Everyone, Meet Bob

I Am Posting Too Much Today

I just had to share.

 

I'm getting ready to eat the world's biggest sugar cookie, and it's super pretty.  It has little white sugars all over the top of it; they look like snow.

 

I'm celebrating since it's snowing.  (Or that's what I'm telling myself.)

Henry Remains An Illegal

After checking on the Dallas website, I have determined to keep my dog an illegal immigrant.

 

It would only cost $7 yearly to register him, but then we'd have to provide proof of vaccinations, etc.

 

I don't plan to keep up on his vaccionations.

 

There are tons of books and opinions out there, but I prefer the one that says yearly vaccinations harm your dog.  He's got his babydog shots, and that's all he's getting for the next 5-7 years.

 

So...Henry better not get loose because he's not going to be registered.

 

In other news, it's snowing down here and everyone's freaking out.  I just hope Henry can get out in it and chase it around...SINCE IT NEVER SNOWED WHEN WE LIVED IN IOWA!

 

(I'm not bitter about that either.)

Bob and I

I've decided that Bob and I can peacefully coexist.  (Bob being the name of my new hairchop.)

 

This morning I was able to get ready in 29 minutes flat, and I didn't even rush!  You have no idea how easy Bob complies with my hairdryer.  I barely had to use that evil round brush.

 

Sometime when I feel like I'll take a picture of Bob and post it here.  But today is not that day because I don't have the capabilities, nor am I in the "proper location" for such things.  (ahem)

 

Anyway, Bob is very functional.  I'm able to still do some stuff with it (him?), and so I'm no longer forlorn every time I look in the mirror.

 

So for those of you concerned, you can rest easy.  Bob and I have made our peace.

Henry, as it turns out, is an illegal immigrant.

 

Aparrently when one moves to Dallas, one is supposed to register one's dog.  The thought of registering Henry with the police, though, makes me feel like Henry's some sort of ex convict.

 

About the only thing Henry's ever done that's a convictable offense is chew on the rug by the front door.  And I decided not to call the 5-0.

 

It's a good thing, too.  Aparrently if your dog gets caught by animal control and isn't registered you have to pay a fine, plus pay "rent" for the time they stayed in lock-down.

 

We probably won't be letting Henry out of our sight. As we don't plan to register him with the authorities, it would be a real shame if he ran away, got caught by the pound, and then we had to post a $200 bail on him.

 

I tell you what, life with an illegal is really stressful.

Officially Homesick

Home was on NPR this morning.

 

I must admit that I am a 24-year old conservative who religiously listens to NPR.  That is not exactly their target demographic but since NPR was the only station that came in when we lived in Ankeny, we have gotten sort of addicted.

 

(In a yelling at the radio sort of way.)

 

I still listen to it down here just because the voices on Morning Edition and All Things Considered are familiar and, frankly, there's not a lot of familiarity down here.

 

THIS particular  morning, Joey and I had a lovely drive to DTS, I dropped him off and flipped on the radio.  The segment that was just beginning was on suburban poverty and guess what city they spotlighted?

 

DES MOINES!!

 

I almost cried.  (And I'm really not kidding; I did!)  I listened to people from Altoona and West Des Moines and Clive talk about the growing number of poor in their surburban enclaves. 

 

I heard a lady from Altoona talk about the commuter bus that runs from Altoona to Des Moines twice a day at 6 a.m. and I smiled as I remembered the Ankeny to Des Moines commuter bus that went every day at about 6:30.  We could see it from our balcony back home.

 

I heard the housing commisioner in Des Moines talk about the downtown homeless shelters, and I got nostalgic as I remembered walking to the library over lunch real quick with Jamie and Tiffany when I worked for Wells Fargo Financial.  We'd walk right past one of those shelters.

 

All in all, I am now sufficiently homesick, and just from getting a little flicker of home on NPR.  It's only 8:00; I'm in for a long day...

 

I'd better go make some coffee or something.

Haircut Gone Wrong

On Saturday, I went to Great Clips to get a haircut.  Being new to Dallas, I decided I didn't want to waste $30 to have someone chop my hair when I could do it for $15 elsewhere.

 

Perhaps that was my first mistake?

 

I walked in at 9:30 and was seated right away.  I hadn't yet washed my hair (as it was 9:30 on a Saturday morning) and felt bad for the lady, so I had her shampoo my hair.  (Second mistake--that cost $4 and I could have done it at home for free.  What was I thinking?!)

 

I then explained to the lady that I wanted it to be long in the front and short and stacked in the back.  She repeated the directions back to me but added "So, like a bob?" I said, "Kind of, only longer in the front and stacked in the back."  She smiled and nodded, and began cutting.

 

(That would be my third mistake.  I should have been more firm about the "long in the front" part.)

 

About five minutes into it, I realized we had a problem. She began cutting the front of my hair shorter than the back.  And, of course, you can't glue it back on once it's off.

 

So I sat there, quietly, and started to feel the knot forming in my stomach.

 

The lady raved and raved about how cute my hair was looking.  I kept my mouth shut.

 

I walked out of the salon with a bob. A short bob. It is not longer in the front, nor it is stacked in the back.

 

Joey keeps telling me that it will grow back.  Of course it will, I've done much worse to my hair, but that's not the point.  It was supposed to be CUTE!!  Not make me look even younger!  (Which it does.)

 

At any rate, I can still put the sides up so I'm not bald, it's just not at all what I wanted.

 

 

 

Hooray!

We are now receiving mail from the post office like any other average, normal American family.  (OK, "average" and "normal" may not be the perfect terms for us, but you know what I mean.)

 

A day or so after my post bemoning our forwarding address woes, we got our forwarding confirmation in the mail!

 

I screamed with glee.  (Joey probably would have too, but screaming with glee is rarely considered to be a manly trait.  So he left that to me.)

 

We're sending out "new address" cards as soon as I get the time to make them up! 

 

 

To Be Fair...

Some of you (my grandfather included) want to know the crime stats for our current neighborhood.

Well, here they are. Oh, and the crime stats for our old neighborhood are worse than what I previously reported. When I got on the City of Dallas' page the numbers were, um, MUCH HIGHER than they were on the neighborhood improvement page.

CURRENT NEIGHBORHOOD
Murder - 2
Rape - 3
Robbery - 30
Assault - 11
Burglarly - 104
BMV - 169
Theft - 163
Auto Theft - 61
Grand Total - 543 times the cops came to our neighborhood in 2006

You know it's Friday when...

1.  You wake up before your alarm goes off (5:57 a.m.) and are actually excited to get the day started so that it can be over sooner.

2.  You are then tired for the rest of the day.

3.  You drink coffee (decaf) but by 12:15 p.m. you are considering the high octane stuff.

4.  You are having a bad hair day. 

5.  Minutes seem to go by slower than they do on, say Tuesday or Wednesday

6.  You are already planning what time to go to bed tonight and get up on Saturday so that you can get the most accomplished possible with the greatest amount of sleep.

7.  You are starvin' marvin' and keep going to the kitchen for snacks, goodies, sandwiches, or other items.  (Coffee not included)

 

I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE WEEKEND!!!

HOORAY!

No more ghetto-partment!!  Joey turned in the keys and officially checked us out at 8:40 this morning.  We are absolutely elated to be done with that place!

 

They said they wouldn't even charge us the $50 carpet cleaning fee!  (As if it would do any good...the carpet is so stained!)

 

We're one-house wonders now.  :)

(Not) Lying With Statistics

On Wednesday, I decided that since we no longer lived at the ghetto-partment, it was safe for me to look at the crime statistics on the neighborhood website. (I don't know why we didn't think of this before. But we didn't, being from Iowa and all...)

I was QUITE astounded. Allow me to give you a sampling for your reading horrification. These have all occurred from January 2006 to October 2006:

Murder - 3
Rape - 15
Robbery - 192
Aggravated Assault - 165
Burglaries - 337
BMV (whatever that is) - 539
Theft - 562
UUMV (again, whatever that means) - 276

This comes to a grand total of 2,089 times the police were called to our neighborhood. (I WAS hearing them all the time!)

We thought that was pretty bad until Joey figured out that the neighborhood was a total of ONLY 2 square miles. That means the cops were getting called every four hours to an area roughly the size of a Wal-mart parking lot. (OK, slightly bigger...)

We're way, way glad that we moved. Way.

My Thought Process

On the way home from work/school today, Joey decided he felt like he was going to puke. Immediately I grew cold, clammy, nervous, and started driving faster. If there's one thing I really can't handle, it's people barfing.

Joey has had the flu, like, THREE TIMES since we got married. Bad news bears.

I started planning escape routes for myself if Joey were to throw up all over the car, or if he were to suddenly cry out, "I'M GONNA BLOW!!!" what I would do. (Sorry, that was kinda crude.)

My favorite option was for him to wait until we pulled into the driveway, then open the door and take care of his business. However, if he were to do that, I certainly would never be able to park in that spot, or the spot next to it, again, lest I get contaminated by or see the vestiges of his, um, barf.

Somehow, after I thought that I was immediately reminded of the time that, when I was 10 or 11, Pops ran over our first kitten, Sugar. (She was white and the name Snowball was already taken, since that was her mom's name.)

Pops drove a white Buick Century with red, velvety interior. (One of those bad boys now retails for about $2,000. I know because I just googled it trying to find a picture. No luck on the picture.) He was backing out of the garage on the way to work one morning when...crunch, there went Sugar.

We kids pretty much cried for an hour, then Pops and Mom took us to Pizza Hut. (Quite rare when we were kids.) I refused to go in the garage (I might see where Sugar died!) and I also refused to ride in the White Car, as we called it, for at least a week.

I recovered, though.

I assume I'd also recover if Joey threw up all over something important like, say, the carpet or the bedspread. But that doesn't mean I'd be happy about it.

It's 6:30 and I think he fell asleep. I'd better go wake him up.

I'm Getting a Haircut

Sorry but it's time to cut my hair.  Not just trim, but Majorly Cut. 

 

(Jamie, I'm not going to cut it short like I did before we went to China.  Something much more sane.  After all, I did promise not to hack it again...)

My hair and I generally have a love-hate relationship.  Love in the sense that I'd look funny without hair, and hate in the sense that it never does what it's supposed to.

 

Especially the left side.

 

Yesterday, while attempting to put my hair in a ponytail before we went to clean the ghetto-partment, I accidentally found a hairstyle that might solve my current Left Side Problem, while still not making me look bald.

 

So...I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  Let's all hope this works.  I can't handle my hair anymore, so I'm thinking Great Clips on Saturday morning.

 

I'd do it tonight, but I have a Bible study. And Friday, I figure they'll be busy.  And besides, I'm watching a movie then.  (Assuming Joey's done with his stupid paper.  From LAST SEMESTER.  It was due on Monday; as in four days ago.)

 

Well, me and my bad hair are going to go eat lunch now.

When we moved from Iowa, we forwarded our mail to the ghetto-partment.  It worked like a charm, too!  We were receiving our little Christmas letters and whatnot with the yellow forwarding address stuck to the bottom.

 

And then we moved again.

 

Since that time, our forwarding address has been a disaster.  May I repeat:  A DISASTER!

 

I had set up to forward the mail a the days after we moved out of the ghetto-partment, but wasn't really worried about whether it worked or not since, technically, we occupy it until this coming Saturday.

 

We moved into our new apartment and began waiting to receive the little forwarding notice from the post office.

 

It never came.

 

Then, suddenly, Joey realized that he'd given me the incorrect address.  In a flurry of activity, we got another mail forwarding slip, filled it out with the corrections highlighted, and dropped it in the mail.

 

All was well until I got home two evenings ago.  I parked in my spot and just sat in the car for a moment.  I glanced at the apartment building and noticed the number--it was NOT the same number we had just given to the post office as our forwarding address.  Not the same at all.

 

I grabbed my cell phone.

 

"Joey, the building number is wrong."

 

"What?!"

 

"It must have been right before, because now it's wrong.  The number on the building says ----."

 

He must have wilted.  "But...but..."

 

"Yeah, well, it's wrong.  We're going to have to change it with the post office again."

 

Joey went the next day and corrected our corrected forwarding address.  He wrote "FINAL CORRECTION" in real big letters at the top, and highlighted it.  The post office is going to hate us.  They're probably burning all our letters just to spite us; we still haven't gotten the forwarding confirmation slip!

 

NOBODY SEND US MAIL WITHOUT CALLING FIRST!!!

 

Honestly, though, can you forward mail from Iowa to Texas, to another Texas apartment, to a wrong address, to a wrong address, to the correct address?

 

Because that's what we're trying to do.

"Mom, why does the freezer smell like Windex?"

Joey and I ran over to the ghetto-partment tonight to clean it before we turn in our keys (glory, hallelujah!). We got there at about 7:30 (a half hour later than I originally planned, but it's good for the Type A side of me to get Type B'd) and began to "clean" with a vengance.

When we moved in last month, there were tacks painted into the carpet (we found them by stepping on them. OW!!), strange creepies things in the refrigerator, dust on every surface (particularly in the bathrooms), and crumbs in the cupboards.

Needless to say, I wasn't holding myself up to any high standard as we "cleaned" tonight. I brought along Windex, Pine-Sol and Clorox Clean-Up, a roll of paper towels, and a bunch of trash bags.

We were ready to roll.

I started in the kitchen and Joey went to the back room to clean up newspaper and tape from the painting we'd done last night. I was spraying absolutely everything down with Windex. The Clorox Clean-Up was in the other room and I didn't feel like going to get it. As long as it looked clean, it was.

I knew I'd gone a little bit too far when I opened up the freezer and started spraying Windex. It froze immediately, of course. So I threw a bunch of hot water in the freezer, wiped it out, and didn't miss a beat.

I also sprayed the refrigerator out with Windex.

An hour (and lots of Windex) later, we were finished. We took out the trash, got really creeped out by some big, tall scary guy on the way back to the car, and crossed over to the safe side of the highway.

I need a brownie. With cream cheese frosting.

Country Bumpkin Strikes Again

I was making my morning breakfast (but I was not at home), when a very kind gentleman came to introduce himself to me. As I am new, few people actually know who I am.

 

He, it turned out, has been here for about a year and enjoys it very much.  We visited for about five minutes before I decided to stir my egg that I'd been making in the microwave.

 

My fork caught the side of the paper bowl and, before I had a chance to blink, egg particles sprayed all over the kitchen.

 

Mostly landing on this nice, new gentleman who I had JUST met.

 

I wanted to die.

 

I apologized all over the place, but he was very nice.  The poor guy left the egg on his pants until I turned around to leave. I suppose he didn't want to humiliate me further?

 

Anyway, I come across like I was born to be on a farm in the middle of nowhere.  I'd probably fit in better.

Update

For the two of you who were possibly concerned, my shoulder is much better.  I took a ton of ibuprofen and now it barely hurts at all.

 

I was considering milking it for all it was worth, but tonight we have to paint GA (shorthand for Ghetto Apartment), and then I need to "clean" it, too.

 

Anyway, I'm mostly better.  YAY!

Adjustment

Last night I gave Henry an 8:00 p.m. snack while I was making brownies.  (No, I did not give him any brownies.  I gave him a little bit of milk.)  He loves milk and hasn't gotten any since we moved from Iowa.

 

When it was time for bed, we felt sorry for Henry having to be in his kennel so much, and decided to let him sleep on the floor in our room.  He had been doing that up in Iowa, so we figured that he might be ready to try it down in Texas.

 

That was our first mistake.

 

He snored quite a bit until Joey poked him, but then he was quiet until 2:15 a.m. when he began to whine.  Plaintively.  I thought he probably just wanted up into bed with mommy, so I ignored him.

 

Until I heard the sound of rushing water....

 

"NO!! HENRY NO!!"  I was awake and out of bed in a flash (but careful to not land in the wet spot), grabbed Henry and took him straight outside where he finished his business.

 

I stuck him in his kennel for safekeeping, and went back to bed.

 

At 3:30, I was again awoken by barking.  Loud barking.  Annoying barking.  Henry's barking.  I figured he was just upset with me for kenneling him, so I went, took him out, told him "NO, NO, Henry!", and put him back in his kennel.

 

He was silent as the grave.

 

My alarm is broken and didn't go off this morning, but Joey's did and so I got up at 6:15, already behind schedule.  I went out into the office area and immediately noticed that something smelled amiss.

 

Poor Henry had an accident in his kennel--probably from the milk I gave him.  Poor little chap's not used to milk anymore.

 

I'll spare you the gory details and just say that it was smelly, gross, and took a long time to clean up.  Then I realized that Henry needed to be cleaned up, so I threw him in the shower.  (Nicely, of course.)

 

We fed him a light breakfast, then rushed around trying to get ready, wash kennel bedding, fold the laundry, and dry the dog.  We were doing pretty good, too, all things considered.

 

Until...

 

At 7:10 a.m. Henry looked at us both, and pooed on the carpet.  (Poor guy, I guess he figured that his signals weren't working, so he wasn't going to use them!)  We have to leave at 7:15 in order for me to drop Joey off and be where I need to be by 7:45. 

 

I grabbed him again (gingerly) and took him outside.  He looked very penintent, poor guy.  I pumped some Immodium into him (not a lot, but enough to help him not be sick again today), Joey cleaned up the floor, and we put him back into his kennel.

 

Seriously, he never did this until we moved the second time.  I think it must be stress or something...but anyway, I totally dropped the ball on that one!  I will be running him outside from now on at the slightest hint of a whine or bark.

 

Moral of the story:  Don't ignore your dog.  Even when it's 3:00 a.m.

Truth Serum

Joey and I bought a bottle of Pain Reliever P.M. at Target last night. Since I wasn't really able to sleep well two nights ago, we figured this was a prudent move.

I took my two pills at 9:15 and flopped into bed with my ice pack and heating pack, planning to alternate them at 10 minute increments. I made it through two rotations. Just before 10:00, I could tell that my judgment and overall sanity were becoming greatly impaired.

"Joey? I need to go to sleep?"

Joey came in from working on his paper. He removed my heating pad and ice pack and told me to go to sleep.

I tried.

But then, the Pain Reliever P.M. began working as a sort of Truth Serum. I began confessing to things that I'd done as a child, strange quirks that he (fortunately) still hasn't found out about, and all sorts of other things.

"I used to pick my nose. And eat it."

"GROSS!!!" Joey hollered, and sat up quickly. "Don't tell me any more of that. You're gross."

"I didn't stop until I was in high school."

Joey made some more disgusted noises and tried to stop me from continuing, but the ball was already rolling too quickly.

"I remember doing it all the way up until my sophomore year."

He made some comments about how he'd married the most disgusting woman and how he'd probably never kiss me--ever again.

"I can't do it anymore, though. It's way disgusting."

"Good." He sounded relieved, as though I'd really been picking my nose and eating it for the last year and a half.

I, fortunately, drifted off to sleep shortly thereafter. I didn't even have time to confess the time that I--wait; I'm not tellin' you nothing!

Be careful of that Pain Reliever P.M. stuff. You never know what it's going to make you say...