Of Showers & Breakfast

The other morning I was making breakfast as the two of us prepared for another work day. Greg was upstairs showering, and it seemed like it was going to be yet another ho-hum day, when a tremendous clatter sounded from the upstairs bathroom. Mildly curious, I paused in the middle of egg-scrambling listened for a minute, but then went back to what I was doing. When you’re married, I think you do get used to the occasional bump and crash as men aren’t the most graceful of creatures.

But. . .it was not to be a quiet morning. 5 minutes later, the water turned off, and Greg stomped to the top of the stairs. Dripping wet and wrapped loosely in a towel he held up two bottles and then demanded in a voice much-too-commanding for 4:30am:

“Do you use Dove Moisturizing Shampoo or Icy Pineapple Cleansing Shampoo?”

Well, I use both of course, (because sometimes you feel like an icy pineapple) but feeling that wasn’t the best of answers, I replied “Dove Moisturizing”.

He stomped back into the bathroom only to quickly return with two new items.

“Do you use Deep Mango Facial Scrub or Dead Sea Facial Scrub?”

Again, the answer here was both, because deep cleaning and dead sea are entirely different granular sizes, but again, I chose one. “Deep Mango.”

He ‘hmmphed’, and disappeared into the bathroom to return two new items.

“Do you use Energizing Citrus Body Wash or Cooling Cucumber soap?”

I sighed, I was growing weary of this game. Clearly in the morning I wanted to be energized, but in the evening, if I wanted to take a shower, cooling cucumber is soothing after a hot day outside. What man wouldn’t understand that?! But I’m getting wiser as I grow a bit older and bit my tongue. “Energizing Citrus.”

Apparently, he had gone to grab his razor while showering, and all sorts of fruity sudsy bottles fell upon one foot. Thus, the purging. But, lucky for me I know he just placed the rejects under the sink, and I will begin slowly bringing them back into the shower as the energetic, cooling, tingling, soothing, or pore cleansing spirit moves me.

The Tour

I'm not a big sports fan by ANY stretch of the imagination. Even when I played sports I had a slightly bewildered look on my face, never fully understanding the rules and surprised when the goal/hoop/bases changed to the other side and we were going the other direction. I was that kid who occasionally scored for the other team.

But every year I get a bit excited for there is one sport that I will watch faithfully for a month. The Tour de France. And that started today!!!!!

Unfortunately it did not start well.

My hopes have already been dashed for a big win for Jan Ullrich this year. A huge drug scandal went down, and a number of racers were pulled out, including three of the big boys, Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso, 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich (my favorite now that Lance is gone) and Spaniard Francisco Mancebo were pulled out by their teams after being implicated in an investigation into a doping scandal in Spain. They've not been found guilty yet, but can't ride regardless.

*sigh*

And I'd really like to think that they'll be found innocent. Seems a bit political to be doing a drug bust so close to the actual race, and pulling out the most favored and seasoned contendors for the yellow jersy.

So Lance, it's probably a good thing you didn't ride this year. Either you would have A) been implicated as well and tarnished your reputation regardless of the outcome or B) had no competition whatsoever and won in a ho-hum 8th race.

Other than that, happy first day of the Tour!!!! Much excitement now to see who will be the next big champion after Lance, and even if you don't like the cycling it's worth watching for the scenery!

How I saved a whole Mexican Village

This past Monday, Greg and I were in Colorado. However, someone in Mexico with my debit card number spent a little over $1,600 of our money in some sort of shopping spree.

We saw the first charge Sunday morning. It was only $187 at that point, and we called the banks 24/7 hotline which was, inexplicably, not working. So we kept trying throughout the day, and it wasn’t until Monday morning that we were able to cancel the card number. By that time, the damage had been done.

Things are sorted out now, a day off of work to fill out police reports, bank papers and the like and our money is being returned. Not from the person of course, they got away with it, but from our bank. Thankfully we were covered for this type of problem.

So I would like to rationalize this: My co-worker, Joe, and I were discussing this.

“You know,” I said, “I would really like to think that this was some person who desperately needed the money.”

“Yah,” Said Joe “Someone with 8 or so very sick kids who were dying and badly needed medical care he couldn’t afford, so he used your card.”

“Right,” Says I. “except I think it was some restaurant that this person used my card at.”

“So maybe they were some hungry sick kids.”

“A $346 food bill in Mexico points to either some serious food consumption, or a ritzy restaurant.” I pointed out. “Also, there were some clothing stores with a couple hundred dollar charges to each of them.”

Joe digested this for a second; “I got it! The whole village was hungry, their clothes were threadbare, and no one knew what to do. No one had the money to afford clothes or food, and people were going to die. This person, with your card number in hand, knew what he had to do. He had to take the whole village out to a few big dinners, then, he had to buy them all clothes. Now, a village is safe thanks to your money.”

I think I like this explanation over the rational alternative. It is rather heroic and has a purpose. “How I saved a whole Mexican Village” seemed an appropriate title, and it does end happily. Since we got back our money, and a village was clothed and fed, no one was really hurt – right?

Laughter is the best medicine

So on my way home last Friday I was riding the shuttlebus to my main bus home. It had been a long day - I was tired and grumpy. I noticed a couple across the aisle laughing to each other. . . .they'd stop, look secretively at me, then they'd start laughing again. I was sure that on top of my tired day . . .I was now being laughed at. My Ipod was playing in my ears, but I had no music I really felt like listening to, so I turned it off (with the buds still in my ears so no one would make the potentially fatal mistake of talking to me).

Then I noticed a strange noise from behind me. I turned and there were two larger women, sitting at the back of the bus, breathless from laughter. They were silent for a few seconds, and then one of them snorted with a non-too-successful attempt at holding back more laughter, and the other one shrieked with delight before they started laughing again. They giggled, they sighed, they were silent for a few seconds, and then they'd squeal and start hysterically laughing again. It was absolutely ridiculous, two grown women probably in their 50's, laughing like they were 4. A smile started to creep across my face, and I glanced back at the couple who previously I thought were laughing at me. The girl pointed with a 'you see?!' sort of motion at me. And I got it. They were laughing at the women behind me.

I'm not sure what the women were laughing about. Every minute or so one would try to catch her breath to say something. . . but whatever she was trying to say became unintelligible as the other started giggling, snorting, the sentence ended in some high-pitched noise, and they'd both start laughing again.

For almost 10 blocks we went like this, and I saw every new person who got on the bus got through the same line of thought that I did. First "why is everyone laughing at me?" and then "Oh! Those women are ridiculous" as they started to smile too.

Pretty soon I was giggling with the couple across from me, and a few other strangers started laughing as well. The two women thought this was even funnier. . . and, if possible, laughed even harder, with less control. I thought they would be the first known cases to die from laughter. . .there was no oxygen going to those dear brains.

By the end of the ride, we were all infected with what these two women had.

Joy.

I had to think that it had been a while since I had laughed that hard and how ironic it was that two complete strangers without really saying a word to me, were able to lift my spirits so high.

Of Girls and Horses

My best friend Christi came to visit yesterday. While she only lives about 40 minutes away, we don't see each other as often as we may like, and it's always a treat when I'm able to visit with her at any time.

We've known each other since she was 7 and I was 8. We went through elementary school and junior high together. We each had a horse, and we lived our summers out horseback riding through green pastures and dark forests. Her horse was a dark bay named Dallas, mine was a palomino named Ruler, and both of those horses had infinite patience with us two little girls who didn't know too much about anything. . . especially horseback riding.

You want to know why I still believe that magic exists in this practical, scientific world of ours? It's because I saw it all around me growing up. I don't think that our childhood could have really been more perfect. We caught frogs, climbed trees, chased snakes, put peacock feathers in our horses manes and rode them like we were on parade, splashed in the river, rescued baby birds, and laid back on tree-benches while our horses grazed in knee-deep grass to talk about everything. It would be a mistake to say that it was only the two of us . . . in reality it was the four of us, for our horses were equal companions on our Great Adventures.

This lasted for years, and ended abruptly when her father accepted a position on the other side of the state, and my father took us to live in India for some time. Within a short few months everything we'd ever known was gone. Our families had sold or packed everything, and we both had to sell our beloved horses. I don't remember who was the first to go, but I think it was Ruler. She and I gave him a final bath on that hot summer day (herbal essence shampoo and conditioner of course) took a few final pictures of him, and wept behind her house as we heard him screaming his goodbye out of the horsetrailer that took him. Dallas was next, and the ritual was the same.

The foundations of our lives shook violently, and within a month we were both gone from our childhood homes. I was on the other side of the world, and she was learning a new life in a new town.

Ruler died within a few months of him being sold. I don't think he wanted to go on. Dallas fared better for some years, but we've lost touch with the family who bought him and are pretty sure that by now he's gone too.

The river of life moves on, and there are some things that no matter how cherished and loved, simply can't continue with you.

It's amazing how bonded you become to someone who shares those kind of memories. While over time we've definitely lived our own lives, there is a part of us that is deeply connected to each other. Now, here we are, both adults, and both still good friends. Christi told me yesterday that she's picking up and moving to the east coast this fall, and while that makes me sad, at the same time I'm not overly worried about it. Life has contrived to take me thousands and thousands of miles away from her, and I ended up a mere 30 miles away some years later.

I have no doubt that the same thing will happen again in time, for I don't believe our adventures are yet over.

Some like it HOT

So this afternoon Greg and I were driving home from work. We were in my fabulous '96 Ford Escort, which is our daily driver (40 mpg and it would be your daily driver too!), and were noticing that the AC wasn't working as well as it should have. Well, really I was noticing. I don't love it anything above about 70 degrees, so I was cookin'. We had a few errands to run, and while we were at Home Depot I bought Greg a chili dog, and was going to drive us home while he ate it.

Except the AC really wasn't acting right. My car loves me, my car knows me, I've been with my car for 6 years now, and she knows that she can run just TERRIBLY. . .as long as my AC is working well. And we've never had problems until today. So I knew right away when the 3 minute 'cool down' time was up and she was still blowing hot air that something was wrong. And then she shuddered in a positively ghastly way. The temperature gauge soared to 'H' in about 10 seconds. I dove into the nearest parking lot, and Greg (who was a mechanic before he went back to school) did a quick diagnostic.

Underneath the engine all sorts of things were bubbling. He determined that my coolant fan had stopped working, and that we needed to wait for the car to cool off before we could do anything, but we could probably limp home as long as we didn't use the AC.

So we grabbed dinner at the nearest restaraunt, and came back out to start her up again, sans AC. What Greg had failed to mention is that in order to keep cool air blowing over the engine, we needed to FLOOR the heater on the freeway. It's 98 degrees today. I did NOT want to floor the heater.

But, I'm not the mechanic and therefore lose all veto power in the car department. So off we went down the freeway, heater blasting, with the windows down. It was probably close to about 120 degrees or so. Maybe more; definitely FELT like more.

As we reached home, which is a considerable distance from the city, Mr. Positive hollered at me over all the rushing air; "Hey, I think it's a degree or two cooler up here!!!!"

So optimistic.

And here's where the two of us really have different life views when it comes to heat. Because you see, when I'm boiling at 120 degrees, 1 or 2 wee degrees isn't going to really cheer me up.

:)

Magical Macaroni

Today, I've been more than a little grumpy.

Maybe it was the weekend with relatives, maybe it's because I've been a little under the weather the past few days, maybe it's the fact that Greg was out golfing and having fun today while I did laundry. . . whatever. Either way, I'm not quite as cheery as I like to think I normally am. So when Greg called to kindly let me know he was on his way home I more or less bit his head off. I have that marvelous talent to completely gut someone with harsh words in one minute or less, and I absolutely hate it when I do it. Especially to Greg. So. . .after stewing about it for a bit, I called him back to apologize, then wallowed around the house in my misery for another 45 minutes.

Sweet Greg, he called me to let me know he was at the store and asked if I needed anything. I didn't even need to think about it for a nano-second.

Kraft Macaroni and Cheese please!

For no matter how good of a cook I have become in our past 3 years of marriage, Greg is the only one who can make this mac and cheese the way that I love it, all buttery and fattening. I can't figure it out no many how many times I do it, it's always a bit too milky, or a bit too dry. And it does always cheer me up pretty quick. If chocolate cake is an IV drip of sheer pleasure, then mac and cheese is like taking aspirin. Not quite as immediate perhaps, but still pretty darn effective after a few minutes.

Which reminds me of a time about 2 years ago that Greg had made me some mac and cheese when I was down and out with the flu. He was preparing it in the kitchen and he was really excited for me to try this particular batch. (At this point in time we were buying these little blue boxes by the ton at Sam's Club - and I'd gone through almost all of them that hellish week.) He put the bowl in my hands, and I started eating, noticing that he had added

a pinch of
no, a bit of,
heavens; a LOT of

PEPPER!

I was on fire. I gasped, I sneezed, I pawed at my tongue, I drank more water than was good for me and finally got around to asking what happened. Apparently he was experimenting a bit with the pepper when the top of the jar fell off and the whole lot of it fell into the pot. Rather than dump it all out and start over, he thought he'd just stir it all in and see how it tasted.

Not very good in this humble writer's opinion.

But we always laugh over that story whenever we do have mac and cheese these days, and I swear I can still taste a hint of pepper each time I go to eat it.