, and was nearly to the school when my phone rang.

"Can you go to BK and pick up something for the other guy I'm working with?" Joey asked.

"Sure," I said, mentally planning my new route.

Joey explained the sandwich I was to attempt to get (I told him no guarantees because of the headache) and asked me to pick up an extra water. I agreed.

Drive Thrus and I very rarely get along.

However, since nobody was in the Drive-Thru I decided to take my chances. I made my order, remembering the specifications, and didn't hear anything from the squawk box but static. The BK I had chosen was a kind of shady one so I figured somebody had shot the speaker and so it wasn't working anymore.

I decided to pull forward.

The moment I drove away, the voice came through clearly on the speaker asking me to confirm my order. So I put the car in reverse, got close enough to the speaker to be heard and yelled, "YES, THAT'S FINE!"

I heard, "Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order?"

I gave up and drove to the window, not entirely sure what I was going to get when I got there.

The kid inside handed me the sandwich and the water in a small, very flimsy plastic cup. I almost asked him for a paper one, but in the interest of time I opted not to. I paid him, thanked him, and left.

Once I got to DTS I loaded myself up with my purse, Whole Foods bag containing all my toys to keep me busy during Joey's class, the soda for Joey and the water for the other dude. I did not have enough hands.

I stepped out of the car and at that precise moment, the water fell off the soda against my stomach. The lid popped off and I was in an instant soaked from belly button to knee.

(But only on my right side, so again, counting the blessings.)

I wilted.

Fortunately it's kind of warm tonight, so I jumped around and kicked my right leg to dry it off. I then realized that I probably looked possessed to anyone passing by, so I quit doing that.

Besides, the whole jumping-kicking combination hadn't dried off my leg at all.

I juggled my purse and Whole Foods bag while trying to call Joey to find out where he was. I knew the classroom number but, as I had seriously wet pants, wasn't too keen on Plan A, which was walking into the classroom and asking for Joey. I figured I'd lay low.

Joey didn't answer his phone so I stood outside the classroom, facing the wall, trying to decide my next plan of action. I got several odd looks from students. Not sure if it was that I was staring at the wall or that my pants were soaked.

Probably a little of both.

To my great relief, Joey came bursting around the corner just then and nearly knocked me over. He felt very sorry for me and my wet pants, as he should.

Two things to be thankful for:
1.) The glass of water was very small
2.) It was not soda

And my pants have sufficiently dried off now, so I can even cross my legs now. YAY!!!

Mr. Forgetful

The t-shirt that Joey got me spawned a lot of family flurry. We all have been assigned characters from either the Mr. Men or Little Miss series of books and most of us have updated our Gmail statuses and pictures accordingly.

Even Pops! (With some serious help from Laura.)

It was decided yesterday that Joey's character is Mr. Forgetful. POOR JOEY! He gets in these "autopilot" states and just starts driving the car places. Back in Iowa we'd be headed to church and he'd be starting to go south to work.

(I'm really hoping he doesn't get on the "Iowa Work" autopilot someday and wind up in Kansas before he's realized what's happening.)

He often forgets minor, trivial things. Some days, though, he can forget a lot of them at once, which makes me wonder if he needs to eat more protein.

As I made dinner last night, I informed Joey of his new moniker.

"HEY! That's not nice!" He said.

I then reminded him that nearly all of the family name assignments were derogatory. (Except Mom's, of course.) He resigned himself to his fate. "Who's everybody else?"

"Well, Ashley is Little Miss Stubborn and Stephen's Mr. Noisy."

"Oh, totally. Stephen's really noisy." Joey broke in.

"Andrew is Mr. Clever which doesn't sound all that derogatory, but he looks like Mr. Clever and that's sort of derogatory. The Kid is Mr. Mischief (obviously) and poor Pops is Mr. Bump because he broke his toe. Mom is either Little Miss Shy or Little Miss Splendid. Probably Little Miss Shy."

Joey nodded in agreement.

Laura's Little Miss nickname was up in the air at that point---Andrew had assigned her one that was just way too nice (Little Miss Splendid), so we told him it had to be something a little more derogatory than that. The best he could do was Little Miss Tidy. <sigh>

Oh, and I'm obviously Little Miss Trouble.

After all this explanation we sat down to dinner. It was very tasty. We cleaned up quickly and went our separate ways for a half hour or so.

I was in the kitchen working on Henry's dinner when Joey came up and leaned against the bar.

"What's my nickname again? I don't remember."

I looked at him. "You don't remember?" I assumed he was kidding.

"No, I don't remember."

I could tell he was serious. I sighed and tried not to laugh.

"SWEETIE....your nickname is Mr. Forgetful!"

Joey totally blanched. "What?! And I forgot that it was Mr. Forgetful! This is not good at all." He wilted and went over to the couch to pout about his brain cells.

I was getting ready for bed when Joey came in all excited about something.

"I think I figured out how not to forget stuff as much!" He then elaborated this program for his Mac that will help him with to-do lists and suchlike.

I say, more power to ya, babe. I mean Mr. Forgetful.

Henry Goes To The Mall

On Friday we were headed over toward Fort Worth to have dinner with Joey's uncle and grandparents.  The air was heavy, humid and hot.  It felt just like a tornado day back in Iowa and I told Joey so as I swept the porch right before we left.

Henry's been way cuter than normal lately, so we couldn't resist his big brown eyes and cute face.  We decided at the last minute to bring him along so he wouldn't have to be in his kennel again.

It's a 30-45 minute drive to Joey's uncle Ken's house.  Because it was a Friday night, we figured it would be more of a 45 minute drive.  Surprisingly, there was very little traffic and this struck us as odd.

About 20 minutes into the drive my phone rang.  It was Tom, Joey's other uncle.

"You guys had better get to shelter, a tornado is coming,"  He said.

"Oh, well we're in the car on the way to Fort Worth,"  I told him.

"Are you by DFW?"  He asked.

"Yep," I replied.

"GET OUT OF THE CAR NOW!  THERE'S BASEBALL SIZED HAIL COMING YOUR WAY!" 

I calmly thanked him and hung up as quickly as possible. And then I began freaking out.

"We have to park now!  Tom says baseball sized hail!  It'll wreck our car!  What about Henry!"  And so on and so forth.

We pulled off the freeway and drove over to a mall, certain that they'd have a parking garage. 

They didn't.

Joey found us a parking spot that was on the lower level of Macy's and kind of protected by the building.

"I'm not leaving Henry in the car!"  I said, "Not if there's baseball sized hail. He's coming in with me."

Joey agreed and so we picked up our puppy and ran in to Macy's.

OF ALL STORES IN THE MALL.  I guess it would have been worse if it were Nordstrom's, but honestly.

I apologized profusely as we walked in the store, carrying our fluffy puppy.  All the sales ladies ran over and said, "OH!  Your dog is so cute!"  They didn't seem mind a bit that they had a canine running around in their housewares section.

We were locked in Macy's for 20 minutes.  In that 20 minutes, we met a lot of very different people. 

--I met a little girl who thinks husbands are "gross". She told me so when she found out Joey was my husband.  Her mother does, however, have a boyfriend.  (And right after the little girl told me that her mother hauled her away to go look at towels.)

--I met a semi-intoxicated woman "dressed to the hilt" on her way to a Journey concert at the Speedway.  Tickets were $3 if she could get there by 8:00 (It was only 6:30)

--We met some teenagers who were obnoxiously loud and quite afraid of tornadoes.  (They seemed to have gotten them mixed up with hurricanes, so we were happy to straighten them out.  They were happy too.)

--Joey walked by some girl telling another girl, "OH LOOK!  It's about to strike!  When it gets real quiet and the winds stop, that means the tornado is about to hit."

(The reason it was quiet and the winds had stopped was that the storm had blown over.  The sky was blue.  We didn't bother to correct the poor thing, she'd obviously watched Twister a few too many times.)

And, thus, we decided that since the sky was blue we could leave Macy's.  Henry waved his furry little paw goodbye to his fans, and we went on our merry way.

Henry doesn't really like shopping.

Little Miss Trouble

We were in Dillards yesterday when Joey got a really odd look on his face.

"Jenna, come here." He said. He dragged me over to a rack of T-shirts and pointed to one that read "Little Miss Chatterbox". (You know, from those kids books we used to read when we were little?)

"WOAH! AWESOME!" I shrieked. "I loved those books!"

"They don't have it in your size, they only have a Large," Joey said, ruefully.

"Hey, they have tons! Look, Little Miss Trouble!" I pointed to the rest of the rack. They also had Little Miss Sunshine and a few others, I forget exactly which ones.

"Hmm. Little Miss Trouble. I'm getting it for you, you're tons of Trouble." Joey began digging through the stack. "Do you want Small or Medium?"

He marched up to the register with me trailing behind saying things like, "NO! It's $24, that's too expensive! We can't spend so much money on something I can't wear to work..."

Ultimately, I was outvoted. Joey said, "Let me buy you things like this once in awhile!" And the matter was settled.

I wore my Little Miss Trouble shirt to church this morning and was quite pleased with it. It did turn out to be a bad idea as we were introduced as new members and there I was wearing a shirt that proclaimed I was Trouble.

Oh well, what's done is done, eh?

I'm Trouble and I have a t-shirt to prove it!

Henry's Teeth Strength

Our dog has insanely strong teeth.

Observe:

Henry's hanging from Chippy by his teeth...about three inches off the carpet. The kid just won't let go of stuff.

We had friends over for lunch and Mike got a big kick out of dangling Henry around...Henry needs to chill out.

I Am Deformed

So back in college I used to lift weights.  (Nobody laugh.)  I had a Very Unfortunate Accident one evening as I was doing calf-raises with 160 lbs standing on the riser in the weight room at school.

A wooden riser on sweaty rubber mats isn't exactly the safest thing in the world, but I was using the weights on the "spotter", so I figured I was safe.

That is, until the riser slipped out from under me, I lost my balance and the 160 lb barbell and I went crashing to the ground.

I gave myself a very nice whiplash on the bar, naturally.  (And have not really lifted weights since.)

Turns out this little weightlifting accident has caused me permanent neck trauma.  I went to the chiro for something yesterday and happened to mention my neck hurts a lot so he snapped an X-ray of it.

When I came in today he slapped the X-ray of my neck on the glass and said, "What did you DO?!"

Apparently my neck doesn't have any curve at all anymore and is very nearly in Phase 2 (out of 4) of degeneration. I'm getting calcium deposits too, which are becoming bone spurs, and I find this curious since I barely drink any milk.

Suffice it to say, I will be going to the chiropractor a zillion times in the next four months, starting physical therapy and getting shocked by this electrical TENS thing (which totally gives me the jibblies)....all because I slipped when I was lifting weights in college.

The moral of the story is:  Don't exercise.  You might hurt yourself.  Sit on the couch and eat potato chips.

V8

Oddly enough, last night before I fell asleep all I could think about was V8 juice and how I wanted to try some.

Then this morning I heard 3 commercials for V8, sparking my desire to try some again. I'm not really sure why (V8 is the most disgusting juice concept out there I think), but it seems like my subconsious is trying to tell me something.

I'm going to go get some right now and try it. Hold on.

waiting...

waiting...

waiting...

OK, I just made the mistake of reading the label. It contains: tomato juice, carrots, celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, watercress and spinach.

What is watercress??!

I suppose I'd better suck it up and try it, though. I totally don't want to do this anymore.

Hmm. It's like drinking cold, salty tomato soup. I cannot finish the can. I'm probably going to have to go throw it out, too, because having it sit on my desk is creeping me out.

I suppose all this proves is that I'm not yet mature since I don't like V8. (But then, we all knew I wasn't mature so I guess I didn't need to prove anything after all.)

In Which Joey Makes Enough Tuna Salad To Feed A Small Army and Stabs Me In The Hand

A rather unusual title, I know. But bear with me.

Last night I got home at 5:30 to find my favorite Joey in the kitchen. The entire house smelled like tuna. I expected the house to smell like tuna last night because I'd planned to make tuna salad sandwiches for dinner.

I just hadn't expected Joey to make them. But there he was, happily dumping cans of tuna into my large white bowl and talking on the phone to his Pops (aka FIL#1).

WAIT--cans of tuna?

Sure enough, he'd opened two cans of tuna. And he was poking all the tuna with a fork. I wanted to ask why he was doing that, but he was on the phone with FIL#1 and I couldn't. I decided to leave him to his business to see how the tuna came out. He was, after all, following a recipe.

No wonder the tuna smell had been so strong when I walked in the door.

I sat down in the den to play with Henry. Joey got off the phone and hollered from the kitchen, "Why's the carrot slicer so big? Did we get a new one?"

"Yes," I replied, "But you're probably using the OXO one, it's larger than you're used to."

A few minutes later,

"But it's taking huge gashes out of the carrot..." He sort of trailed off.

"You just have to learn the way to hold this one," I replied. "They're all different."

"Come look at this and tell me if you think it needs another carrot," Joey said, and I moseyed my way in.

He was holding a cheese slicer in one hand and a carrot in the other. "See how many gashes it takes out of the carrot?"

I started to laugh. "Honey, that's a cheese slicer. You'll never get it to work properly on a carrot." I dug around in the kitchen tools drawer and held out the carrot slicer. "Here, try this one."

Joey wilted but gamely began peeling the carrot. "Wow, this works really well..."

He began chopping the vegetables up into minuscule pieces with my garlic chopper. I could tell that he was having a prodigious amount of fun, so I left him to his recipe again, now that the carrot crisis was over.

I decided to go to the bathroom to pluck my eyebrows. A few minutes later, Joey came in looking rather wilty (again) and said, "Um, I made a ton of tuna, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I usually only make one can." I said with a smile.

"Well, I put one can in and it didn't look like enough so I added another one, but now that I added the vegetables, um, it's huge."

"And it'll get bigger when we add the mayo!" I added. "We'll have tuna all week!"

We decided this was most definitely the worst problem we'd ever encountered, so we laughed, went back to the kitchen and finished making the tuna.

Joey made three sandwiches for dinner and we still have a whole bunch of tuna left over.

We probably will have tuna all week.

It was some of the best tuna salad I've ever had, though, regardless of quantity and I was so thankful that he was making dinner when I came home. A very lovely surprise.

When we were cleaning up from dinner (in a bit of a hurry as we have to rush off to youth group), I leaned across the dishwasher to support myself as I snuck by just as Joey put a knife into the silverware basket.

The knife stabbed my right hand by the pinkie knuckle and Joey, realizing what had happened, froze.

"DID I KILL YOU? ARE YOU OK? ARE YOU BLEEDING?" He panicked.

I sort of jumped and danced around the kitchen (not an easy task, we've got a smallish kitchen) then stopped and looked at my hand. I was very disappointed that there wasn't more carnage, it was barely bleeding and the cut wasn't deep at all.

A flesh wound, you might say.

Joey was still nervously watching me so I showed him the extent of the damage. "I'm SO sorry!" He repeated several times.

I willed the cut to be more gory. Nothing happened, so I gave up.

We finished cleaning up dinner in short order. Nothing else disastrous ensued, which was kind of nice.

Henry is a Brat

I frosted cookies with Stephanie on Monday night because Joey was studying and I was trying not to disturb him.

I am not sure if it was actually more distracting for me to leave because I was gone longer than he wanted me to be gone. I got a very whiny phone call after I'd been gone for 45 minutes. I answered the phone and heard, "Where aaaaaaaaaare you, I miss you!" To which I replied, of course, "I'm staying out of the house so you can study."

I get the feeling he'd been sitting at home watching the clock wondering when I was going to get home, what in the world I was doing, and how I could possibly be having any fun at all without him.

(Trust me, sweetie, it is definitely more challenging to have fun without you. But it is possible.)

POOR SOUL.

I have digressed.

I finally got home at 9:10 (2 hours after I left) and Joey was excessively pleased to see me. (In his defense, he had accomplished quite a bit of studying and had even begun on his test. He's a model student.)

Stephanie had sent three cookies home with me, so I gave Joey two of them (for motivation) and sat on the futon to eat mine.

Henry looked up at me, pathetically, with his big, brown eyes as if to say "Mom, can I have some?"
I broke off a little piece of my butterfly cookie and set it on the end of my knee, taunting him. Henry sniffed the air and inched closer to me.

Joey and I were discussing his test and I wasn't paying any attention to the dog. Suddenly, he took a flying leap and dove onto the futon, sliding as he hit the microfiber. He kind of did this sprawl/slide/wipe out, righted himself, shook himself off, and promptly climbed on top of me to try to get my cookie.

"HEY!" I cried. He'd never tried this one before. I held the cookie out of his reach and took his little piece (he hadn't noticed it yet) and scooted it further away from him.

He continued to try to climb me for the cookie.

Knowing full well that I had two "parenting" options (and was probably going to choose the wrong one) I said to Joey, "Grab the camera and take a picture of this. He's totally climbing me to get at my cookie.

(FYI, climbing humans for their food is not allowed in our house. I'm totally going to have to redo all my training after letting Henry regress like that.)

"OHHH! He's so cute!" Joey said. He snapped a picture just as Henry sat down and began looking civilized again.

"Lure him. Wave it in front of his face and see if he climbs you again." So I did...nothing. He did, however, make some really cute faces but he never tried to climb up my arm.

After a few moments I got tired of this, ate my cookie and set Henry on the floor. I then took the small piece I'd saved for him, set it on the floor in front of him, and made him sit there and stare at it.

And stare at it.

And stare at it.

I could tell he really wanted his piece of cookie because he was starting to shake. "GO!" I said, and Henry dove forward and pounced on his cookie.

At least I didn't let him eat the cookie while he was misbehaving, right?

Things I Do That The Kid Thinks Are Gross

1.  Kiss Joey
The Kid always says stuff like "Give Joey a kiss for me", but we all know that The Kid would think it was gross if he had to do it.

2.  Sit on pats of butter to soften them
This really drives The Kid nuts.  (And The Brother, too.)  I don't like my butter to be hard and unspreadable, so I usually sit on it until it warms up.  (And I will admit that that one is actually sort of gross.)

3.  Pick up Henry's poos
The Kid barely picks up Ernie's poos, much less Henry's.  He thinks it's gross and yet I still do it.

4. Hide in a Dumpster for 45 minutes with a snake and mice crawling around
This was several years ago, but I definitely did it. However, I think that everyone agrees that it was gross. 

Actually the worst part of the whole experience was the trash bag I had over my head (so people wouldn't recognize me if they did open the Dumpster) because after 20 minutes I very nearly passed out from oxygen deprivation.

(Mom said not to put trash bags over my head and I guess didn't listen.)

5.  Eat strange food on a dare
The Kid is always making me eat strange and gross things.  The last thing (don't remember what it was) was extremely raunchy though.  I've blocked it from my memory


And so there you have it.  It's kind of amazing that The Kid will even talk to me.  I'm SOOO gross.

Junk Food Monday

It is currently 8:40 a.m.  I have, thus far, consumed:

3 Extra Creamy Hershey's easter eggs
4 more sitting on my desk that I'm going to eat as soon as I'm done with this
5 Cadbury Mini Eggs
1 Two-Bite carrot cake from Whole Foods

I have a really bad feeling about the way the day's going so far.  I'm probably going to be hyper and sugar-letdowned all at the same time by 10:00.

Oh, for good measure I did have 2 slices of whole wheat toast with organic raspberry jam, but I'm not sure that really canceled out much of the sugar.

In Which Joey and Jenna Tick Off The Secret Service And Get Stuck In Someone's Yard

Crawford, Texas is only 2 hours and 15 minutes away from Dallas. Positively tempting when you consider that the President is there at his ranch this weekend.

I orchestrated a schedule that included the Dr. Pepper museum in Waco, and Joey and I hopped in the car and began our expedition at 9:40 a.m. (We only left 40 minutes late, too, which I thought was a lovely thing.)

We ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the car (seminary wives are always economical!) and headed to Crawford first. Gramps and Grandma had been there three weeks ago and Grandpa had described it as "a wide spot in the road".

I did not believe him. We did, however, realize that things were going to be interesting when we saw this sign driving into town.

It also turns out that Gramps was not exaggerating about the size of the town (population 691), as you can see from this photo.We went to the restaurant that George W. Bush holds interviews at when he's in town. (It's just to the right of the flashing red light in the background of the picture.) Oh wait, I should emphasize that it's the only restaurant in town. (Only traffic light, too.) We got a milkshake and bacon cheddar fries (Joey's idea) to split.



I figure that the food at that restaurant is probably not going to be a positive contribution to the President's overall health. There's some serious grease in that stuff. I can recommend that cafe for the best strawberry shakes ever, though. Mine was phenomenal.



We did notice a rather large press contingent, three pilots wearing very unflattering green jumpsuits (Joey pointed it out, not me) and one guy who I figure is probably a Secret Service agent.

I mean, come on, he was sitting all by himself at a table and facing the door. Total Secret Service material if you ask me, especially with the Prez in town.

Joey disagrees, but I saw him giving us weird looks a lot. (This could be due predominantly to the fact that I kept throwing glances over my shoulder at him to see what he was doing and if it looked "secrety". Joey was getting embarrassed by me, but that's not really new.)

From there, we walked around the town a bit, stopped in a couple junk shops (oh, I mean "curio" shops) and decided we'd best head it out to get as close to the ranch as we could.

(We had directions from Gramps' recent trip. They don't exactly publicize how to there.)

The directions were really good. We were doing great, finding all the landmarks and making really good time. There were two white Dodge Caravans following us. Joey glanced back and said, "Oh, looks like some other tourists are out trying to spy on the ranch too."

Suddenly, we came upon three bright orange roadblocks that proclaimed "100% ID Checks", a very official police car, and an even more official enormous guy wearing a bulletproof vest that read "Secret Service" was sitting inside it. When he saw our car he exploded from his vehicle and barreled over to us.

I unrolled my window, already shivering in my tennis shoes.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He barked at us.

"Leaving!" I squeaked at the same time Joey said, "Out touristing, we're turning around now."

He leaned toward the window in a very intimidating and official manner. Joey turned the car around faster than I've ever seen him do before and we were back on our way.

All the vans that had been following us flashed their ID to the Secret Service dude and he waved them through the checkpoint.

"I thought it was odd that so many cars were following us," Joey said.

I'd noticed a field full of bluebonnets on the way to get in trouble with the Secret Service, and asked Joey if we could stop so I could take some pictures of them. There had been a little gravel road we could pull off in so that we wouldn't block the road.

We got to the gravel road and pulled off.

Suddenly, I noticed a house.

"Joey, this is someone's driveway! We're in their front yard; we have to leave!" I was getting nervous.

He tried to back up. Nothin'. Our wheels were spinning and spinning...things did not look good for the Woestmans.



"Well, we're stuck," Joey proclaimed after a few minutes.

Joey got out and walked around the car. I sat inside and noticed that it smelled like an engine belt was getting a little bit hot and wondered if we were going to die.



"Well, if I push and you crank the wheel to the left, I think we can get out of this," was Joey's analysis.

I wimpered. I hate being in vehicles in perilous situations and this, to me, qualified as "perilous". "OK...."

And it was then that I noticed the person walking toward us. The landowner. I prayed they wouldn't be mad.

"Apologize profusely!" I hissed to Joey as he walked toward the man.

In manly terms, Joey explained that we'd pretty much gotten ourselves stuck in his yard. The dude who lived there said it was fine and that he'd done the same thing last week. He then pointed out his tracks through the yard.

He volunteered to help Joey push the car out, which left me in the driver's seat. Oh joy.

Somehow the guys pushed the car out of the mud (the guy who lived there got sprayed with mud, poor thing) and we were home free.

The car's a little worse for wear, but at least we're not still stuck in the yard in Crawford.



We took some really quick pictures of the bluebonnets, Joey got a cactus in his foot, and we decided it was time to get out of Crawford before the Secret Service guy came and found us loitering.



Can't say as I've ever had such an interesting two hours in my entire life.

Country Bumpkin Strikes Again

So lunch today was soups, salads and sandwiches.

I made my sandwich and was over by tomato bisque soup trying to decide what the pasta dish was in the bowl next to the tomato soup.

It looked good, so I got a ladle full and dumped it on my plate.

The fact that I needed a ladle to serve it should have been my first clue. It was some kind of vegetable noodle soup and, once I dumped it on my plate, the broth completely took over. It's in my fruit and leaking through the plate.

It hasn't touched the sandwich yet and of this I am thankful.

I wondered why I got some weird looks when I dumped the "pasta dish" on my plate...now I know why. My plate is currently covered in tissues so I can sop up the evidence before any more people see what I've done.

Must throw tissues away now before anybody sees the way I destroy my evidence.

Gray Hairs?!?

I'm only 24. Now, granted, Joey will caveat that with, "But you're almost 25! And you're going to be 30 before I am, and 40 and 50..." (And so on until I punch him in the arm.)

We were getting ready for People Search last week and I was brushing my hair for some reason (I rarely brush it, it's too short and doesn't tangle) when suddenly I stopped short.

"JOEY! I THINK I SEE A GRAY HAIR!!!" I wailed.

"What? No way; let me see." He leaned down close to inspect my hairline. "I don't see anything."He snapped a picture for posterity. "You definitely don't have any gray hair, it all looks brown to me." He said, holding the picture where I could see it.

I shifted around the hair a bit and pointed them out again. There they were. One, no, TWO gray hairs.

"Oh," He said. "I see them."

"What am I going to do!!" I moaned. I really like my natural hair color (thanks Mom and Dad) and the thought of dying it and frying the ends just kills me.

"You could pull them out," suggested Joey.

"Brilliant!" I replied and began digging for the tweezers. Once located, I climbed up on the counter for better access to the mirror. (All the while praying that the counter wouldn't fall off the wall.)

I successfully extricated the gray hairs from my scalp. Observe:

While they strongly resemble Henry's fur, there is no doubt that these hairs are gray, or that they came from my scalp.

However.

They came from the exact same follicle, were curly, and not the same texture as my normal hair. This leads me to believe that the entire incident is a freak of nature (quiet, you who are thinking that I'm a freak of nature...) and that I'm probably not going prematurely gray after all.

I probably just have a strange hair follicle with no pigment in it.

RIGHT?!

Air Conditioner Wars

Yesterday it was 85 degrees outside, at least that many inside, and oppressively humid.  Everything felt damp and sticky.  Not pleasant.  We had our windows open, but the air wasn't even really moving.

Not a good start for the month of April.

As we had Passover Seder last night, we closed up most of the windows (it looked like rain) and walked over to JP and Steph's, matzo balls in hand. 

(I had hoped they'd cool off a bit on the walk, but it was so warm and humid outside that they didn't do none of that.)

The thunder began as we were about halfway there.  Joey and I looked at each other, shrugged, and kept walking.  Hopefully it would rain and break the humidity, but since we walked this was not looking good for us on the way home.

Seder was over at 10:00 and by 10:30 I had finally managed to get Joey to leave.  (He has issues with leaving JP's house.  It's like he loses track of time or something, or just refuses to believe that it's actually time to go...)

It did not rain, nor did the humidity break.  It was a hot, sticky walk back home.

"Can we please turn the air conditioner on?"  I asked.  "JP and Steph had theirs on..."  (I figured if I pulled the JP card, it must might work.)

"No way, I don't want to pay for that yet."  Joey said, staunchly.

I wilted.  (Not only out of defeat, but because the humidity was extremely overwhelming.)

When we arrived home and opened the door, it was hotter and stickier inside than it was outside.  Unable to hold my tongue I said, "Please can't we turn the air on?  It's so hot outside we'll never cool this place down."

"Fine,"  Joey said and marched over to the thermostat.  He then went around and closed all the windows, all the while having a very disgruntled look on his face.

We did not speak more of the air conditioner incident.

This morning at 6:30 I took Henry out to go to the bathroom.  It was freezing outside.  Something had happened to the pressure system in the night and not only was the humidity gone, but the heat had dissipated as well.

I shivered while I waited for Henry, then I snuck inside and turned off the air conditioner.

When we both finally got up 45 minutes later (resetting the alarm and hitting snooze repeatedly are a bad combination) I said to Joey "It'sreallycoldoutsideIguesswedidn'tneedtheaircondionerafterall."

"Wha?"  asked my sleepy husband.

"Well...I said...you were right, we didn't need the air conditioner.  It's really cold outside this morning."

Fortunately he was too tired to say, "I told you so!"

Slugworth the Slug

We got some chairs for our patio and, while carrying them up to the apartment, Joey noticed a slug on the railing.

"Oh look, a slug," he pointed out.

"WHERE!?" I asked.

He pointed.

I got my face down real close to the slug. He slimed and oozed away from me, so I blew on him. "Can I take him inside?"

"No." Joey said, ever the hard-nosed stickler.

"Maaaaaaaaan!" I whined, looking back at the slug wistfully.

"Jordan found one of those on Saturday and then he poured salt all over it. The slug got all slimy and then blew up like a jelly doughnut."

"COOL!" I yelled, "Can I do that?"

"NO!" Joey repeated.

Half an hour later it was determined (by Rock, Paper, Scissors) that I was to be the one to go get the John Mayer CD out of my car so Joey could put it on the lappy. I was excessively pleased to see that the slug was still on the railing.

I scooped the slug on to the end of my key (that way I wasn't actually touching the slug) and carried him into the house.

I took him directly to the porch (that way he wasn't actually in the house) and tried to find a spot to keep him. I couldn't find one so I picked a leaf off the oak tree that hangs over the balcony and deposited the slug onto the leaf, slime and all.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Joey asked from the living room.

"Nothing really..." I said, getting down on my hands and knees to watch the slug ooze around. It was too dark on the porch to see him at his finest, so I snuck him into the kitchen.

"Did you bring that slug in?" Joey asked from the couch

"Um......yes? I want to take pictures of him and put him on my blog and it's too dark on the porch. He's cool; everyone needs to see him."



Joey sighed one of those I married the craziest girl in the whole world kind of sighs and said, "OK, fine."

I set the leaf and the slug down on my kitchen counter (editor's note: in the house) and took about 8 pictures. I determined that the slug is one of the coolest creatures that God made. (His eyes and antennae ooze around just like the rest of him, they get sucked in and stuck out really far; it's so cool!)

He's out on the balcony sleeping under his leaf right now, I checked on him before I went to bed. I love my slug.

(Joey named him, by the way, so I think he's forgiven me for bringing the slug in the house.)

True Story

This was recently overheard.  (By me, of course.)

Person 1:  My cat has been waking up in the middle of the night, like clockwork, at 4:00!

Person 2:  Oh, I'm so sorry!

Person 1:  And then he digs at the carpet furiously, tears a bunch out, and then eats it.

Person 2:  Wow...that sounds bad.

Person 1:  It is.  The cat hadn't gone to the bathroom in four days.  He was getting all bloated and looked like a hot air balloon.

Person 2:  Poor kitty.

Person 1:  So we took the cat to the vet, gave him an enema, and the vet prescribed Prozac.

Person 2:  Did it help?

Person 1:  Yes!  He's back to normal again and isn't even acting drugged up.

Wow.  Prozac for a cat.  What will I hear next?

In Which Jenna Strands Joey

I was almost to the place I go all day when I got a call from Joey.

 

"Babe, do you have my car keys?"

 

My heart sunk. (sank? Grandpa, please advise.)

 

"Um, I can't tell because I'm not able to look right now.  But I probably do and I'll call you as soon as I know."

 

I had his keys.

 

Last night when we came in from shopping, he unlocked the door and went straight in to let Henry out.  His keys were still in the lock, so I took them out and threw them on the floor.

 

Later that evening I tossed them in my purse, assuming they were mine.

 

And that's how I wound up in downtown Dallas with every single key for Joey's car.

 

At rush hour.

 

I called poor Joey back and told him the situation.  "It's going to be about 10:00 before I can make it back up there, nobody's moving on the freeway.  Can you wait that long?"

 

He said he could.

 

POOR JOEY!

 

Tonight we're going on a date to Walmart (I know, I know...) to make tons of extra keys to keep around the house so this never happens again.

Thief!

(This happened last weekend but I didn't have a chance to immortalize it in blog until just now.)

Joey and I were walking around the atrium at the Gaylord last weekend taking pictures of inanimate objects and discussing where we were going to eat lunch.

When suddenly we spotted Hank The Longhorn.

He was a beautiful, actual, stuffed Longhorn and he was staring at us with his soft, black, pooly eyes. I fought the urge to pet him.

"Joey, Joey, JOEY!!!" I cried as I held on to the fence as tight as I could, so I wouldn't pet him.

"Do you want your picture taken with Hank?" He asked, indulgently as he set the camera case down on a nearby "rock" so his hands were free to take a picture.

"Of course!" I stood next to Hank and smiled broadly.

"OK," Joey said, "Now lean forward and pretend like you're kissing him on the nose."

I did so.

A very nice lady came by just then and offered to take a picture of us together with Hank The Longhorn. Naturally we did not refuse.

We thanked her, decided we were hungry and began looking for the camera case so we could leave.

"Um, Joey, didn't you set it on this rock?" I asked, pointing to the empty rock at my left.

"Yes....." Joey said, looking glum. He leaned over the rock and looked down into the creek bed.

No camera case.

"There go two of those rechargeable batteries we just bought!" Joey moaned.

"I guess we should always remember we're not in Iowa any more and that there are sticky fingers everywhere," I commiserated.

Joey wilted and poked around for a moment more. "Let's walk back along the path and see if we can spot it. Maybe we dropped it?"

I knew this hadn't been the case, but I said, "Sure." About twenty feet up the path, we noticed a couple who had been taking pictures by Hank The Longhorn.

And the girl was carrying our camera case!

"Excuse me!" I blurted out, "Did you happen to pick up our camera case?"

The girl looked duly embarrassed and said, "Oh! I think we did!"

(In her defense, she thought it was their camera case because it looked just like theirs.)

She quickly gave it back to Joey and apologized profusely. We headed on our way, quite pleased to have our batteries, cables, and camera case back. We haven't set it down unattended since.

Ode to Jo(e)y

I have the best husband ever.

Due to a slightly neurotic personality have a tendancy to freak out about Very Important Things such as: laundry, dirty floors, menus, and grocery shopping. I was supposed to go to a Seminary Wives retreat this weekend and, I must admit, I left a list for Joey to do.

POOR JOEY!

Well, on Saturday night I decided I'd had enough retreating, so I left early. Joey was out having "guy night". (I didn't tell him I was coming home early because I wanted to surprise him, and I didn't want to wreck guy night.)

When I walked in the door, I was reminded how thankful I am for my husband! He had vacuumed the floor (I hate hate hate hate to vacuum. Always have.) and was doing laundry for me!

That's one thing that reminded me how wonderful Joey is.

Last week he bought me a flower. (A lily, actually, the kind we had in our wedding.) It hadn't opened yet. But when I came home it was open and I could smell it all over the house.

A very lovely thing to come home to.

YESTERDAY Joey did something very nice for me indeed. We were at Target buying sheets (how domestic, I know) when Joey suddenly disappeared.

He returned holding two John Mayer CDs.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"These are for you." He said, smiling.

"FOR ME?!" I shrieked, forgetting I was in Target. "But we shouldn't spend that money!"

"I'm going to use my discretionary money for the month." Joey replied.

And so you see, my husband gave up all of his discretionary money for the entire month (on the first day of the month no less) just to buy me two CDs that I wanted so I could listen to them in the car.

Oh, and he's taking me on a date this Friday night.

I LOVE YOU, JOEY!!

Lady Looks Like A Dude

I dressed as a dude for the People Search activity.

I dug up an old pair of Joey's jeans, a blue baseball cap and a button down. Unfortunately, the jeans were too long and I knew I'd have to cut them if I was going to be convincing.

He wouldn't let me cut the pair I wanted to wear, but the pair he gave me was actually shorter than the pair I preferred. I cut of 4 1/2 inches so they'd only slightly drag on the floor.

We got ready in a leisurely manner and decided we'd better take pictures of ourselves. Not only for posterity, but we figured that Mom might like to see me lookin' like a dude.

After taking and subsequently uploading the pictures, Joey and I came to the conclusion that I bear a strong resemblance to The Kid. (Not saying that The Kid looks like a lady, just that I looked like a dude.)
I was going for the bored, disinterested, iPod wearing teenager look (sorry The Kid) and I think I got it. I tried to remember to walk like a dude and I figured I was set.

Joey, on the other hand, looks like a funeral director. (Either that or some young punk exec who parts his hair like an old-timey guy.)

I thought his disguise was very ingenious. The dark brown hair and no glasses look really does a lot for him.
Half of the groups wound up locating me, while only one or two found Joey. Most of the kids walked right past him and didn't recognize him, which was pretty awesome. (To be fair, he didn't recognize them either. But then he didn't have glasses on.)

When we all met up at the end to compare disguises, someone said to me, "WOAH! You look like a DUDE!"

Everyone else just couldn't believe that Joey had permanently dyed his hair.

I knew the entire event had been a success. And now I'm going to take a nap.